Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The Hump

I've had setbacks and discouraging days in the 17 that have passed since my last post. But I've also been good at reminding myself that such days will come and I'm usually wrong about how bad I think I sound. For example, about a week ago my notes sounded harsh again. I've been playing L'Adieu, and after having it sound better than I expected one day, the next day I couldn't get it to sound euphonious. Cantabile. I didn't even give myself the credit of playing without pedal (though pedal is indicated for the most part). So I am obviously too hard on myself.

I got better at the F Major scale today. And I finally began using my laminated, wall-hung schedule: started a regimen last Monday, January 16, 2017. I've slowed pace a bit with the second RCM etude--the Kabalevsky one in D minor. It looks simple in the picture (see previous post), but it is quite a bit harder than Agitato. It's so difficult, in fact, that even though the schedule has me practising three (maybe four) times per week, I'm going to have to increase that to daily. It's just that hard, and the progress I make each time isn't all that noticeable. I keep having false starts with sections I thought I'd got solid the previous day, and the transitions between sections even within phrases is difficult, because the hand playing arpeggios and the one doing the closer passage work often exchange their foci. The switch is usually so jarring to my brain that the tenuous hold I have on the simultaneous coordination of two very different types of techniques comes to a crashing halt. I feel like I'm always having to regroup. But I continue with the "hump," because I know that once I've got this etude down I'll have become a stronger pianist. 

I think I am getting noticeably better with arpeggios, but they are still very challenging. Yesterday my right hand kept messing up the C minor arpeggio! The old third finger kept missing that E-flat on the way back down. smh. It's hard when you're doing a technique you think you already know and even that's not working out. Makes you feel like you've regressed. However, in keeping with the concept of improvement, I did have some good results with the B-flat major arpeggio yesterday, too--although, the fingering turned out to interfere with that of the G-minor arpeggio I thought I'd mastered in the same difficult etude I've been working on: Etude in Dm!! That's also another difficulty with piano. A wrong note in one song (or technical exercise) is a right note for another one. So your next practice piece might actually derail the achievements of your previous practice! And it does no good to argue that this means there's no such thing as a wrong note. Context counts! But being able to switch easily between each context is what I'm ultimately after--so in the end the rigmarole (wringer!) makes me a stronger player. That knowledge is somewhat comforting. Sigh. So, I repeat to myself O'Brien's adage:

Carry on...

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Progress


It seems this RCM Level 8 book is about right for me. I am finding the etudes just challenging enough to be making appreciable progress every day. I know, for instance, that being able to play a full few bars of the second etude (in D minor) means that I've improved because the stretches for the arpeggios (and their conjunction with close finger passages in the other hand) was too difficult to do even at andante when I first started looking at it. I've also noticed that now, about six weeks after I started it, the fluid aesthetic I'd been practising regarding my hand motions has become solidly integrated into my general technique. I find evidence of it now in older pieces I'd practised before November 26 and in new pieces I've taken up since. This is good, since I'd been wondering if I was always going to have to be actively working for that kind of fluidity in my playing. Still, I know it's necessary always to keep refining it. I know it might be exaggerated right now and may need to be tempered in the future.

But what I'd really like to record is that on January 6-7, 2017 I noticed that the run passage I started working on as a kind of etude in September has finally begun to lose the patched character it used to have as a result of the thumb crossings. It's the passage from the end of Chopin's Nocturne in C# Minor, which is an RCM level 9 piece, and which I've been preparing for (in advance) by practicing that run. I know this will likely increase in difficulty once I switch back to my own pianowhich has keys of the right size and weight (larger and heavier), but getting the thumb crosses solid is a good start. And it took four months! Granted, the scalar passage in Haydn's Menuetto from the E-flat Sonata took over a year to get smooth, so this marks improvement of about sixty-six percent--more perhaps, because it's a harder/longer passage. Patience... 

Incidentally, I had also (in early December) previewed the descending arpeggios of Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor and found them incredibly difficult. I started practising one of them 3 or 4 days ago, and I find that it's getting somewhat better. I'm not sure of the fingering yet--maybe I'll find a better way. But it's funny how the impossible gradually becomes less so.

I haven't practiced this LH piece in a few daysFelix Swinstead's Study in D Major. Though I'd only learned the first four bars, I've very likely forgotten most of the notes. Sigh...




Nevertheless... Onward!

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

On Having Attained the 2.25-yr Mark

I started practicing the RCM Level 8 etudes on December 17, 2016. I've memorised the first (Rowley's Agitato, left) and am working on perfecting it, but have also started memorising the second piece. This one is harder and requires a leap in coordination. I've also finished learning all the major scales in parallel and contrary motion (finally got to B-flat major last week!) I also have all the white-key harmonic minor scales down, and all except B-minor in contrary motion. Still need to work on that and the black key minors. 

Arpeggios have been a bit on hold since I've been home for Christmas, since the keyboard here has slightly smaller keys and I don't want to learn the fiendishly difficult arpeggios at the wrong scalewrong hand spans, thumb crossing spans, and all that. But that difficult second etude from the RCM book has arpeggios in several keys, so I think that'll fill the gap. And I hope it won't take to much effort to readjust to the correct sized keys when I have to in a week. 

Chromatics, dominant- and diminished-seventh arpeggios... When, oh when will I be able to get to these??

Periodically, I feel a rise in my abilities. Usually this alternates with a sense of being overwhelmed and a feeling of non-progression. Around December 30/31, I felt that again--a sense of improvement that validated my decision to return to piano. The impetus for this feeling might have been my trying out one of the run passages from Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor and not finding it impossible. I've been thinking it might be time to start on his Waltz in A-flat (L'Adieu). It's an RCM level 8 piece, so it might be right at my level, and when it comes to songs I like I've usually thought maybe I should wait until I've surpassed its level before learning it. That way I'll do it justice. Dunno. It's probably the first (easiest) of the long list of songs I've been waiting to be able to play, and I've waited 2.25 years man! Well, it's among the first, at least, since the E- and B-minor preludes are among them, and I guess I didn't wait as long as I should have to tackle those. Return to them, you say?

Aye aye!