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I was able to practice yesterday and the day before yesterday in Brighton. I cannot disclose the location but here's the pic. I was able to obtain permission to use the piano before I left home. The piano is an old Bluthner (spelling?) but it's amazingly in tune. Apart from occasional fear of ghosts I'm enjoying practice in this old place.



I posted my nocturne to the Pianist Corner chopin nocturne / waltz e-cital. I'm amazed how kind those comments were. I did not like the one prepared a couple of weeks ago and wound up recording again 6 hours before the flight in between laundry and packing. That's why I look awful. If you kindly decide to listen to mine, please just listen to it without looking.

@Plowboy what's your goal and why didn't you achieve it?

I had a true lightbulb moment after my lesson yesterday. My teacher is still hammering on me to practice very slowly, dropping into each key, with all non-playing fingers relaxed. After two and one half years of being told to do that, I finally figured out the point she has been trying to get across. It is not just about dropping the weight into the key. It is about transferring the weight from one finger to the next. The result is a smooth, even legato, and a balanced hand. Thumb passes in runs became much smoother when I could feel the preceding 3 or 4 taking the weight and passing it to the thumb. I feel like I just found the answer to what has been holding my technique back. So practicing slowly was not enough. It needed to be slowly AND with every finger working properly.

SwissMS, your light bulb has cast its glow all the way across the Atlantic!!!!

I have worked very hard for a long time on the similar issues.... whether it was on fast scales or long fast runs such as in the first movement of Mozart 545 I'm working on. For a while now I've been able to do these at speed, but was always puzzled by a certain level of something being wrong....tension or something else was still there making things a little uneven and causing breakdowns under pressure. This, despite many, many hours of slow practice. Your aha moment really hit home and this morning I applied it with a wonderful new feeling of progress. I could feel exactly what you have described... how focusing on the weight transfer from finger to finger kept everything in balance. Only time will tell, but I'm hopeful this is exactly the little thing that has held me back too, and that those initial feelings are confirmed in future sessions. I can't wait to talk to my teacher about it next week.

THANK YOU SO MUCH

UKIkarus, If it is a church, you will be asked to make donations. I gave 100GBP for the construction of the bathrooms since I happy to support the worthy cause.

I was able to practice yesterday and the day before yesterday in Brighton. I cannot disclose the location but here's the pic. I was able to obtain permission to use the piano before I left home. The piano is an old Bluthner (spelling?) but it's amazingly in tune. Apart from occasional fear of ghosts I'm enjoying practice in this old place.