I'll start!

Seen as the woodwind section has a thread on this, I thought it was about time the piano section had one as well!!

So currently I'm learning
-Grade 6 pieces (A1, B1, C1) - at the final polishing stage
-Grade 6 scales / arpeggios (at least learning this little lot will also set me up for grade 7 & 8 scales)
-Bach WTC Bk.2 No.12 Prelude and Fugue - set on current grade 8 list, so who knows I might end up playing it in an exam (if I get there by spring 2013)
- Chopin Valse Op. 69 No. 2 - pretty much there now

Also have 3 duets to learn and various accompaniments for clarinet pupils.

Lots of different technical exercises, cadences etc
Grieg Notturno
Some Bach Gigue from French Suites
Bartok, 2 of his Mikromosos, or whatever they are, in book 6

Think that's it...

this means fsharpminor will stop posting in the woodwind version

(sorry f#m!... )

Bach: Preambulum from the G major partita - will add the allemande soon I think.
Sibelius: Impromptu in B minor

I adore them both, but I've been working on the Sibelius longer and am finding it very hard to pull off!

A whole lot of exercises from Hanon and Czerny 101 exercises..
Lots of scales and arpeggio work

Bach Inventions 1, 4 and 8
Clementi Sonatinas 1 and 3
Tchaikovsky's Polka
Grade 6 pieces A1 and C1

I think we have a "What are you learning and how's it going" here - http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showt...1016&st=800

but it doesn't matter, anyway what I am practising is: Marguerite Long exercises, and the Chopin "Tristesse" Etude. It is not going at all at the moment because work has been horrible, but it will go better during Christmas break.

The secundo part of the four handed version of Schubert's first Marche Militaire. My sister and I are planning on providing some "entertainment" at christmas, largely for my parents' benefit, as they remember us doing so with this piece as teenagers. I'm having trouble getting the mistakes just right....

Some lovely pieces all

Piano Pupil - I played Clementi Sonatinas 1 & 2 as sight reading practise today and really enjoyed them

Anacrusis - sounds fab

Hmmmm - with earmuffs maybe
the best bit is after the first six bars, played by secundo - my little sister invariably sweeps my hands off the keyboard and out of her way to do her opening bit....and later on we have a bit of a kerfuffle about turning pages, which may well be ruined by my husband offering to turn for us. It always ended up as more pantomime than music, so here's hoping poor Schubert wrote it in somewhat tongue-in-cheek mood, or he'll be turning in his grave....

hehe let us know how it goes

I'm working on a transcription I made of Ravel Daphnis et Chloe second suite.

Also Bach WTC Bk 1 Nr 8 in Eb minor and Ravel Alborada del Gracioso. Debating Liszt Harmonies du Soir or Chasse Neige to eventually add. (Putting together LTCL program).

But Ive learned my lesson on that now!

I have to say with no motivation of exams or anything, I never practise anything for too long a period, thus end up with me having a huge repertoire thats 90% sorted, but rarely 100%.
Lately Ive been having a good go at some LRSM pieces , though I will never take it. Bach WTC Book 2 no 14 (F#Minor) I have played for a long time so thats now OK. Beethovens Op 31 No2 (Tempest) is getting there, I still find the slow movement the hardest, particularly the cross hands bit. Maybe Op2 No3 or Op 10 No 3 is easier. And Ive been working on some more Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues Op87, The E minor isnt far off. Wish I could play the Brahms B Minor Rhapsody , its much nicer than its companion in G Minor.

Good to see this thread reborn

I'm currently working on:

Brahms Op 117 intermezzos
Schubert Sonata in A D664
Rachmaninov Prelude Op23 No5 in Gm

I'm also feeling remotivated having just restarted lessons with a new teacher. I couldn't believe how many bad habits had crept in after a couple of lessonless months

Jon

He'll be dizzy then if he is also listening to my duet partner and I slaughtering his F minor Fantasie.

I think there is something fairly funny about middle-aged ladies playing piano duets and I'm relieved not to be an observer (especially from behind) of the two of us, as we are are very different sizes.

Other things I am working on are: Chopin Nocturnes op27 1 and 2, Scriabin op 8/12 (although I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that my technique is not sufficient to make up for hands being to small to reach all the 10ths. Ravel Sonatine, which I half learned some years ago.

Not sure where to go from here as am in limbo waiting for exam result.

