What Are You Learning?, ...and how's it going? Options

[corenfa]

I have been told to learn a Mozart piano concerto (before returning to improve one of Beethoven's, and to overcome the remaining technical difficulties - lots of them - in Rachmaninoff's 2nd)

I confess that I had never listened properly to the m before now, but I just listened to almost the complete set ... as recorded by Jeno Jando. They are wonderful. But the choice is very difficult.

I am forever in love with No. 23 in A major. The contrast between the second movement and the outer two is so poignant.

[saxgirl]

On boxing day I wrote down my goals for 2010, and one of them was to do grade 5 piano (and pass it!).

I realise that time is ticking on and with only one session left this year, I need to go for it at the winter session!

I've chosen my pieces and my 'piece of the week' is 'In the groove' ; I LOVE this!

I'm not worried about the aural tests, and i'll have a good crack at the sightreading; I've been purposely inviting students to bring anything they want to play with accompaniment so I just have to get on with it, keep going, and make bits up if necessary!

The scales are slowly getting there.....I Know all my scales (having done grade 8 four times on other instruments) but the hands together and contramotion ones are taking some getting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

In any case I'm up for the challenge and will do my best! My last piano exam was at the end of 2009 (grade 2).

BTW I fell in love with a piano accompaniment to a grade 8 jazz sax piece ' Dreams of you' by Dave McGarry and have practiced it for the last few weeks http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_de...7?play_now=true.
I recorded this a week or 2 ago, but it has a few slips (and the odd guest apprearance from Des Dawson!).

[muse]

The most exciting piece I'm learning at the minute is by someone I can't spell or even pronounce I'm ashamed to say. Toccata khachaturian (I had to google it).

I chose it because I thought it was funny. I also chose Kitten on the Keys by Zez Confrey for the same reason. What can I say, I'm shallow. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

[clavicembalo]

When my teacher suggested Chopin's E major Study to me the other week (Op.10/3) I said that I'd doubtless 'run through it' at sometime in the past.

Hmmm. If I have, then it was done with total disregard for fingering, tied notes, for those held on as long as they ought to be, matters of articulation etc. In other words, I'd merely given it the emergency sightreading treatment! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

So I have just spent an hour and a half on it, practising the piece properly for the first time - first page and a half, last page and half.

Not dissimilar feeling to learning a Bach fugue actually, what with specific hand positions with fingering that prepares for the next note, or in the case of the Chopin, the next chord, more often than not. It'll be nice when it's done though - I hope! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[missypiano]

When my teacher suggested Chopin's E major Study to me the other week (Op.10/3) I said that I'd doubtless 'run through it' at sometime in the past.
It'll be nice when it's done though - I hope! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I love that piece! That's a beautiful Etude! Looking forward to hear you play it sometime!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[clavicembalo]

When my teacher suggested Chopin's E major Study to me the other week (Op.10/3) I said that I'd doubtless 'run through it' at sometime in the past.
It'll be nice when it's done though - I hope! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I love that piece! That's a beautiful Etude! Looking forward to hear you play it sometime!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Somehow it shares with 'Fur Elise' the 'difficult' middle-section that people often forget about or at least don't readily bring to mind when they think of the piece. I'm sure that that section will demand the most work and subsequent practice.

[oldnotes]

Just come across Raff's Cavatina. A lovely piece which I am working on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[eldatom]

When my teacher suggested Chopin's E major Study to me the other week (Op.10/3) I said that I'd doubtless 'run through it' at sometime in the past.
It'll be nice when it's done though - I hope! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I love that piece! That's a beautiful Etude! Looking forward to hear you play it sometime!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Somehow it shares with 'Fur Elise' the 'difficult' middle-section that people often forget about or at least don't readily bring to mind when they think of the piece. I'm sure that that section will demand the most work and subsequent practice.

Funny you saying about Fur Elise, I have just returned to it, and this time determined to get the middle section.

[Mad Tom]

I have been told to learn a Mozart piano concerto (before returning to improve one of Beethoven's, and to overcome the remaining technical difficulties - lots of them - in Rachmaninoff's 2nd)

I confess that I had never listened properly to the m before now, but I just listened to almost the complete set ... as recorded by Jeno Jando. They are wonderful. But the choice is very difficult.

I am forever in love with No. 23 in A major. The contrast between the second movement and the outer two is so poignant.

