This Can't Be the End...

... is an encouraging statement to me. In the last couple weeks I've shown marked improvement in tonal delicacy just by actively attending to the way I play and vowing never to allow my hands to play harsh notes. At least, not without attempting to correct them. I have (of course!) noticed that even despite my vigilance, my ear invariably detects harshness in my playing. I choose to consider that the result of an ever increasing sensitivity of the ear and contributory to an overall increased aesthetic sensibility. Again, I opine: a good thing.

But... it is December 2016 and I'm still nowhere near ready to play my first Rachmaninoff—as I had hoped in a previous blog entry. I've made a list of what I consider to be the most accessible of his works. I've based it on my listening, my perusal of Henle's library and the difficulty level assigned to each piece or album it contains, and the RCM levels at which some of these pieces occur. This is what I've come up with:

1. Prelude in B Major (Op. 32, No. 11)
2. Prelude in F# minor (Op. 23, No. 1)
3. Melodie (Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3, No. 3)
4. Elegie (Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3, No. 1)
5. Prelude (Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3, No. 2)
6. Prelude in D Major (Op. 23, No. 4)
7. Prelude in G-flat Major (Op. 23, No. 10)
8. Prelude in E-flat Major (Op. 23, No. 6)
9. Etude-Tableau in G minor (Op. 33, No. 8)

As is evident, my current RCM-7 level is no match for the "easiest" (ha!) of these. But I remain undiscouraged. Heartened, even, for it was two days ago that I recall watching some kids playing their ABRSM (post) Level 8 pieces extremely well and thinking, "Good thing I have three more years to develop that kind of flair." Good thing, I said! And I marked it, because never had I before revelled in the idea of requiring more time to develop. But I did in that moment, and spontaneously. 

I think that's a sign both of my accepting my current level and of my growing contentment with the progress I'm making. I finally have confidence in my ability to reach somewhere good,* and in the fact that I have already reached somewhere good. I'm happy to take the circuitous path to that "somewhere" because I want to develop a real visceral connection to piano playing—to really know it, experience it, understand it...

* Nice diction, treenataniesha!

The Aesthetic, pt. 2

So I've been adhering to my desired regimen of aesthetically driven practice. I never allow a note to leave my fingers without first subjecting the joints to some kind of disciplinary action. I'm really trying to wring as much delicacy as possible out of my fingers' action upon the keys. This means a lot—lot—of slow, controlled note-strikes, where I try to imbue my joints with something like shock absorbers (which I expect is just a generally increased sensitivity of the muscles controlling them). But this means I don't allow my fingers to bang upon the keys anymore. I try to let every one down easy in its turn. 

And it's not just difficult, but it's also sort of arresting in a certain sense. I realise I have to sacrifice progress (in a direction toward the final note of the score) for progress in a more vertical direction regarding my ability to get various levels of sound from each strike of a note. I like it, because it means I am now able to produce the soft sounds I've wanted. But I keep wondering how long it will take for me to produce these sounds without having to think about it. How long before I can take that increased dynamism for granted and move on to gaining more technique? I really haven't been committed to this for all that long—it's been exactly seven days!—so my impatience is kinda unwarranted. 

This new form of practice also means something for the way I move my hands and the kind of support my wrists provide. I find the motions—even contortions—are more deliberate and quite extreme. Still, I am always careful that everything I do is ergonomic, and I think it's even helped with a weird crick I'd had in my wrist for about a week or so. I move my hands as though outlining a lemniscate (rather than a circle), and that seems to create the most fluid motion on the keys. The circling of the wrists (which is often recommended as prophylaxis against carpal tunnel, etc.) actually seems to hurt, not help. So I don't do it. 

I'm a bit surprised at how committed I've become to this type of fluid wrist and finger action in my practising. It's making a real difference in the aesthetic of my playing, though, which is actually really important to me. I mean, it's actually making me play in a way I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to—though as yet ever so slowly and tentatively. I want to make not clangy noises on the piano but music. I don't want simply to strike a string of correct notes; I want them to depend from a string of fluidity whose aesthetic is both audible in the texture of the sounds as they light upon the tympanum and visible in the motion of my hands across the keys. And because I dare to dream of poetry, I'm willing to wait to play a song until I have the delicacy of touch necessary to truly make it sing. (Chopin's Raindrop Prelude is a case in point. I've loved that song for two years now, have acquired and looked at the score, but haven't touched it.) Consequently, I'm still working with Maykapar's Toccatina, Bach's Little Prelude in F, Loeschhorn's The Juggler, Haydn's Menuetto, and recently I added CPE Bach's Solfeggietto. These are pretty much all songs I'd played before, but with much less grace and aesthetic sensibility. This time I won't be done with them until they sound really fluid and light, like I'm playing with a feather for fingers, and with the utmost legato, even with my feet off the pedal!