I whole tonne of scales, arpeggios, diminished, dominant arpeggios 4 octaves chromatic scales and all of that for my Grade 8 piano exam (Royal Irish Academy of Music). I'm playing Scarlatti Sonata in d minor, Mozart Sonata k.280 3rd mov. and Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2.
I will be getting a book of John Field Nocturnes and Chopin Waltzes for my christmas present so I may practice a few of those? Any recommendations of what to play??

Just wondering whether my sister and I should go for the Hinge/Brackett sort of look, or scruffy jogging bottoms and ancient hoodies bought at the supermarket cos the kids have spent all the money approach....? She and I are not so differently sized, but she seems to manage understated elegance, where I do chucked-together (when not doing falling-apart)....

Tell you what, if we get Schubert spinning one way, and you really think your Fantasia would also make him spin, all we all need to do is get him going both ways at once, and he'll be able to relax....

Any more duet ideas?

Daughter and I have been sightreading a book of of 4 hands arrangments of famous tunes (Ave Maria, Fingals Cave, Dance of Sugar Plum, Elvira Madigan, Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Jesu Joy, Humeresque and Funeral March of Marionette). It was supposed to be a ploy to improve her keeping going in sightreading but we are both rather enjoying them and trying to perfect them now. Then she tries to convert the top hands to harp for a bit of variation while I twiddle the piano parts.

She is a lousy sightreading Grade 7ish player and I am a better sightreader with grade 8 from many moons ago but out of practice.

I am attempting to look at Brahms Fantasien Op116 and Schubert Impromptus. Not with great success but I cant decide which ones to concentrate on! So then I play something easier instead.

The A flat Schubert Impromptu is is the easiest , about Grade 7, then try the G flat and E flat from the other set.

Last night I watched one of those James Rhodes programs, when he played (most of) Bachs French Suite no 5. I had never played this before so afterwards I sat down and sight read the whole suite. It wasnt as difficult as I expected. I will try to polish it up now and then try the other ones.

Thanks, I should start with one from each composer and work properly on them. I always find it difficult when I am returning to the more challenging pieces that I have played to performance standard 30 years ago. Bits seem to be firmly imprinted into the brain and polish up well and easily and other bits seem to have left the brain entirely and be unwilling to reenter. In many ways I find it easier to start a new piece and learn it from scratch but that wipes out some lovely things that I would like to play again. I should just start them as if they are new really and go very slowly but methodically. Kids are not the only ones who like to practise the bits that sound good!

Thinking of centring my LTCL program around the Chopin Ballade 4 which I learned the notes of a year ago and could revisit to really get stuck into. I don't know if such a big piece with so many set views on how it should be played is a good idea though... maybe a big gamble to put too many eggs in that basket?

Had only a small practise tonight! Happy though as yesterday OH thought I was playing a demo on the digital piano ... only to walk in and find me playing

Just had about 1.5 hours on the piano

Practised grade 6 stuff and sight read my way through lots of clementi sonatinas

Today I have mostly been messing about with Christmas carols

I'm currently practising:
- various types of scales (chromatic, parallel and contrary motion) and various types of arpeggios for Grade 7 (plus some scales in double thirds which I wanted to start learning for pleasure)
- Scarlatti's mov't from his Sonata in F# minor (Grade Eight 2011-2012)
- Capriccio from Bach's Partita No 2 in C minor (as above)
- Rachmaninoff's melody in E minor (as above)
- Copin's Waltz Op 69 No 2
- Kabalevsky's Presto (from a Sonatina) set for Grade 7 (2011-2012)
- Pozzoli An ?tude on RH and LH runs

I should soon be resuming Haendel's Allemande (Grade 7) and Granados' Viniendo de la Fuente (Grade 7) for my exam in June ... which I am getting cold feet about!
I'd like to start doing another movement of the C minor Bach Partita (one Xmas present was the Henle-Verlag edition of his 6 Partitas) and a Tschaikowsky piece (April) which I'd love to learn.
With so much material, it is no wonder I have difficulty organising my practice and allotting time to the pieces.

Well, poor old Schubert got his outing....and I discovered my memory is better than I thought it was, just at a point when its functioning really wasn't all that desirable, hehe.....

Turned out my sister's edition of the Marche Militaire for four hands was not the same as mine - mine being the same as the one we'd learned together all those years ago, hers being a rather simplified version but with different chord patterns in. Trouble was, I'd been practising the ones I knew from before, so got well into the page before realising that I wasn't playing what was written, but rather what my fingers remembered....and promptly fell off . I then had the dilemma of where to take it on from there - try to use memory (faulty) or sightreading (now well confused). Needless to say all that added a good few layers to our original pantomime act.

