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

Sonata in C (K545) Mvt. 1

It's actually been about six weeks since I moved on from Mozart's Sonata in C, so this post is woefully overdue. I made a note to myself on April 29 that said "Got the run faster and more even today," and that was about two weeks after I'd memorized it. Actually, this is only the exposition from the first movement, and even though it was a bit of an ambitious attempt for me, it was also somewhat reasonable. What prompted me to learn it is that the third movement of this sonata appears in the second half of John Thompson's Fourth Grade Book. Since that will be coming up, and it's been rated as harder than this movement (by Henle), I figured I'd learn it. Naturally, the trilly parts were hard, but actually so were the Alberti bass phrases pictured above, particularly because I hadn't had very much exposure to them yet. (Something similar had shown up in Schumann's Melody and Boccherini's Minuet.) So I recall having enough trouble with this opening that it took three or four sessions (with large gaps of days between) to get them feeling comfortable under my fingers. Incidentally, I'm working on Bach's Little Prelude in F right now, and I think it would have afforded me better preparation for this Mozart piece. Nevertheless, the opening to K545 was within reach of my capabilities, so I learned it and I'm glad I did.

I'm missing a picture of those long runs that characterise the piece. The main difference between these and a stringing together of scales is the fingering. You have to cross with the 4th every time. If you remember that, you'll be okay in the right hand. Then you'll be free to focus on the left hand chords. 

This is perhaps the most difficult section of the exposition, and I actually recall trying it out way back in January when I first bought The Sonatina Album that contains this piece. I'd been listening to the accompanying CD and automatically knew this part would be hard, so I singled it out as as technical drill. Boy was I right. That left hand arpeggio was brutal at first. Switching back and forth from G to C like that was murder on the fingers. Doing that preparatory work really helped with getting it up to speed this time when learning it for real. In fact, this arpeggio simplified a similar arpeggio I had to play in Bach's Little Prelude I mentioned earlier. So. 

This is another brutal section. I still mess it up, though I have an uncanny knack of always playing it right the first time, but messing it up pretty much every two times after that. smh. It really gives the left hand a work out with those alternating notes. What really messes you up is the second bar (only half pictured) where the alternating pattern itself alternates. Again: smh. And I think I did the wrong trill here at first. I started on the note lower than the one indicated, but should have started on the higher one. Had to fix that. Wasn't fun. I figured I'd spent that time not learning the wrong trill, but simply learning an additional (and perfectly legitimate) trill. Just one that wasn't in this song.

This trill isn't so bad. It's not easy by any means, and I've tried not to just do a free floating trill, but to time it to be 32-notes and to perfectly fill the grooves in the left-hand accompaniment. The hardest thing about that is getting the end to sound smooth and not make that G seem like a sharp edge. Plus you have to remember to stop. The trill's so long, the fingers might feel like they should just go on with it forever.

Finally, there's this melodious end that is a maze for the fingers. It gave me some preparation for a similar maze in Elfin Dance (yes, I actually learned this before Elfin Dance, and I'm just now writing this blog entry). It also reminds me of a little star-shaped manoeuvre in La Styrienne. It's difficult, but sounds great. You play it first two octaves down from the middle and then you move one octave lower. I think it sounds better the second time around. The final chords are in G and reminds me of the ending of The Juggler. The G chord means the exposition's going to be in the dominant key.

10. Etude in Style

John Thompson's Etude in Style reminds me of Schumann's Of Foreign Lands and People from his Kinderszenen collection and perhaps takes that song's place in the gradual build-up to harder pieces. This is especially likely since Träumerei (also from that collection) comes up later in J.T.'s text. Etude in Style became a reading piece for me. I realized that technically it wasn't really challenging, but that it had a great deal for me to learn regarding harmonies and modulation—especially true in the ending phrases. It also provided good material for reading, which I also need to work on during this stage of my pianistic development. So I opted not to memorise it, since it was so much longer than the other pieces and my progress through the book was already at snail's pace. I decided it would be much more beneficial to use it as a reading and theoretic exercise. In that respect, this piece worked well. The arpeggiated left hand together with straightforward chords in the right hand made reading it a challenge I could meet. 

I'm a little befuddled about the precise style I'm supposed to perform or imitate in this piece, though, since J. T. didn't include any instructions with it. I pretty much just aim for a smooth legato. The picture to the right shows an interesting D6, but its true nature is left open since the middle note is unstruck. The key signature's for F major, so Dm6 would be my guess. The broken chord in the right hand is a 9th, but augmented—if that's even a thing. (B-natural: a semitone up from 9th.) So who knows what that suggests for the right-hand D chord. It's interesting for the fingers to play though. I'm a bit perplexed by that 1 indicated above B. I don't know how to play that, but I don't recall ever having that problem while playing it. Weird. 

These chords are mostly consonant and the single-note progressions quite melodious. However, that one in the second bar for the left hand is impossible. I simply cannot hold it; my fingers won't stretch that far. It's a 10th. Ninths are my absolute maximum. At ten notes, flesh starts tearing and blood spills. I've opted instead to play them as fast(ish) arpeggios. I do suppose they are quite reasonable for some people. I don't have the biggest hands on the planet, so I imagine male pianists have an okay time with them, and quite a few female ones with larger spans. Therefore, I won't curse J.T. for putting that in. It sounds great, after all, and I love him too much for creating this method.

