Piano Diploma

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Practiced the Beethoven Op10 No 1 ahead of my piano lesson tomorrow.  Really feels like its coming together, to the point where I would be happy to play it for someone else.  Which means tomorrow will be a disaster.

[Wowbagger]

I think the bits I found difficult with that sonata were:

keeping the dotted quaver/semiquaver rhythms crisp in the first movement
the slow movement's hemidemisemiquavers - it's very easy to lose track of the beat
the semiquaver over triplets in the finale. I've never been comfortable with that combination. I'm OK with triplets over quavers.

I recall receiving a lovely compliment from my piano teacher when I was learning the 3rd movement. My lesson was normally on a battered old Ibach 6' grand piano in the school hall at lunch time, so the sound of me playing echoed through the dining hall, through which he walked on his way from the staff room.

"You've really made progress this week - I thought it was Barenboim playing!"

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

I think my piano tuning is slightly out, with the hot weather. 

[De Sisti]

I think the bits I found difficult with that sonata were:

keeping the dotted quaver/semiquaver rhythms crisp in the first movement
the slow movement's hemidemisemiquavers - it's very easy to lose track of the beat
the semiquaver over triplets in the finale. I've never been comfortable with that combination. I'm OK with triplets over quavers.

Do you still practice your scales each day?

[Wowbagger]

No. Sometimes, if I'm playing two pieces one after the other in very different keys, I might play a scale and arpeggio in the scale of the second piece just to retune my brain, as it were, to the correct key.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

I think the bits I found difficult with that sonata were:

keeping the dotted quaver/semiquaver rhythms crisp in the first movement
the slow movement's hemidemisemiquavers - it's very easy to lose track of the beat
the semiquaver over triplets in the finale. I've never been comfortable with that combination. I'm OK with triplets over quavers.

You could have been my music teacher.  Exactly what she picked out.

Am seeking consolation in Poulenc - simpler rhythms, just the unpredictably astonishing but subtle dissonance to remember.

[Wowbagger]

I think the bits I found difficult with that sonata were:

keeping the dotted quaver/semiquaver rhythms crisp in the first movement
the slow movement's hemidemisemiquavers - it's very easy to lose track of the beat
the semiquaver over triplets in the finale. I've never been comfortable with that combination. I'm OK with triplets over quavers.

You could have been my music teacher.  Exactly what she picked out.

Am seeking consolation in Poulenc - simpler rhythms, just the unpredictably astonishing but subtle dissonance to remember.

  Smug mode!

[Wowbagger]

I think my piano tuning is slightly out, with the hot weather.

Do you have a humidity sensor in the piano room?

I had my piano tuned in April when the weather was cold and dry, and the humidity was only a little over 40%. My tuner said it was too low and I should take steps to make it higher. She suggested houseplants. I read a bit about this and areca palms were the most common suggestion but they made no difference whatever. I bought a small inexpensive humidifier and that brought the level up by 3 or 4%.

Now the hot weather has arrived, the humidity level is up to 60%. Fortunately, my piano's a Blüthner and they have a reputation for stability. I've had it for almost 3 years and its 5-year guarantee stipulates keeping the humidity level up to 50% or better.

My good pal Penelope's sister emigrated to Canada 40-odd years ago and took a piano with her. The extreme climate of Toronto wrecked it in short order. It had previously resided in Brizzle I think.

[hellymedic]

D's piano has stayed in tune much better sine he bought a dehumidifier with a humidistat.

It's working full pelt at present and bleeping with a full tank in less than 24 hours.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

It now seems to be better.  Either that is the cooler weather, or maybe applying some of my music teacher's instructions to the Beethoven.  Either way I'm happier with the way that it is sounding.

I lived in Sydney Australia for a few years in my youth and I had a big old 1920s steel framed upright.  I'm not aware of it changing tune in the heat, but in both places I lived there I was in a ground floor flat where the temperature remained more constant.  It's also worth noting that although the day time temperatures were much more regularly in the high 30s, night-time temperatures were generally not much higher than the temperatures we get in UK heatwaves, and their buildings were much better at dissipating heat.  (Although correspondingly more difficult to keep warm on winter nights when the temperature could be mid-single figures at dawn)

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Slow and steady progress.  The Brahms now sounds like music, and am finally mastering the quavers over triplets section.  I parked the Beethoven for a few weeks and it doesn't seem to have suffered from the cold storage.  The Poulenc is good fun.  Prokofiev needs some work but I'm finally getting the tricky bit of Vision Fugitive no 8 - the three part section at the end more often than not.  And am enjoying Liszt's transcription of Scubert's Serenade from Schwangesangen as a warm-up.  Perhaps it will all be ready by the end of next year.

