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I've completed acquisitions and have very nearly completed all final preparations for EPP 2014-Lisbon. I've been on pins and needles since booking, and the wait has been brutal. But, we are very near now. I'll put in a half day of work tomorrow, lock down the fort over the weekend and meet up with my EPP friends on their side of the pond, Tuesday morning. The official EPP date is July 5th.

I'll be playing Bach. Hence the JS Bach Superstar, Avatar for a few weeks .

My recital piece is like a well worn shoe now. I think a couple of days rest before the EPP will be just fine. I may take up surfing. I understand they have some of the best in the world not far from Lisbon.

I'm thrilled to be participating. And very pleased to be welcomed. I will be the only foreigner (non-European) participating at the EPP this year.

As always, I follow the news - I have the topic forwarded to my email and I read all the entries - I just don't have time to reply much.

These days my ATOW is simply keeping up MOYD and some days it has been a close call!

I'm finishing up the school year, doing scheduled make-up lessons, final reports, turning my office into a guestroom for my sister and niece who will arrive in a couple of weeks, and preparing for the EPP!

Greener---- my husband and I may live in Europe, but we're still Canadians
Looking forward to meeting you!

I'm making good progress on my Chopin nocturne, and really enjoying the process.
I'm breaking it into small chunks and the effort on each section really pays off as it comes together. So I suppose my AOTW is about adopting a good process and seeing that pay dividends.
There are a number of areas with really tricky rhythms that I haven't got my head around yet (11 against 3, 9 against 4 etc), I think for those I will need to work notes and rhythm separately (NOT an approach I usually take!).

I'm intrigued at how poor I am at judging how easy or difficult a piece of music will be for me to learn just from the sheet music. The Chopin looks incredibly intimidating to me on the score but once I decode it, it turns out to be more achievable than it first appeared. The Bach 2 part invention I am polishing meanwhile was so deceptively simple on the page and I totally underestimated the challenge it turned out to be for me to learn.

Tararex and Ragdoll - great that you have found teachers. I'm trying to work out what to do when my teacher emigrates shortly. It's difficult for me to commit to a set time every week. My current teacher is unusually flexible, I'm not sure I'll manage to find another like that!

Jeremy SA, what a beautiful experience to play for your grandmother. It must have brought her so much joy.

WiseBuff, your conference sounds fascinating and well done heading straight to the piano party after your trip

Good luck Greener, Casinitaly and all who are lucky enough to be attending the EPP in Lisbon. I'm sure it will be a wonderful experience for everyone.

Thank you, Barbaram for the kind words.


Me too. My observation now is, Chopin looks hard and often is. Bach is always hard. Sometimes impossible.

If you look up the Sonata Analysis thread and post a query, or just a cry for help, there are plenty of people who can help you with the Nocturne. If it's the famous no. 9 in Eb, I've been there, but have no idea how to describe anything that may help. Best of luck.

Tararex and Ragdoll Nice to hear you both found teachers that look like keepers. My teacher recently took a few weeks off for vacation...left me lost on a fingering issue that came up. It sure is nice to have that trusted mentor you can turn to whenever there are questions.

Chrisl Yep. There's quite a distance from "First Serenade" to the pieces toward the end like "Dance with a Mosquito". So you should be congratulated for getting to the back half of the book. Well done!

Greener Hey, don't keep us in suspense...What are you going to play? I'm sure you and C will rep this side of the pond in high style.

Cheryl MOYD really does work wonders, doesn't it? Funny thing, sometimes when real busy and just able to get in minimal MOYD practice I will pick really extra small things to work on...like two or three beats that have an awkward fingering or just feel wrong or tense for some reason....Invariably that part will later turn out to be the rock solid part of my piece. Hmmmmmmm.

Barbaram Same for me. Sometimes the real dense scores turn out to be a little hard to read, but fairly easy under ones hand. Bach......not so much....polyphony is just plain hard. Oh, and Bach Chorales?....yeah, dense, hard to read, and 4 part polyphony. Yikes!

Just ordered my first digital piano and looking forward to starting my piano journey once it arrives on Monday :-)

Got to start somewhere ....

I visited and posted in AOTW when the thread first started. And then, the participants increased and I couldn't keep a handle on who to congratulate when and for what. I think I lost out. As the thread has flourished.

And now I find myself experiencing a huge leap in my piano endeavors that I want to share. Well, this here seems the place to do it. I hope I can catch up with what's going on with people and can contribute more than I did at the beginning.

Me and Mozart have a history. My first and only attempt to learn Mozart nearly ended in repetetive strain injury in my hands. So many notes. The tempo way faster than I could achieve. I got very frustrated too.

So now enter my new teacher. Who, after my discoveries this week, I believe to be a genius!! She's had me start on the Andante movement of K545. The C Major Sonata. Often called the easiest. But, that's why it is perfect. I got past figuring notes pretty quickly. And what was left was turning my attention to just how my fingers met the keys. Here's where Mitsuko Uchida came in too. Talk about wringing the most out of every note!! Well, part of my practice has been playing along with Ms Uchida as I play the right hand part. The whole process has been eyeopening. I'm thinking much more how I play each note than every before. Mozart's music is so transparent that the focus becomes how to make the music the most beautiful. And in trying to do that, I've begun to play in an entirely new way. The care and attention that goes into striking each note is intense. The concentration it takes to play this way is something else. But it's also very gratifying. The study of piano is certainly about striking the corect notes. But beyond that is an entirely new realm of study in how the pianist affects the shaping of each note played on the piano.