Decision made. No 22 in Eb major (K482). It was a toss-up between that and No 27 in Bb (K595)

[Solari]

Funny you saying about Fur Elise, I have just returned to it, and this time determined to get the middle section.

I just don't like it enough to bother learning! There are so many other, better pieces by Beethoven at this level that I see it as a bit of a waste of time. Kudos to those who want to put in the effort to make a better job of it than the millions that murder it every day! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[eldatom]

Funny you saying about Fur Elise, I have just returned to it, and this time determined to get the middle section.

I just don't like it enough to bother learning! There are so many other, better pieces by Beethoven at this level that I see it as a bit of a waste of time. Kudos to those who want to put in the effort to make a better job of it than the millions that murder it every day! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I love it, but I also have a special reason for learning it, my sister loved the piece and longed for me to play it to her. Luckily I get the chance to play the first part to her and because of losing her I put it away. I now think that if I learn to play it really well that I will be doing it in memory for her - so lots of motivation to keep me going.

[saxophile]

I love the Mozart K545, I am looking forward to being able to play the whole sonata right through.

I was expecting to like it (on the principle that it's Mozart, and I usually really enjoy listening to / singing his work), so I was surprised how much this piece just leaves me cold. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) It may be that the Alberti bass conjures shades of all the interminable Haydn I was made to learn as a child (and found sooooo boring!). It's just very 'poddly' (ie the Alberti bass just goes "poddle, poddle, poddle" underneath for ever) and I find it really tedious to play as a result .... Yesterday I even tried dipping into the second movement in case it gets better later on, but I liked that one even less than the first movement. Ah, well!

However, I'm sure it's good for me (it will certainly be kill or cure on the trills (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) ), so I am persevering nevertheless!

I've chosen my pieces and my 'piece of the week' is 'In the groove' ; I LOVE this!

Son No.1 is doing this one as well: I can quite see why you love it! Needless to say he has this one at performance standard whilst the other 2 are lagging woefully behind (same thing happened on each of his previous piano exams (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ). The other lists are a tad uninspiring, I have to say, but he is making reasonable progress on the Schumann Von Fremden Lande from List B.

[clavicembalo]

Well, I've just spent close on another hour and a half of the Bach fugue (B major - Book 2) and although I suppose you could say that I'm making progress, it doesn't feel much like it. This is surely the slowest I have ever progressed through a piece of music! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

I'm following the fingering religiously - just as well, for disregarding it would make learning it a futile proposition - but there's just so much passing of material between hands, overlapping from one stave to the other, so that what is in one stave is certainly not reserved for that hand alone that it's becoming frustrating already!

Suffice to say, that when I finally switched to Chopin's E major Etude, it was light relief! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Annoyingly though, the extra sharp from the B major kept slipping in to my practice, so much had I been concentrating on not forgetting it in the Bach! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)


When I go back to the keyboard this afternoon, I shall begin to tackle the middle section of that Etude - wish me luck, I'm going in! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

[clavicembalo]

Well, I've just spent close on another hour and a half of the Bach fugue (B major - Book 2) and although I suppose you could say that I'm making progress, it doesn't feel much like it. This is surely the slowest I have ever progressed through a piece of music! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

I did a little more work on this this afternoon and the fluency of the first page is beginning to come ... albeit slowly. Then halfway down the next page I had a sort of 'blowing up a balloon' experience, in the same way that when you start you meet resistance and then after a slight barrier the balloon inflates with ease. In the Bach, that stave sharing petered out and I suddenly found myself sightreading, slowly still, but fluently, all the way until a few bars from the end. That certainly provided a fillip and encouragement that when eventually the first page does begin to flow, I won't be quite so far from getting it all together. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

When I go back to the keyboard this afternoon, I shall begin to tackle the middle section of that Etude - wish me luck, I'm going in! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

This I did - 40 minutes on just 6 bars (of which two are easy). The fourths in each hand, contrary motion, reminded me of the section in the Liszt that I had trouble with - its recognition actually induced me to laugh out loud! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) I'll be back to it tomorrow.


To finish off, I had a look at Shostakovich's Prelude & Fugue in A - the Prelude at least; little more than sightreading practice - the fugue is delightful, but like the Bach it will require some work. I've put it to one side for now! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[TshepoM]

allegretto from sonatina no. 6-jk vanhal