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[gwyntdi-enw]

I think an echo really helps. I played English Nightingale for my grade 8 - it was in a church I'd not played in before, and for some reason I decided to move out from under the balcony where the music stand was and to play out into the church rather than at the examiner. I know I shouldn't say so, but I was amazed at the effect, and almost wondered if it was someone else playing, because I didn't think I could sound that good. Boast time: the examiner must have been impressed too as he gave me 30 for that piece! I went through quite a Van Eyck phase after that.

[limh]

I think an echo really helps. I played English Nightingale for my grade 8 - it was in a church I'd not played in before, and for some reason I decided to move out from under the balcony where the music stand was and to play out into the church rather than at the examiner. I know I shouldn't say so, but I was amazed at the effect, and almost wondered if it was someone else playing, because I didn't think I could sound that good. Boast time: the examiner must have been impressed too as he gave me 30 for that piece! I went through quite a Van Eyck phase after that.

Oooh! I'm impressed too! Since going all Van Eyck, though, my Baroque pieces sound bad, but I don't know if they've got worse, or I'm just hearing them worse.

[gwyntdi-enw]

Just hearing them differently, I think!

[limh]

I've got a follow-up Van Eyck question that's been bugging me for a few weeks. Given a melody written in minims, followed by variations/divisions working their way through to semiquavers, what to do about tempo? If I start at a speed that allows me to maintain tempo, I die of boredom in the theme. If I play the theme at a speed that doesn't seem tooo awfully slow, then I'll never be able to enjoy the later variations, even if I live to 102 (and don't get arthritis). heeelp. Have I just got to grit my teeth and live to 110?

[anacrusis]

you can play the theme, so is not needing to be practised (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)....

I tend to go back to the themes of van Eycks to remind me of the sense behind the variations: they become anchors for the frilly twiddly stuff: butbutbut.....yes, they do, really, to make sense of them, need to be at the same tempo - the point is that the variations are Divisions - you need to have that feeling of dividing the basic theme and you lose that if everything is at varying tempi.

Sooo - don't "practise" the theme - play it once, then go to the division you're actually working on, and try to "fit" the division into what you've made of the theme. It helps to stress those notes which actually belong to the theme - you don't want to overdo this in the final performance, but knowing where they fall helps you to make the division make sense. Using the theme this way, rather than laboriously playing through all of it for each practice session will help to inform what you do with the divisions and make the process of learning the whole less boring. I tend to do this in phrase by phrase chunks - see if that helps you too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).

[gwyntdi-enw]

Ah that is so helpful. I knew that the answer to limh's question was "yes", but haven't really been able to work out a practical way of working towards it.

Good to hear from you again anacrusis.

[limh]

Ah that is so helpful. I knew that the answer to limh's question was "yes", but haven't really been able to work out a practical way of working towards it.

Good to hear from you again anacrusis.

Yes, that's what I love about anacrucial advice: it doesn't just tell you what to do, it gives hints on how to set about doing it.

Thanks, Anacrusis, you gave me a very helpful lunch-time practice today. Yes, I like to play the theme through just once to set the scene - but this time I tried to catch what my pulse had become in the course of a variation, and then played just one bar of the theme back again at the tempo that had happened, to see if I'd slowed down. If yes (and it usually was "yes"), then I played the same bar back at its proper speed (only takes a few seconds) to recover where I ought to be, and then went back to current phrase of variation at its new, corrected rate. That was really helpful because it prompted doing the second bit of your advice: breaking things into sections. Naturally I was tripping over at all sorts of points that I thought had been OK, so it was good to go back and work on them properly.

And the tempo thing is having two extra benefits I hadn't expected (but should have): slower variations become less mechanical, because they don't feel so rushed, so now I can work on their phrasing, but the faster divisions suddenly do fall into sensible phrases related to the original theme if played at the same speed, and don't descend into long twiddles that don't go anywhere... now I'm looking forward to tomorrow lunchtime if the weather stays nice.

Glad to see you back Anacrusis! Thanks again...

[anacrusis]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif) thank you...

The theme, done this way, also becomes a serene scene-setter - I know that too much rubato in early music quickly sounds cloying and ghastly, but listening to something like the third set of "Daphne" variations done by Erik Bosgraaf here you can hear it's not pedantic at all, the tempo is varying slightly - but there is an underlying, consistent sense of pulse despite the theme feeling quite quick somehow.

*can't take the credit for that playing - wish I could (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)*

[limh]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif) thank you...

The theme, done this way, also becomes a serene scene-setter - I know that too much rubato in early music quickly sounds cloying and ghastly, but listening to something like the third set of "Daphne" variations done by Erik Bosgraaf here you can hear it's not pedantic at all, the tempo is varying slightly - but there is an underlying, consistent sense of pulse despite the theme feeling quite quick somehow.

*can't take the credit for that playing - wish I could (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)*

Yes, that is soooo beautiful, and I love his flexible timing too, creating such a beautiful lyrical line. Another one I love, to which I posted a link a while back (sorry for re-posting but it's worth it honest!), is this clip of Hanneke van Proosdij. But I'm now annoyed with myself because I came across another beautiful clip of someone playing the Lord's Prayer setting from the very beginning of Fluyten Lusthof and their flexible tempo was just so right, just enough without being too much, and it was truly heavenly(!)... but I can't find it again!

The three I'm dallying with are the first set of Daphne variations (because they're deservedly a classic), the Lord's prayer (because it's beautiful) and "de zoete Zoomertyden" (because it's seasonal).

I am going to listen more to Erik Bosgraaf. It's amazing how well he does the theme as well as the variations. Wow.