Piano Recital

OK, due to a misunderstanding I didn’t actually perform, but I was prepared to. I did go up and play my piece (Indigo, by Robert Grove) at the end, while everyone was packing up. Just to try out the concert grand and the hall, you know. I had several nice comments afterward, both gratifying and encouraging.

The other fun thing is that I played from memory, and really felt like I was making music in spite of a couple of finger or memory slips (I’m not really sure which they were). My piano lessons this year have inspired me to make more effort at memorizing at least some of the cello music I am going to perform.

Piano Lesson

This was my first of two private lessons, since S- is out of town. Funny, I don’t think I played much better today, but I felt less badly about it, since I didn’t feel as though I was holding S- back. And a couple of things went very well.

• Scale: D Maj, 2 octave. I’ve been practicing it without looking, but you couldn’t tell when I played it. Took about six tries, but I did eventually succeed. It’s been interesting, learning what the scale feels like.
  Chords: D – G – D – A -D, LH in three inversions. We discussed the alternate fingerings, since they are different for LH than for RH. Lets see if I can remember:
  D 5-3-1 G64 5-2-1 A6 5-3-1 (all standard)
  D6 5-3-1 G 4-2-1 A64 5-2-1
  D64 5-2-1 G6 5-3-1 A 5-3-1 (all standard?)
  I need to double check those at the piano.
• Mach p460 Camptown Races in D – again in all inversions, especially starting on 2nd. Block chords.
• Mach p462 Streets of Loredo in G – practice accompaniment in arpeggiated chords, and any other variations I want to try.
• Mach p463 Jacob’s Ladder (new) – more practice in D (all inversions) with one new chord: D aug (D-F#-A#)
• Mach p297 Distant Horns – with pedal. Even with direct pedaling, the pedal goes down slightly after the finger plays the note, not exactly simultaneously. Watch the rhythm in m5 (I played it wrong all week!). Unpedaled notes in m14-15 must be legato, especially moving to last chord. Hands up on 3 at the end.
• Mach p298 He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands (new) – ostinato accompaniment in LH, downward walking baseline. Syncopation in RH. Phrasing. No pedal.
• Indigo – went really well. G- liked most of my performance decisions. This week, practice with metronome at a variety of tempos for discipline, even though it will be performed with plenty of rubato.
• Clementi - didn’t go so well, but still better. Nothing specific, just more repetitions, both playing troublespots and playing through with metronome.

That’s really quite a lot. I think we have two more lessons, the last one with S-. I’m looking forward to summer.

Piano Lesson

A few minutes late again, and not enough practice, again.

• Scale and chords in D. This is like starting over again. Everything was going great when the chords were in the RH. Now they’re not. Grrr. More practice needed.
• Mach p460 Campdown Races in D, all chord positions. We only did root and 1st inversion. That was pretty bad, so G- didn’t push the issue. More practice needed.
• Mach p462 Streets of Laredo in G (new). Lots of movement between chords, with the addition of Am and D7 in a couple of inversions. This one is to be played with block chords as annotated. Practice in chunks.
• Mach p296 The Highlands. Went well. Done.
• Mach p297 Distant Horns (new). With pedal. RH is stationary while LH crosses over it.
• Indigo – S- played the A section, and I played the B, and crashed and burned. I was so, so, so unprepared to play the B section, especially unfortunate because I can play A pretty well. Sigh. More practice needed.
• Clementi. Reprieve – we didn’t get to it. Whew. More practice needed.

Piano Lesson

I arrived almost 15 minutes late for my lesson today. Bad me. Late is something I try never, ever, to be, so I wonder if this is more than just a miscalculation in timing. I have been feeling lately like I am wasting my time, and more importantly, the time of my fellow student and teacher. More than academic input right now I need practice time.

So I missed the time focused on I-IV-I-V-I chords in various inversions, based on B major. That’s fair, because it’s the one exercise I am more facile with than is S-, so she got a little extra time without me. And I am happy to report that we did not do Clementi today, so I wasn’t totally out of it after having missed last week’s lesson and not practiced since I got back in town. Bad me.

I don’t know yet what I am going to do about my current lack of interest in practicing the piano, but I did let S- know that I was planning to take a break over the summer. This is what I’m supposed to be practicing this week:

• Mach p460 Camptown Races, melody in D with chord symbols. Play A, not A7 as marked. Practice using root, 1st and 2nd inversion I chords. More importantly, practice the chord progressions we have been learning in the RH with the LH. Once the block chords are down, try it with various broken chord patterns.
• Mach p296. The Highlands, with damper pedal. We peeked inside the piano to see that the damper pedal lifts the dampers away from all the keys, while pressing a single key without pedal lifts only the damper on those strings. Lifting the dampers allows the overtones to echo more freely. We are starting with direct pedaling, where the damper pedal goes down at the beginning of the chord, and releases at the end of the chord, so that hands and foot are moving simultaneously.
• Indigo, by Roger Grove. I can sight read the A section, but need to learn the B section. Add pedal to this, as well. We reviewed some suggestions, but have permission to experiment.
• Clementi. Not discussed, but I need to keep working on the 1st and 2nd movements.

