Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What did you practise today?

This is my first report. From now on I plan to check in periodically to keep up. I'll have a lot more time - and energy to devote to practicing. I had a great day today - about all day playing: Moment Musicale, Schubert; Waltz in C#m, Chopin; Maple Leaf and Heliotrope Bouquet, played through some other stuff; FM - steely dan. 2.5 hour band practice - 8 songs - for a 12-17 show.

Prokofiev Sonata no.2 Mvts 1,2,4, Bach Toccata in G major, Chopin Op.12. Good day for me!

It's my favourite part of the opus...the only ones which I haven't really warmed up to yet are numbers 1 and 4. I dunno if I'll try to take on the whole set, but we'll see. I'd like to do nos 2 and 5 as well but I don't know how I'll approach them...there are so many difficulties in voicing and phrasing that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Brahms is really difficult!

Really, I love 1 and 4! 4 is really, really cool. How about 3, do you like that one? The set is difficult.. it feels like a sonata, really!

I'm having some trouble with the part where you have to play all the keys at once.

I practiced SINGING.

Not much! I'm moving and have a lot of family stuff going on.

So far: just those triplets in Op. 53. Over and over trying to get my hand strength up - first RH, then when it gets tired, LH and RH, LH. The together. Whew.

Edit: and this afternoon, the first 5 pages - listening hard, playing with eyes closed, trying to refine the pedaling and make every note even. My brain is tired.

Practiced for a recital that I played today. For the first time ever in practice I played a C major chord where I should have played a F major chord. And guess what? I did the same thing in performance! GRRRR!

What piece was that in?

Herz nocturnes for 2 hours today.

Pleasant works that are easy on the ear and fingers.

Thal

Had a lazy day today and didn't practice . Oh well, tomorrow and the rest of the week is going to be insane..

Funerailles and the second movement of Brahms' C major sonata, because I heard a recital Friday night that included performances of both (the latter as an encore) and decided to revisit them.

The Brahms I hadn't played or heard in so long I couldn't remember what it was, so I had to ask the pianist (Peter Toth of Hungary, performing in Carmel, California) what it was. Nonetheless, it came along pretty nicely when I played it through a few times. Funerailles too; it's not too bad technically, except for about 30 seconds there.

Speaking of Peter Toth's recital, he also played the Haydn B minor sonata, Hob. XV:132; the Schubert A minor sonata, D. 537; What the West Wind Saw; No. 12 from both Op. 10 and 25 of Chopin; the Scriabin D# minor etude; and Mazeppa and Widmung by Liszt (with an assist from Schumann on the latter, of course). The whole recital was quite good, but he seemed more at home with the post-classical-era pieces.

And yes, his octaves in Funerailles were, um, noticeably better than mine!

A Mozart sonata (k. 376 for violin and piano). You know, one of those places where anyone, including non-musicians would have noticed something was wrong... C chord in the bass, F in the RH, a fermata, and forte. I quickly switched to the F major chord once I knew what I did, but the damage was done already.

Just watched Argerich's octaves - she really is unbelievable with her speed on those. (see 6:55 here - Argerich Funerailles ) One tip I heard in class the other day for playing fast octaves is to think of them moving horizontally instead of thinking "down, down, down" for each of the notes.

Last page of the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 81 A and read through the first page of the third movement

Read two pages of Lecuona's Danza de los Nanigos


Sped up Islamey

Started reading through Mephisto Waltz again

I'd be much more inclined to say by Schumann with assistance from Liszt.

I'd be even strongly inclined to say so...

Those are pretty darn fast! At the last stage, where it's in D major, you can she misses a few, but since you can barely tell by listening it's probably not all that important.

I definitely agree with thinking of the overall movement as horizontal; you just have to get those vertical oscillations timed correctly along the way.

OK, the last piece on the program was Schumann's Widmung, transcribed by Liszt. Curiously, the program didn't even mention Schumann's name in connection with it!