Touch

I think today I acquired a more delicate touch in my left hand, especially the thumb, index, and middle fingers. I also worked a bit on the same fingers in the right hand while I was practising Maykapar's Toccatina. I recognized they needed work in comparison to the way the 3-4-5 finger combo was handling the opening of the Maykapar. Yesterday, too, I worked on tonal quality and dexterity in the left hand while practising Beethoven's Sonata in F Minor (Op. 2, No. 1). I was trying to get that Alberti bass part to sound like a true crescendo-diminuendo. See how the first two bars of the picture above has the climax on one note in the middle. That's played by the middle finger, but a similar thing happens a little later requiring the pinky to sound that loud note. It turns out that using the pinky to play a note that sounds loud in comparison to the rest of the fingers isn't the easiest thing in the world. Still, it's coming along. 

I'm still working on the G^♭ Major scale in contrary motion. That started coming together a bit better today, especially since I began feeling freer to practice the tone of the notes and to make the thumb crossings smoother. My wrists have loosened up a bit more to facilitate this, and this looseness shows up also in the C minor run in Haydn's Menuetto (pictured above-right) and the F minor run in Beethoven's sonata. It also shows up in a better handling of the first run passage in Mozart's Sonata in C, which I still occasionally use as an etude and a dexterity measure to sort of see how far I've come. So I guess I'm making some progress. 

Nevertheless, Onward! like it's the first day.