As we left, S- gave me copies of a printout of a web site about La Folia. She had mention two weeks ago that she had heard this in performance, and was enthralled. I’m with her there – it’s always been a favorite of mine, in all it’s variations, but especially violin played with basso continuo. She and G- played with it a bit at the lesson I missed. It’s not an assignment, but who knows. Maybe I’m more likely to spend time on it because I like it and know I don’t have to!

Piano Lesson

This week I only practiced on Sunday and today, so today’s lesson went surprisingly well. Though, as I think about it, not very well. At least it wasn’t the disaster it might have been.

Chord progressions: we were supposed to have added A, and that is all I practiced, so when we did D instead I again found myself completely disoriented. I find that the chord patterns have become second nature when beginning I in root position, as we have been doing that one the longest. For the others, I will write out some dot motion patterns this week and practice moving from shape to shape instead of trying to figure out the chords. It’s worth a try.

The Entertainer: no problems with the syncopation, so 17 to the end was fine. My biggest problem is moving around from chord to chord, as always. Doing the chord analysis last week helped. For next week, focus on the transitions at the end of the 2nd phrase. Try playing the accompaniment in quarter notes instead of half notes, first blocking the chords.

Etude #12: Quarter notes shorter, but not staccato. Shape the phrases. Lift at the end of each phrase, even when moving from hand-to-hand. Tempo at least qu=100. What should Allegro Moderato be?

Clementi: didn’t get to it. Whew. S- is working on the second mvmt. I am making progress on the first, and can almost play through at 1/8=80 without breaking.

For next week: same pieces.

Piano Lesson

Coming along. Everything was a little better, but still not good.

Assignments for next week:

• Chords:I-IV-I-V-I progressions in three inversions, C,G,D,A,E,F. Write out progressions on Grand Staff. There is an alternate fingering when beginning from I64:
  • I64: 1-2-4
  • IV6: 1-2-5
  • V: 1-2-4

  And just so I have them here, the actual progressions will be:

  • I-IV64-I-V6-I
  • I6-IV-I6-V64-I6
  • I64-IV6-I64-V-I64
• Hokey Pokey: dynamics, transitions, LH always stacatto, RH legato slurs
• Clemente Andante: we reviewed fingerings. Start LH practice with last three measures, with fastest harmonic motion. Start RH practice with sixths
• Clemente Allegro: we reviewed sonata allegro form again today, and also discussed the modulations: C to G in A section, G and c in B section (development), finally returning to C in recapitulation and staying there. Practice transitions, with metronome. Practice in small sections. I may have to memorize this in order for things to go smoothly.

Piano Lesson

I-V chords in C, G, D, A, and F. The pattern I noticed today is that, knowing it’s the fifth that’s shared between these two chords, this is what happens:

• I (root position) – two lower fingers move down
• I6 – outside fingers move down, pivoting around the middle
• I64 – upper two fingers move down

So, when moving from I to V, all movement is in a downwards direction. Wonder what I am going to notice next time?

We discussed the figured bass exercise from Handel. I had no problem naming the chords and inversions. When the chord is closed, the tonic is the note with at least a fourth open below it. The first inversion looks stable, with the thirds on the bottom, and the second inversion looks unstable with the “heavier looking” thirds on top. (I still have to name the notes and figure out the chord when it’s open, but that wasn’t the point of this exercise.) We discussed the fact that some of the chords in the recommended solution did not move to the closest next position, and G- said that was because it’s generally better to move in contrary motion. Also that it was desirable to end on a perfect tonic chord, meaning that the tonic is in both the bass and the soprano (I think), and if I had chosen closest chords all along it wouldn’t have. SO many complications.

Sidetracked by a discussion of seeing keys as patterns, we noted that Mach stops doing transposition after leaving 5 finger patterns. G- suggested I get the MMTA theory workbooks if I wanted to continue graded exercises with more details on transposition and chord progressions.

For next week, I should add E to the list of scales, and also do a I-IV-I-V-I chord progression in each of our keys, starting with each inversion of I. Hmm. so that will be I-IV64-I-V6-I, then I6-IV-I6-V64-I6, and I64-IV6-I64-V-I64. (I need to double check those – just figured them out here at the computer – and realized saying “keyboard” would not have been specific!)

Hokey Pokey went OK, but I still can’t play it smoothly. We worked on the transitions, basically every time I need to move one hand or the other. G- suggested a warm-up where I go up and down one octave of the scale in first inversion chords in the RH while playing the four-note downward motif from G and/or C in the LH. I should spend my practice time working slowly over each transition, simplifying where necessary before playing as written.

Clementi is in similar shape. I can play through the A section slowly (Q=72) but stumble over the transitions for anything faster. My work with blocking the chords for the Alberti bass measures paid off; now I need to repeat that in the B section. Blocking the RH chords in the descending broken thirds passages will probably also be useful. We also reviewed sonata form, and identified the sections and patterns in this sonata.