*sticks to playing recorder, on which she really cannot memorise but can sightread adequately....*

Daughter started learning Mozart Sonata K.280 and planning to continue through out the holiday period

Sounds like fun

I didn't get to play piano today

Have started Bach WTC bk. 1 no's 21 and 24

Also I've made some progress on Beethoven Sonata Op. 2 No.1

Grade 6 pieces are more or less polished to performance standard, I wouldn't hesitate to play Chaminade's Elegie in a concert tomorrow, it's a lovely expressive piece. Alcock, allemande is up to speed now too, jut adding some final dynamics.

Have been playing my piano for about 2 hours per day and today I felt quite physically drained after I had finished

After much mulling over the Gr8 syllabus I have decided to dive in and start working on the following:

Scarlatti - sonata in f#m
Mozart - allegro from sonata in D (K284)
Chopin - Nocturne in B

On the surface the pieces don't look much harder than the gr7, although they are significantly longer so concentration and stamina come into it (well, a bit!) I think it's the key signatures that make mine tricky. However, F#m is one of my weaker keys for scales so it can only help to learn a whole piece in that key. I haven't played much Scarlatti so he was on my list of must-do composers. Also, it might be a treat for the examiner to hear something that isn't in the ABRSM selected pieces book.

I can roughly pick my way through the Scarlatti and Mozart (although it feels about as fluid as the occasions where my five year old daughter tries to 'read' the Sunday Times! )

The Chopin is a whole other beast, and of course B major for Chopin is such an accesible key! but the melody (as always with Fred) is so gorgeous that it justifies the work.

It's a bit scary to think that I need to get these knocked into shape by the end of year. I was reluctant to choose Mozart and Chopin for my exam since the pieces are pretty well known. I always worry that I'll be judged against the various recordings that the examiner is certain to have heard.

I'm planning to take my Grade 7 in June but have already browsed through some Grade 8 pieces. More than browsed, I've studied the Bach Capriccio (from his Partita No 2 in C minor) and also the Scarlatti you mention. The latter is in the process of perfecting as I can now play it at a safe 60 = crotchet and it needs speeding up quite a lot but at least the notes are beginning to feel quite secure). It is true that the F#minor key is rather tricky and one needs a firm grip on black keys to start with and also good dexterity to play in between them and make it all sound fluid, soft at times and the rest of it. I took a long time to make it sound romantic enough and to make the melody sing out gently and make it cantabile but it is beginning to come along quite satisfactorily. I've also learnt Rachmaninoff's Melody in e E, a piece I loved from the first time I listened to it (when I hear something by a Russian composer, I almost always like it immediately even without knowing it is Russian and in some cases you cannot tell from just one hearing ... so I conclude I'm strongly attracted to Russian music).
As for the Mozart you speak about, I'm always afraid of Mozart and am very reluctant to study his music as sooner or later it presents obstacles which hinder my progress and which discourage me sometimes to the point of dropping the piece (I find it even harder than Bach ... or, let's say, hard in a different way, in a way that seems to me insurmountable even after months of study; that was the case with his Presto from his Sonata in F, I think it was, which I tried to study for Grade 7 - 2011-2012 syllabus).
I'm studying all these Grade 8 pieces just because I like them so much but I may choose the new syllabus which will come out in July 2012 for my Grade 8 exam, for which I'll certainly need about 2 years from then.

I love Mozart and I don't find it all that difficult, in general ... being a clarinettist maybe?? Bach is well structured though

I too am interested to see what is on the Grade 8 syllabus next time, hopefully one of the WTC preludes and fugues (bk.1 no's 21 &24 and bk. 2 no.12) I am learning now!

For fun I'm learning the Chopin f minor Nocturne and for Grade 8 retake attempt 3 I'm sticking to my B major nocturne op32 no1. I'm working on the basis that learning more than one nocturne will actually be constructive. I've got the Eb major one on the go too, but not at seriously.

The positive side is that this is helping with LH leaps and pedalling, but switching brain between four flats and a minor key and five sharps in a major key gives me a brain work-out.

I'm also sticking to the Scarlatti, but rethinking my Sonata movement, probably the Haydn c# minor movement, and also probably starting with the development and recap. before learning the exposition.

I learn pieces to the basic structure stage quickly. It is the finesse level that is the killer. That plus dealing with an audience and nerves.

I'm at the taking the difficult sections to pieces and slow 'inner metronome' stage before rebuilding and readding the rubato. I spend so much time playing and commenting about a steady tempo that getting rubato right is actually fun.

