Level Discovery!

I've recently been looking at the RCM syllabus for piano. The technical requirements are quite detailed and seem to indicate that my current level (Sept. 14, 2016) is the seventh of their system. 

I currently have all major keys under my fingers pretty well in parallel motion, all white keys in contrary motion and I've started on the black. I don't have all the black minors down yet, and I haven't truly started on the melodic minor. But judging from the above list, it seems I'm about 70% complete with all RCM requires for level 7, and I already play them at a faster tempo than their minimum, so that also indicates this might be my current level. This is heartening because I remember looking at the technique for as low as level 3 several months ago (and level 1 two years ago when I started) and finding a lot on the list I hadn't even covered yet. So if I ever wanted proof of progress, here it is. 

The arpeggios I've also covered, although there's plenty of room for improvement in that department. Arpeggios are fiendishly difficult! I certainly have the tonic four-note chords down—always have had from my days of playing by ear. I've recently learned the cadences from the method books I've been using for sight reading, but even though the chords' inversions per se are no problem either, I really should practice playing them in succession—if only for the sake of being comprehensive. 

My dominant and diminished seventh arpeggios need some attention. I've only practised them sporadically in the past, just enough to realize how fun the diminished seventh is in the way it sounds and the way it's played. 

I've also identified a video of a student playing her Level 7 RCM pieces rather well. I'm going to try some of them, since I own the repertoire book that contains them. I tried a bit of Maykapar's Toccatina and it's fitting pretty easily under my fingers, so this fact supports my hypothesis as well. 

Sept. 21, 2016 Update: 
I've been practising the first couple phrases of the Maykapar for about a week (since Sept. 13, missing one day, I think) and even though it lay pretty well under my fingers from the beginning, since several of the figures in the right hand are variations of each other, it was hard to play the right note group at the right time and not get it mixed up with an earlier or later one. Today, finally, I felt my hand relax into the pattern, so that I no longer needed to worry about messing up. I'd played the entire portion correctly several times before, so I'm not just talking about the sort of fluke accuracy that is really a memory-aided phenomenon. This level of accuracy actually feels different in my fingers themselves. It's a little weird and difficult to describe, but it's a state I've been waiting eagerly to attain. I have been wondering how many repetitions it would take to reach it—for without it, I could never feel justified speeding up the passage. So... it takes 7 to 8 days for a passage of this length, then? Naturally, speeding it up introduces new instabilities, but that's all part of the process, I guess.

Nov. 29, 2016 Update:

I've got this pretty much up to speed, even though I'm not quite finished memorising. I need to work on the recap of the opening theme and the descending arpeggios at the end. But the problematic "note groups" still trouble me. These can be found in measures 2, 3, and 5, where fatigue and error are the main hazards. Yesterday I practised playing them with the proper aesthetic motion, but at speed. First it was necessary to slow it way down to have my hand learn the behaviour. It's coming along but not easily and not without the not-so-occasional relapses into error. (Sigh...) 

Still, I keep on.

Sight Reading Summer

I realized that my sight-reading was developing at a snail's pace and I wasn't sure whether I could remedy this at all--you know that whole question of whether good sight readers are born or made. However, I decided that if I were looking at colourful books with larger-sized print and simpler notation, I might be less reluctant to read a text. Less anxious, you know. 

So on June 29, 2016 I bought three books: Alfred's Basic Piano Course Levels 2 & 3, Alfred's Level 4, and Piano Adventures Sight Reading Book Level 2A.

(Update: Actually I was working on the Level 2B sight reading book, but got confused and consequently bought another copy of 2B from Amazon. Only recognised this after the books got delivered. When I tried to return it, Amazon refunded my money but said I didn't actually have to return it. Free book! Screenshot below.) 

I got a long way through Alfred's 2 & 3 and noticed such an improvement in my reading that I also got Piano Adventures Lesson Book Level 2A, finished that and the Sight Reading one (2A2B) and have moved on to Alfred's Level 4.

It turns out good sight readers are made! If I can improve this much in three weeks, that just about settles the question. I find the texts I'm working on in JT5 (Turkish March, Godard's Chopin, even Butterfly) a lot easier to read now, but I'm not finished with my remediation yet. 

I am fully committed to spending the summer doing this. Tomorrow (July 25) Amazon will deliver 8 more of these books to finish the Piano Adventure series (just the lesson and sight reading books, but still). I checked out some online samples of the books, and the Piano Adventure series' fifth book ends with Burgmuller's Ballade. This song falls about a third of the way through the John Thompson Third Grade Book. So I'm hoping (against all hope!) that by the time I get to the end of that Piano Adventures Level 5 book I'll be able to comfortably sight-read that entire John Thompson Third Grade text (and all the ones before it, which I had as a child and hope I'll be able to find in the bookshelves when I head home in about 10 days.) This I will do... and move through the entire series again reviewing and reading through the pieces. 

This is something I'll be focusing on for the next few months, as I've also decided to slow down my progress through the John Thompson books. I'm still working on Papillon, Turkish March, Sonata in F minor, and Menuetto along with Godard's Chopin, which I've just begun. In fact, I'm planning to return to JT's Third Grade Book and re-learn a few pieces. I hope to play them with the newfound technical skills I've since acquired and, consequently, at a higher level of competence. In the mean time, I'll keep working on technique. I've been doing this quite diligently since September 2015, but now I'll stop trying to gain speed/dexterity and work instead on tonal quality at the speeds I've already attained. I found videos of an amazing teacher online who requires a certain tone from her students, and I would like to emulate it.