[hellymedic]

D's piano has stayed in tune much better sine he bought a dehumidifier with a humidistat.

It's working full pelt at present and bleeping with a full tank in less than 24 hours.

With the advent of cooler weather, the dehumidifier is now working part-time and takes about two days to fill the tank.

Both pianos were tuned yesterday. The Kawai Grand after about 17 months and the upright after 2 years (I think).

[andrewc]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/21/stephen-hough-music-is-not-just-icing-on-the-cake-its-the-cake-itself-its-human-life


I saw Stephen play Brahms 1 with the RLPO last Thursday.  Wonderful stuff, and a little Chopin chaser.

[Wowbagger]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/21/stephen-hough-music-is-not-just-icing-on-the-cake-its-the-cake-itself-its-human-life


I saw Stephen play Brahms 1 with the RLPO last Thursday.  Wonderful stuff, and a little Chopin chaser.

I may have mentioned that Jan and I went to a concert at the Free Trade Hall in the 1970s in which Stephen Hough played. He was 12 I think, and played a movement from a Mendelssohn concerto.

[hellymedic]

We went to Hough at the Royal Festival Hall last month…

Wonderful!

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Continued slow progress.  The Beethoven is gradually being licked into shape.  The timing is much better but I still need to sink the chords right so that it doesn't sound too choppy and the delicate runs in the slow movement are not quite fluent - but better than they were.  Poulenc Trois Novellettes 1 is sounding like a novellette, with all the different voices - again touch and tone need work.  The Brahms is finally sounding like quavers over triplets rather than a chain that has not quite engaged the correct chainring.  What's most heartening is that I'm almost there on the 3-part sections in Prokofiev's Vision Fugitive no 8, where the theme is shared between left and right hands and the other half of the right hand is playing semiquavers that reach up to the stratosphere.  Vision Fugitives #14 is simply hard and will take longer.

[Wowbagger]

I've just been having a preliminary play-through of Beethoven's "Pastoral" sonata, D major, no. 15, op 28. It goes on a bit. I'm not sure whether I want to learn it nor not. Well over 20 minutes. Here's the ever-lovely Valentina Lissitsa playing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3x7XDgrBig

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Piano teacher is now asking me to play pieces through entirely, rather than picking up each howler as they come up.  And I'm finally being able to get a sense of flow and feel as the fingers seem to know where to go.  Almost to the point where I am going to sit down in the cavernous atrium of our flagship London office and play one morning.  Writing this, may be  I should be brave enough to do it on Monday.

[Wowbagger]

Wow! A London office with a piano! How exciting! What sort?

Southend’s council chamber boasts a small Kawai grand and they have occasional concerts there. I witnessed a guy playing  Mr. Beethoven’s renowned Waldstein sonata on it some years ago and I didn’t think the piano was powerful enough.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

It is a Yamaha Grand - and has a very nice action.  Given it was the first time I had played a proper piece in public in 19 years, I stayed safe with the Brahms Intermezzo Op 188 No 2 and the slow movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata no5.  The atrium / foyer of 7 More London is vast, and I'd need the lid open and give it some welly to fill the whole space, but as it looks like I will be coming this office a bit more often (its not my regular office) I hope my confidence will increase.

[Wowbagger]

Any news on how it's going?

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Am continuing to practice.  Pieces are gradually improving.  The challenge is combining this with a full time job, some fairly hefty cycling, and training as a licensed lay minister, which means that practice isn't as regular, disciplined or serious as it should be.  However, am now happy to play pretty much all of the pieces in public except for Prokofiev's Vision Fugitive No 14, where there are 8 bars in the middle which still haven't got into the fingers yet.  But it will happen.  With Paris Brest Paris next year, it might not be until 2024

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Struggling at the moment, with increased bike mileage (PBP prep), some travel away from home (Huntingdon and York, nothing glamorous), and a 2500 word essay on Matthew 5:21-48.  I'm also at the point where I have to focus on the twiddly bits that my un-nimble fingers can't quite get around and practice over and over.  Was never much good at that type of practice.  Probably why I am where I am.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Played the whole set at a weekend study group.  Still needs work, especially as the brain gets tired towards the end of 35 minutes.  Music teacher has finally worked out how to get me to play the runs that change from semiquavers to triplets in the last movement of the Beethoven Sonata.  Once that's locked in and I can reduce the number of random notes in the the second of the Trois Novelettes, I will feel like I am on a roll.

[Wowbagger]

Good work. The Beethoven 3rd movement is tricky, to say the least. I think it's quite a bit harder than the Pathétique, whose only real requirement is stamina.