These are some of the broken chords that show up at the end with major modulation. I find it so interesting the way the composer (J.T.) can change the key by hand, using accidentals in almost every note and having it sound so beautiful. The most beautiful sounds seem, in fact, to be found in those songs whose notes deviate significantly from their prescribed keys. I expect to learn a lot by analysing these chords, and I hope I don't neglect the work involved. I could, you know, since it isn't part of the routine playing and the songs ahead are so seductive. 

Ending. Chords. Modulation. Left. I had some trouble, I recall, reading the second bar. I wasn't getting the accidentals right. Not sure why. Maybe a fluke reading accident that won't ever be repeated in the future?! I wish... 

Anyway, here's another picture I found interesting for some reason. It's got two sharps. I dunno... I mean, it's a basic B Major chord, but a bit out of place in an F-major key, so... 

 Alan Chan's rendition

9. The Skylark

This song is fun to play. I chose to use my 2nd finger on that F# just for the sake of bijection. No need to double up on the responsibility given my 3rd finger. Especially since the 3rd and 4th are responsible for the trilly triplets that characterise the piece. I'm most grateful for these because I think they have helped strengthen my 4th finger and infuse the nerves/tendons it shares with the 3rd with a considerable amount of dexterity. 

I have a special liking for this section where the left-hand fingers kind of trip over themselves and then land 1-3 on G-B. The right hand does a sort of gaping leap to compensate, but it's not so obvious with J.T.'s fingering. I switched it so that the first finger doesn't have to move from its position the second time around. It's less confusing for me. But to make up for it, I needed to skip a finger and go directly from thumb to middle finger. That's the gap I mentioned before. It took some practice to get it down, but now I like the coordination between the hands. It's pretty smooth. 

This is where it all goes down: right in these areas are triplets galore! I've had to slow the pace down quite a bit and discipline my fingers to play these triplets slowly because they seem to speed up unnecessarily and generally go out of control. That is, weirdly, the mark of my ineptitude seems not to be an inability to play fast, but an inability to keep a steady, slow tempo. My self-imposed sloth has been helping, though. I think I've shown marked improvement in my right-hand's evenness. 

Another way in which this piece disciplines my fingers is via these acciaccaturas. There are a million of them as well, played with 4-5 and 2-3 mostly. The first combo (4-5) was, of course, the more challenging and provided even more work for my 4th finger. One of the challenges is recalling which of the notes are in staccato and which aren't. They tend to alternate. The ones pictured here are dotted, but notice: those that sneak in at the right-end of the triplet photos above aren't. 

I just like the shape of the left-hand chords here. The four-note ones remind me of clubs. I call them beeswings because that's a name I remember using instead of clubs as a kid. Not a whole lot more to say about this section. Below it is the ending. It's a broken G chord going down the keyboard... but kinda feels a bit F#-ish because all the grace notes are a semitone above (and therefore spell an F chord). It makes for a pretty sizable (if not exactly a 'big') finish. 

Alan chan's rendition

8. At Evening

This piece by Schytte was a very difficult song to memorise, and I recall struggling not with the technique, but with the repetitive nature of the text itself. I know I've said this before, but I feel as though in this song, the confusion was the worst it's ever been. I guess it afforded some reading practice since I was constantly looking at the text during those several days. Yet even so, of all the songs I've learned by heart, I think the text of this nocturne is the least easily navigable.

Yes, this is my first nocturne, and its actual title At Evening is a subtler rendering of the cruder English translation "night song."J. T. regards it as "fine preparation" for Chopin's nocturnes to come—and recognises that composer as having developed the genre (?) "to its highest point, perhaps." I can hardly imagine ever being able to treat Chopin's works with the delicacy they deserve, at least not with the technical level I've achieved at this point. But I shouldn't be self-deprecating, and I should trust the process. The opening sets a rhythmic pattern that is pretty much held throughout. J. T. points out the melody in "the upper voices," which is reflected in those conspicuous notes hanging from their beams at the top of the treble clef. I seem to recall the melody doing a similar thing in The Skaters.  The discipline the hands learn in this opening bar is how to span a number of notes and then do a variety of actions within that territory. This is especially true in the right hand. So often you'll find that your first and fifth fingers act first, and then the ones between work on the intervening notes. Arpeggios are a big part of this. The left hand moves back and forth a lot. 

This section (above left) is kind of a calm before the storm. It's the first half of a repeat, so the slowing helps to lend a contrast to the intensity that its successor phrase will show. It is almost as harmonically interesting as the variation, too. It actually began with the leap in the left hand of a tenth (minor 11th) up from A to C#, and the right hand figures are triangular—wide non-committal dyads that eventually settle down to a particular chord when their middles. I remember best the switch from Cdim (2nd inversion) to C. See the broken triads, one on each side of the middle bar line. The "storm" follows (above right), and is a variation on this, but one that makes a upward progression that crescendos in the middle and then slows poco a poco as it leads toward the closing phrases.

In this second section the left hand exactly repeats the accompaniment the opening, but the right hand's doing something different. This is pictured to the left. It leads to an interesting section (right) that I like to call the coda, even though it isn't labelled such. This "coda" is a variation on the opening melody, but one that feels like it's taking the motif in a new direction. Toward the ending, I guess. And here's that ending. 

It's a G-chord shared between the hands and which travels up three-to-four octaves. Finally, the low G punctuates the final phrase.

Alan Chan's rendition