11. Valse Sentimentale

I've chosen to make the song by Schubert a reading piece, and so far I've been playing through it every day for about three weeks. At first I went about it the same old way, but soon I began trying to read it without looking down at the keyboard. This has been challenging, but doable. I've had to learn how far down to stretch to get to the A in the left hand, which is the first note of the opening.

The main challenges regarding playing without looking are in the left hand. The single notes I have to (get a) feel for are G^#, C^#, D, and E. I find them with my pinky. There are a few dyads and triads too, but for some reason those are a bit easier. Probably because the shapes of the keys are more distinctive in combination than as single notes. To the right is a group of one of those combos. They look like beeswings.

The top pic shows a D-E dyad, and that's not so hard to find because my hand kind of knows how the space feels around those notes. I experience similar ease when trying to find a D-F^# dyad, since my hand goes in the same general area. Finding the right hand chords with some semblance of ease required a few days' practice and the wit to work out the optimal fingering (1-4, 1-5... a bit different from the ones J.T. indicates).  The bottom pic shows where I have to seek the G^#, and it is the note farthest south. Needless to say, I often get it confused with those on either side. I try not to feel around too much, otherwise it'd be simple enough just to feel for the middle of the three black notes. But that would cost me tempo. It helps some to practise the leaps between two notes over and over, but an impediment to this being fool proof is the fact that the piano bench moves, so I'm not always in exactly the same place. I trust it'll come together, though. The right hand is actually easier, though it looks far more complicated. Once you do the initial reading (admittedly tricky with all those accidentals), it's easy just to adjust the fingers to the indicated chords, because the hand doesn't have to move.

Finally, the ending is a simple return to one of the phrases already pictured. What it adds is a leap with the left hand from the low A up to the right half of an A major chord (C-E). Finally, the song ends on the left half of that same chord (A-C). In the right hand, AC-A adds some depth.

Though I heard Vladimir Horowitz play a wonderful rendition of this song (the Lizst transcription, I think), it was buried (at 44:04) in a much longer program. So instead I'll leave you with...

...Alan Chan's rendition