For next week:

• I-V-I and I-IV-I-V-I patterns in all inversions in C, G, D, A, E, F
• Hokey Pokey (target H=100)
• Clementi Allegro

The best news is that, since S- wasn’t here this week, I get to review this all again next week. I told G- I was grateful for the remedial lesson!

Piano Lesson

I read somewhere this week that our problems lie not so much with coordination (or the lack thereof), as with discoordination (or the lack thereof). In other words, getting our two hands to work independently. That’s true both for stringed instruments, where one hand is fingering while the other is bowing, and also for piano, where each hand has a whole separate line of music for which it is responsible.

This week, S- was able to play through the entire Allegro of our Clementi sonata, while I struggled with the first two lines. Yay, S-! Fortunately, she will be gone next lesson, so I have a whole extra week to achieve the same level of discoordination. I felt like I did a little better on the chord progressions, though. I think all that points to is that she has more experience playing, and I have more experience with theory. It all evens out, and we edge each other on. Good class.

The last thing we did was look at Etude #11, even though that wasn’t on our assignment list for this week. We played through several times, RH then BH, increasing speed with the metronome set first on quarter notes, then on half notes (it’s in cut time). So this week we also spent some time listening to the difference in the music when thinking in 4/4 vs. cut time. It’s not just the tempo. (I know that, it’s just funny that stuff like that flies out the window when I am totally focused on technical difficulties.)

For next week:

• Chords and scales: C,G,F,D,A. Start chords both ways: I-V and V-I, all inversions
• Name RH chords and inversion for first exercise in Handel figured bass book
• Hokey Pokey – MM=100, staccato chords except in forte section. Bring out melody at top of chords (fifth finger).
• Clementi
  • practice Alberti bass measures with chords
  • observe phrase endings
  • repeated notes are lighter
  • think in cut time
• Etude #11 – H=66

Note: editions by Willard Palmer have urtext markings in black and edited suggestions in gray. The Joy of Sonatinas

Piano Lesson

We began by reviewing our chord progressions in C. Instead of writing these out, I have been thinking them through anew each time I practice. The process goes something like this:

I am going to play a I-V-I chord progression, beginning with I in first inversion. These chords share one note, the fifth of I and the root of V. The fingering for I6 (RH) is 1-2-5. In C Major, the shared note is G, played with 2. A G major chord with G in the middle is a second inversion, V64. To make this chord, the upper and the lower notes of C6 both move downward. Looks like E->D=whole step with 1, C->B=half step with 4. I can also change from 2 to 3 on the G and play G64 with the standard 1-3-5 fingering. Oh, and the LH plays C-G-C with 5-1-5, moving in contrary motion to the chord changes in the RH.

I figure with enough repetition this way I’ll develop muscle memory soon enough, plus understand what I’m doing each time.

Next we moved on to Buffalo Gals, Mach p. 291. Took about six tries before my hands started working together. I found the A section most difficult, where I and V chords are played on the off beats, partly because the RH moves around with unexpected extensions. The B section, with broken chords in the LH and syncopation in the RH, was easier. Fortunately, we eventually got through it well enough that we have permission to move on.

The next assignment is The Hokey Pokey, a handout. This features a walking bass line in the LH, with the melody supplied in the RH, which is also playing a syncopated pattern of first inversion chords. This will be a challenge to play with both hands.

Lastly, we went over the Clementi sonata Allegro, highlighting the technical points and reviewing fingering. Our assignment is to practice it slow and steady, using a metronome.

I like the fact that our assignment list for this week is short, though challenging. I feel less scattered when I have fewer things to focus on:

• I-V-I chord patterns in C, G, and D
• The Hokey Pokey (handout)
• Clementi Sonatina Allegro, HT, slowly

Piano Lesson

It’s my fault. I got us off on a tangent when I started class by asking a question about a new book on figured bass I am trying to work through: Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises (Early Music Series, No. 12). I had a lovely time thinking through the first exercise, which is deciding on the best chord configuration to use when moving from one type of chord to the next. It’s pretty straightforward. Find the shared notes, if any, and plan the next chord so the shared note doesn’t move.

But we did get extra homework out of it. G- seemed to think this was just the thing we needed to practice in conjunction with our scales, so our assignment is to look at all of the combinations of I and V chords and practice them in each key. I hope S-, my fellow student, doesn’t mind. I find this fascinating.

The other interesting thing we did today was to transpose Twinkle Twinkle with an Alberti bass accompaniment from F to C. Though simple, it’s the most complicated transposition we’ve done to date. You have to be able to recognize the type of chord and immediately play it in the new key while also playing the melody by recognizing intervals rather than notes.

Assignments for next week:

• Choose adjacent V chords for each inversion of I. Use the alternate fingering for I6 to V64, leaving 2 on the shared note.
• Scale: F Maj, 2 octave, parallel motion, finish by playing I V I using all three positions.
• Mach p. 291 Buffalo Gals; improvise rhythm in the left hand
• Clementi Allegro
• Robb Phrygian Mode