I enjoy playing Mozart and Bach, so it is pleasant to be discovering some of their contemporaries. Scarlatti is equally satisfying, but in a different way, and Haydn's development sections are very different to Mozart's. Still Baroque and Classical music are very different disciplines to playing Chopin. It is a priviledge to get to play all three.

I think I'll have a look at the B major nocturne As I got given a book of Chopins Nocturnes for christmas.

Before I head to uni in Feb I need to learn the following pieces:

Bach P&F in G Bk1
Mozart Sonata in F KV.332
Beethoven Sonata in E op.14 no.1
Haydn Concerto in D
Chopin etude op.10 no.3

A big task but I love every bar of these works. Wish me luck!

Op 32 no 1 is very satisfying to learn P*P. The well-known Eb major one is very approachable too.

I broke the back of the Haydn c# minor sonata movement yesterday and did some slow practise on the Scarlatti.

I am going to continue practising the Scarlatti at a slow but steady tempo and making some very conscious decisions about phrasing and dynamics, and start deconstructing the Haydn over the next week.

Then it is back to the black note minor scales and practise them in similar motion at the octave, thirds and sixths.

jod - will have a look today

Yesterday I was mainly playing Debussy's En Bateau with my duet partner, maybe we'll get to an forum event and perform a piano duet in 2012

If you ever figure out how the ending of Op. 32/1 is supposed to sound please tell me. I have not a clue. Neither did any of the 20+ recording artists I have listened to. I wonder if Chopin did, or if he was just having a joke at our expense?

I play it as if it is secco recit. It certainly is in that declamatory style.

Break through on the Alcock, Almand piece today Grade 6 pieces are practically sorted - have been practising them properly for about a month now, so really pleased with that. Tempted to take the exam in the spring and see what happens ...

Teacher has recommended I either do 6 and 8 or 7 and 8 before embarking on a piano diploma (something I'm determined to do at some point 2015-16 planned for, well sort of.)

Sniffing through a potential LTCL program:

Liszt: Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude.
Ravel: Alborada del Gracioso
Takemitsu: Rain Tree Sketch & Rain Tree Sketch II

Wonderful!

that sounds beautiful!

Grade 4 exam pieces. I can find all the notes, now to try and make it musical. Progress isn't too bad, as Mrs Stetenorve is starting to hum the pieces as she passes the dining room!

Managed to dislocate my pedal lever with that (don't know whether it was I or II, though)

Went out yesterday and bought Messaien's Preludes. Still blowing into a paper bag at sight of 3 staves.

How did you manage that? I'm guessing it would be I as there's more intricate pedalling involved (lots of 3rd pedal).

I love the Messiaen! I don't think all of them involve 3 staves? The first of them (La Colombe) is a slow one with a lot of repetition that involves 3 staves- might be a good ice breaker? Or maybe tackle some of Debussy's 2nd book of Preludes first which have 3 staves, but the harmony/reading isn't *quite* so complex.

Bach WTC Bk. 1 No. 24 - Prelude - really coming along Fugue - started hands seperately

An hour goes by on the piano before I know it now

Still the Chopin Tristesse etude, and Allemande from French Suite #3 by Bach.

Both are progressing well. With the former I figured out what was holding me back with the hideous middle section - the transitions between phrases and not realising the pattern of the consecutive tritones and diminished sevenths. With the latter, i am playing from a pretty much unedited copy of the piece with absolutely no phrasing or dynamic markings so i am having fun trying to make something of it.

I've noticed a definite change in my hand and arm position since doing a month of the Marguerite Long exercises. most things still sound flat and uninteresting because I'm concentrating so hard on doing the right things physically that I haven't got brain space to do too much musical stuff with the notes.

I find everything in WTC pretty hard (apart from the C major prelude!) Last year I was working on P+F in D major. It seemed to take forever to make any progress, and playing slow didn't allow the harmonies to form. Not to mention some fingering that was like playing Twister for your hands! Lovely pieces though. Everyone piano has to learn a fugue at some point I suppose...

I know what you mean about time. I find when I am in 'music time' the time in the normal world seems to speed up. A two hour practice session feels like about 30-40 minutes to me.

Today I've not touched Bach Done a load of scales.... and the grade 6 pieces, they are practically done and I'm quite bored of them now!

I find Bach quite logical and that lot of hands separetely works well. Work out the fingering - thats the important bit Does take a while and you have to be patient with Bach.

Also started playing with the Chopin Nocturne in B major that Jod is doing