Hey Alexis Ffrench fans

I ended up not being able to spend as much time on this yesterday as I’d hoped, but I had a hard time with it…. I also didn’t read it while listening to the original but I’ll try to include time for that tonight, so that may help.

It’s hard for me to read, but I can’t decide why — I mention this because if I could articulate what’s hard about it, you all could probably offer me advice.

I sort of fumbled through the first few pages, but tonight I’ll try to zoom in on just the first page, and see if I can get the notes on the page to sound like what I hear in my head.

I think I’m having a hard time reading it because I’m trying to find the different lines but they’re running together….

How many voices do you think there are? I’m thinking there are three? The melody line, the bottom accompaniment and then the line in the middle, which I think of as the inner voice.

If that’s right, I’m wondering if it might help to practice just the melody and the bottom accompaniment line, and then the melody and the inner line, and then maybe I can “hear” it in my head better.

Also, I am having a hard time finding the count, obviously I can count the beats on counts 1, 2, 3, 4 (that reminds me, @Rubens did you know that you didn’t put a time signature on the score?
And those beats are (mostly) easy to find for the melody line.

But where there are rests in the inner voice, I have to really stare at the notes, state at the score, to see what kind of a rest something is (i.e., 8th rest, 16th rest) and then I find I’m looking really hard to match up where notes in the LH and the RH line up, and where they don’t. If that makes sense.

I think maybe it might be easier for me to sightread if there was one fewer measure per line and that inner voice line was spread out more. (I don’t mean to complain, especially since you made this score out of the kindness of your heart! But maybe if you see where I’m struggling, you could offer some advice?)

Anyway, I assume that once I spend a little more time with it, that issue will dissolve.

I think I had a similar problem with September Song, because it has these inner voices and it took me sort of while to decide how to distribute some of those inner notes across the RH and LH. I think the music that is easiest to sightread is music where there’s almost zero on-the-fly decision-making needed about those kinds of questions.

So hopefully, since I eventually found my way into the score for Sept Song, that means I will find my way into the score for this piece.

@Rubens if, after reading this probably incoherent message, you have any playing advice (or reading advice) please share!

Also, @rogerch I’m curious what you might have to say, since you’re playing this without knowing the original. What tempo do you think you’re playing at?

That might be part of my problem, I can’t hear it slow in my head, but I need to play it slow for now.

And here’s a selection of September Song, also by Ffrench. I had a hard time sightreading this at first, but now I’m playing it at tempo and hoping to have it record-ready by the end of this month.

Hmmm, looking at Sept Song, I can’t decide if it’s easier than Miracles or not… I can play Sept Song now, so it’s hard to compare.

I think Sept Song has a more obvious melody line, so that may make it easier… and fewer rests. You wouldn’t think rests should add difficulty, but I think they add a reading challenging (maybe only for someone like me who doesn’t play by ear?)

Here’s Sept Song if you want to listen:

Rubens Sorry you've been struggling with inner voices, I will increase your medication

I guess I walked right into that one!!!

Ok I’m going to work on this now (I usually practice at night so this feels like a treat!

Rubens ShiroKuro
Do not despair! I'd say this is slightly more difficult than September Song.

Interesting... I spent maybe 45 minutes on Miracles today.... and I'm thinking it's easier than Sept. Song... I'm only getting start though, let's see how I feel after working on for a week

Anyway, I had a much better time with the score today! I did listen a bit, not too much though because I'm still playing it quite slow. But I think I can now actually work on the music from the score.

I think the reason I felt like it's a little easier than Sept Song is because today I didn't feel like it was a struggle to distribute those inner voices in Miracles between the LH and RH. Whereas when I was learning Sept Song, that was a huge struggle for me.

Although maybe Miracles just feels easier because I can already play Sept Song and maybe I've picked up some Ffrench-esque thing that makes Miracles more accessible as a result of having played Sept. Song.... If that's true, then after working on Miracles and getting it polished, maybe next I should revisit some of the pieces in his songbook that I previously felt were too hard...

Anyway, more to the point:

ThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYou @Rubens I am so grateful for your score!!! Being able to work on this makes me so happy!

@Rubens that makes sense. I'm really enjoying your comments, they're very helpful!

Oh btw I forgot to say, today I forced myself to just work on measures 1 through 12 (m12 is 2nd line on page 2). So I haven't gotten to m34 yet. But yesterday, I was plodding through the whole thing and just drowning in the notes. I think that's why I found it so hard, I couldn't find the musical thoughts.

Today, zeroing on that section, it went much better!

Oh, one more btw Rubens, I'm glad you like this piece! It's been driving me crazy for a year now, wanting to play it!

Rubens Ffrench baroque.

@rogerch glad to hear you're enjoying it too! I'll let you know when I move past m13.

So, here's a question... for @Rubens and @rogerch but also anyone else who might be reading...

Do you think there would a benefit to spending some time analyzing this piece and maybe writing in chord names, with the goal of that being to "play the chords" rather than "play the notes"? (If you see what I mean, I don't mean I would play a block chord where something is written arpeggiated).

I thought I would benefit from doing that with Sept Song, but I never did and eventually I got the notes into my fingers such that now I'm playing the music of it rather than just playing the notes.

With Miracles, of course, I've only spent two days on it so far, so there's not really anything wrong with focusing on playing the notes at this stage.

But I wonder if this piece, even more than Sept Song, would benefit from that kind of approach.

What do you think?

Ok, I will try this.

I am such a strong reader, I never do that kind of thing.

I wish you had access to other scores by Ffrench, because I'd love to hear your thoughts about how this piece is different and similar to other music of his. I do think this piece, and Sept Song, were largely improvised, and I suspect that's the real reason why they haven't been included in his official score collections. But other pieces strike me as more "traditional" and their written versions seem to suggest that.

At the same time, he has pieces that are similar (ish) to Miracles, very flowy and chord-based, but those are included in his score books... I'm not at home right now, but I'll look later and see if there are one or two to compare....