Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
Pretty piece; I had never heard it. I began work on it this week. Thankfully it’s short - I think I’ll get through it in 2 weeks, then another few to get it smoother and up to speed.
Moo you played that welll! I don’t intend to take it to exam standards, thus the time frame. I’ll never get it that fast probably. I think it’s time for an upgrade in mic and video recording quality....I’d love to hear and see that in HD.
I recorded it 4-5 years ago so phone camera have improved now. It was a grade 7 piece so you'll should be able to get it up to speed.
I was taught that french impressionist composers needs to be very light. Like you float on the keys. I did not find it easy to do this but I think I was correct to persist. I have sat through amateur playings of, normally debussy claire de lune, where this is not done and it sounds very heavy.
I think this is another faure of a similar standard to this one.
I played that sicilinne piece but it's probably all I played in this style. The other feature is to make sure the melody sings over the accompaniment. I found it a little bit easier. It's also a duet so it's easy to know what is melody and accompaniment.
Moo, I get what you're saying about floating. There's one measure in particular where the C#'s sound dissonant if you play them too heavily (M10).I think I'll work on M10-16 next, having learned M1-9. I'm nowhere near speed though, barely at half speed in M1-9!
That leads me to a question - do you think it's better to get a section up to speed before moving to another section, or getting the notes in the whole piece down before getting it up to speed? Not limited to this piece, of course. My thought, at the moment, is to work on M10-16, and take breaks by getting back to 1-9 to get them up to speed.
Of course, why not! BTW the pianist is not well known, but she has an incredible story. She wanted first to be a classical dancer and studied for 10 years. She was heavily burned in a domestic fire and could not dance anymore. So instead she started to study music at age 20 which is quite rare. She performed in Carnegie Hall in 2015 and recorded several Scarlatti sonatas which she plays beautifully like this one.
Moo, I get what you're saying about floating. There's one measure in particular where the C#'s sound dissonant if you play them too heavily (M10).I think I'll work on M10-16 next, having learned M1-9. I'm nowhere near speed though, barely at half speed in M1-9!
That leads me to a question - do you think it's better to get a section up to speed before moving to another section, or getting the notes in the whole piece down before getting it up to speed? Not limited to this piece, of course. My thought, at the moment, is to work on M10-16, and take breaks by getting back to 1-9 to get them up to speed.
Have you got a teacher ? It has been a long time since I looked at the piece.
I would make sure it's secure at a slow rhythm with all the correct fingerings secure and rhythms. It may need to be very slow initially but half speed is ok. Then it's the balance of the hands, pedalling and tonal control. I think there a lot to do before working on speed.
I think when working on speed it's generally nearer the end of the learning process when you have a good understanding. I think you would need to look at the hardest sections so this needs the most work. I think the hardest section was the m17-20 bars so I would do a lot more on this. Perhaps you can hear in my recording this is a little less secure. I think m8 needs practice. The other bars of 1-9 are simple so I wouldn't work on getting the start up to speed.
The hardest part I think of the entire piece however was in the second bar where you have to get a d sharp twice, initially quite with the left and then slightly louder. I did a lot of tedious practice on this piece. Perhaps more than 3 months as it was an exam piece so you can certainly spend a long time on a short piece.
That leads me to a question - do you think it's better to get a section up to speed before moving to another section, or getting the notes in the whole piece down before getting it up to speed? Not limited to this piece, of course. My thought, at the moment, is to work on M10-16, and take breaks by getting back to 1-9 to get them up to speed.
That seems reasonable(not talking about this specific piece but in general). I don't think it makes much difference since one would spend about the same time either way. For me personally, I do what ever keeps me interested. If I'm getting tired of practicing part of a piece I may move on to a different part that I haven't practiced. I almost never get one section 100% finished before moving to another part because, for me, that would be too tedious. If one is going to be taking a lesson on a very long piece, one might want to work not on the whole thing at once because who wants to play something very half learned for a teacher.
That leads me to a question - do you think it's better to get a section up to speed before moving to another section, or getting the notes in the whole piece down before getting it up to speed? Not limited to this piece, of course. My thought, at the moment, is to work on M10-16, and take breaks by getting back to 1-9 to get them up to speed.
For me, i mix speed work with working on other sections. Usually i start with one section and once i am comfortable, i move to the next but continue working on the first one. Most of the time i end up covering the whole piece before i am done with the final speed work and other fine tuning.