July 29, 2016 Update Today I sight-read Massenet's Melody with alarming ease! And just one month after beginning this programme on June 29! My rhythm was a little wonky, but the rather weird and complicated rhythm is one of the song's defining characteristics, after all. And I think I've got it now. But the note reading was solid and forthcoming, and that's what I usually have problems with. I'm so stoked! Nevertheless... I will not abandon my proposed regimen. In fact, I'll stick to it with even more determination now. And to prove it, my books have arrived and I've already started tearing into the Piano Adventures Sight Reading Level 3A, which is why I forgot to add it to the lot pictured below. (It was on the piano's music stand.)

It's happening. I'm getting better at reading. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!

basic, I know...

but very very helpful

Sept. 14, 2016
Summer of reading continues. Finished up Piano Adventures Lesson and Sight Reading Books 3A and am now well into 3B. Also found John Thompson's First and Second Grade books on my shelf (as I had hoped) and am through the first. 

8. Erotikon

This piece Erotikon by Emil Sjogren contains a horde of arpeggios and in D-flat Major. These wide arpeggios (10ths mostly) seem to be good preparation for Benjamin Godard's song Chopin, which follows and is also in D-flat. This song (Erotikon) sounds kinda pretty-ish. I need to get a better version to see if I can come to fall in love with it after the fact--the way I have with Massenet's Melodie (from the Third Grade Book). I'm kinda waiting for my sight-reading to really get good--which I know it will in the next three months!--so I can start attacking this and other pieces with more alacrity... and confidence. 

7. Prelude

My goal was to use this piece as a sight-reading exercise, and I did read it through several times. However, I've dialed back the level of my sight-reading almost to square one, so I may return to this several months down the line and do a better job of reading it. Here's the opening. The chords are legion in this one, and that opening E in the right hand was a killer to read (but I was stoked to learn it). Overall, the ledger lines in the right hand provided the biggest challenge for me. 

J.T. describes it as a short prelude that's big in its proportions, so I think I might end up learning it one day. 

6. Turkish March

Fun song. Not taxing in the way of runs, except for the task of getting the pattern into my fingers' memory. But there are some fast appoggiaturas (in demisemis) that I need to execute with 123 in the right hand. Those took some practice. Coming up, too, are some broken octaves that I know will be hard, and I really should begin practising them sooner rather than later. So far I have learned first of the middle runs and the opening. I think I'll practise those broken octaves next.

This pic just looks like the notes are frolicking... doing a skateboard jump or something.

5. On Wings of Song

Sightreading. Lots of arpeggios and octaves--even in octaves. See first pic. I usually sightread without pedal.

4. Papillon (Butterfly)

This song was haaarrrd! In fact, is hard would be more accurate because I'm still working on it. Playing Edvard Grieg's Papillon, my fingers have to perform these weird contortions and the speed coupled with the long stretches (especially in the left hand) gives my joints a real workout. J. T. recommends some rubato, and whenever I listen to a recording of the piece, it's in the chromatic passages (as in photo above) that I always hear the rubato happening: it speeds up! So those parts become challenging on the fingers, too. (Actually, this recording is pretty amazing, because it's of Grieg himself playing Papillon in 1906!) Like Sonata in F Minor, though, once you get through the first section, the figures repeat either exactly or via transposition, so the text becomes easier to grasp. 

Here's a picture of the second section that forces the left hand to stretch (swing) to an eleventh! To be fair, the middle (or index) finger gets to act like an anchor/fulcrum to facilitate the stretch, but it's still an awfully long one. I recall Grieg's Waltz in the 4th grade book that required a similar long stretch--probably to a tenth, but still far for me because my fingers can only comfortably handle a ninth. 

This very difficult passage requires strange couplings of the fingers while executing fast, syncopated runs. Luckily the thumb is a strong finger and can easily whack out those accented notes, but the sensation of playing the accent on that beat (and so many in succession) is strange at first. I practised for a long time without the pedal because I wanted to get the passages as smooth as I could using pure technique. Adding the pedal really does improve the effect though, and I understand why it's part of the text. 

Below the right-hand syncopation happens again, this time a few notes higher up the keyboard (begins on C, where before it began on the G below.) It does something different just after where the picture cuts off. I'm still trying to figure it out.  

These runs are arpeggios in the left hand and chromatic-like scales in the right. They are beautiful. The second time around (below), they modulate back down to the original key and the bend in the melody just tugs at something inside me. It is pathos, and I love it! I think it might not be quite accurate to say the key changes at all throughout, though, as there's so much dissonance going on that it's hard to make a distinction between that and actual modulation. Either way, it's all nuanced and brill.

Then the text returns to its beginning, but with an octave in the left hand. It was once I got here that I realised I'd been playing F instead of F# the whole time. (Yike!) Luckily adjusting wasn't difficult because the shape of the hand was familiar from the first variation on that figure, which began in measure 4 on C#. (Whew!)

Here, a higher version of the initial phrase. Way up there at F#. But not as high as the final note of the song is low! Check out that finale. It happens on the lowest note of the keyboard. Bam!

My friend Jessica made a surreptitious recording of me practising. The phrase "fits and starts" accurately describes it, but here it is... for posterity.