The key words my teacher left me with at my last lesson was to try and approach playing as if I was playing a "forte' piano". Well, it is amazing what a few carefully chosen words can do for changing ones pianistic exerience. As I say. My teacher is a genius!!

While my teacher was away I got a good start on the new post-recital pieces. Ran into a fingering question about fifteen measures into the Debussy. Rather than push on through and maybe have to redo it later, I chose to put it hands together and really work the toughest measures. That turned out nicely as I was able to play that first section on her return last Tuesday. Also I played the first of the Ravel duets with her without us ever trying it together before. My first duet and it was fun! The second one we are doing (Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête) is a little more substantial and will take quite a bit more effort...but the music is so nice.

I also was able to revive the second movement of Mozart K545 which I had not touched in the two months leading up to the recital. It took about 10 days to get it to where it had been, which was less time than I expected, plus I feel like I've got a better perspective on it now for some reason. I played it at my lesson and she said she never heard me play it that well...that got a big smile from me! Maybe that is just what Richard(zrtf90) calls seasoning? Now working on getting back the start I had made on the First Movement of the same piece.

I have also decided to somewhat systematically start reviving a few much older pieces on a regular basis, starting with the famous aria from Tosca that I did as my first recital four years ago. Considering at least one Chopin revival (either the A minor Waltz or one of the preludes) and bringing back Beethoven's Moonlight from last summer.

This may sound like a lot, but I've stopped giving myself deadlines, so I can let it all unfold as it will. Just keep chipping away and trying to not practice any one thing more than twenty or thirty minutes at a time.

Welcome back Dynamobt!! You don't have to comment....many of us do so only when time allows. Your teacher sounds wonderful and what you say about focusing intensely on the sound of each note is so true.

Hi Jim, well it is no secret as it is public information on the EPP thread. More precisely though it is officially Bach/Hess, not Bach. As Bach did not write it for piano. Hess did. It is the Chorale from Cantata 147 that I recorded previously. Does it still count as one of those 4 part poly things, if Hess wrote it?

It is not technically difficult and not really very difficult to play overall anymore. However, it always requires intense concentration to play correctly as there are subtle differences throughout the repetitions.

Anyway, thanks for asking. It has been a fair bit of work to get this work presentable again and it always varies from performance to performance. Especially on a strange piano and in the presence of warm bodies, I'm sure.

~~~~~

Good for you dynamobt. Sounds like you have done well with your new teacher. best ...

Party on, dudes and dudettes attending the European Piano Party.

Week 120: I take a couple of days off, so the piano pace slows even more. I attend the church coffee house. I do not play. Someone sings a song about playing guitar at age 60. He bought himself a beautiful teal and white electric guitar for his big birthday. Another participant is older still and plays the piano effortlessly while singing songs from Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and others. It shows how playing music can keep a person young.

Wow it's already EPP time! Lots of things seems to have happened while I was busy with my personal stuff. I just got laid off as of last Friday. No worries I'm ok. I am sick of hearing condolences from my work friends. So please don't give it to me, okay! I had to say this because you are bunch of good and kind hearted folks. Financially I got a year worth of separation package and miraculously did not lose unvested portion of the stocks due to rule change. I won't lose medical dental eye insurance until next June. So folks, I will be ok. I wish I could retire but I probably have to have one more job before I completely retire.

Anyway, I'm excited about my new life. I have never been not working. Even in college, I worked full time carrying maximum units. I am in a local chamber music festival in mid July and playing for a master class in September. Also violin boot camp too (lol). If you feel like commenting on this, please wish me good luck. I wish every one very happy year for piano and everything else.

Farmgirl!!! So glad to see you here!

Thanks for the update and I won't send you condolences but CONGRATULATIONS.

Sounds like you got a great leaving package and you've got some good plans for your future.

I wish you all the best with your endeavours and much happiness with your musical adventures!

It's congratulations then. I started to step back from work after a busy career at 54. Now almost 56 I work a bare minimum and love having all the free time to pursue my hobbies. Now I would have real difficulty if I had to go back to work full time.

I haven't had an AOTW for a while but there has been many mini achievements. One I am really excited about is finding notes on the piano without looking. It's probably no big deal for people who read the score from the start but I have been a memoriser and hand watcher from the start. Now I am doing mini jumps and it just amazes me when my finger lands on the right note 99% of the time. This is proving helpful for a few reasons but the boost to confidence is priceless.

Little things count. After 10 months of lessons I have had consistent problems lately with my Level 2 Faber pieces playing five note penta-scales (with an accent on note 1 and stacato on note 5) at a higher rate of speed without either skipping a note once in a while (right hand finger 4) or just not playing the notes evenly.

Last week I got a tip from my teacher: roll my wrist from left to right, keep fingers very close to the keys. And RELAX!

These last two days I can play these sections more consistently than I have before now. Hopefully this will "stick".

Yes, little things like that are accomplishments. Over time, lots of little accomplishments make playing more difficult pieces sound "easy" versus sounding like a struggle.

Just played as a guest in an ongoing home group. Not well, I'm sorry to say! But it was lovely to be invited and I look forward to the next time.

Farmgirl, sounds like you are embracing this opportunity. Glad to hear the severance package was good, hope you find real fulfilment with your free time, and that when the time is right for you, you find a suitable next position,

Thanks barbaram, sorry I haven't answered sooner... obsessed with the new lessons/practice

It's a great relief to be back to a regular schedule of lessons and focused practice. I can't believe how long it can take to find a right fit, re: a good teacher.

Thanks Jim, I have found it a great relief to get back my mojo. I was getting very lazy; even though I played daily I was totally unfocused and just more or less noodled around with things I knew already how to play mostly.