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 Too much Bach in my life.

      Maybe that's why it was so easy for you transcribe this!!

      It makes me wonder about Ffrench's training. As far as I know, he was traditionally trained in the classical repertoire.

        ShiroKuro

        I'd say Miracles is more difficult in its first page which is quite busy with the intertwined voices, and the section that starts at bar 34, with its syncopated rhythm, but other than that it's about at the same difficulty level. I'm not usually a big fan of this kind of music but I like this piece, especially that syncopated section, exquisite. And yes, Ffrench's classic training really shows here, especially his training in Ffrench baroque. (Bad pun)

            ShiroKuro 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?

            The first two times I played through, I just forged ahead as well as I could. I didn't get the voicing right and I stumbled through the trickier rhythms. Tempo was probably half speed.

            Later in the evening I analyzed the piece some more so I could play more accurately. There were two patterns that I struggled to understand: measure 13 and others like it, and measure 37 and others like it. In both cases there is an eighth rest that I mistook for a 16th rest so there didn't seem to be enough 16th notes in the measures. Once I realized those were eighth rests it made sense.

            I worked for a while on those two patterns and then played through a couple more times paying more attention to voicing. It was a lot harder than my first read throughs. If I decide to learn this piece it's going to take a lot of time and effort (it always does! 🙂). This is a lovely piece and it would be worth it!

                rogerch

                Yes the great syncopated parts. It may help to add barlines to divide those bars into 4 beats to learn them properly.

                  @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?

                      ShiroKuro
                      My answer: absolutely.

                      I even thought of transcribing it in "fake book" version, because I believe this is how the piece was composed. Only the melody, the occasional secondary melodies,.and the harmonies are set in stone, the rest just flows with it.

                        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....

                          ShiroKuro

                          One thing to keep in mind also is that when artists record such pieces it doesn't sound as improvised because the recordings are often edited. But if they play it live you can hear "inconsistencies" that don't take anything away from the beauty of the music.

                              ShiroKuro 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"?

                              This sounds like a good idea to me. Not just to learn this piece, but to work on being able to instantly look at the notes and recognize the chords. I recognize simple chords when sight reading and I find it really helpful. For non-diatonic chords I’m not there yet but I’m working on it.

                                  rogerch Not just to learn this piece, but to work on being able to instantly look at the notes and recognize the chords. I recognize simple chords when sight reading and I find it really helpful.

                                  I am a pretty strong sightreader for the kinds of pieces I usually play (no surprise there of course!) I don't consciously name chords while playing (just like I don't consciously name individual notes while playing). But I definitely pick up those patterns...

                                  Here's something I'm playing right now that I would say is very easy to sightread and very easy to find the chords inside of the notes

                                  Painting the Sun, by David Lanz

                                  Again, like the piece I posted a snippet from above, Wind, this one has no inner voices and just overall much easier. Also, the LH is sooo repetitive, I can practically put it on autopilot.

                                  Ahh, I think that's why it will be helpful to do some chord analysis on Miracles: those inner voices make it harder to see what's happening in the score compared to the score for a piece like Wind or Painting the Sun....

                                  And the same goes for Sept Song, I had to really work to get that into my fingers. So I will need to do the same with Miracles....

                                    Rubens One thing to keep in mind also is that when artists record such pieces it doesn't sound as improvised because the recordings are often edited. But if they play it live you can hear "inconsistencies" that don't take anything away from the beauty of the music.

                                    Sure, but these are all pieces that I have found my way to from listening to his recordings (rather than starting with the score and then seeking out a recording) so that's what I'm basing my impressions on...

                                    For example, Ffrench has some pieces with strings or with a full orchestra. Those don't sound improvised, and the piano solo score doesn't look improvised.

                                    But in the score for Sept Song (which isn't his official score but it's a transcription of his recording) there are sections which repeat the same musical thought but with the kind of minor variations that to me suggest improvising...

                                    So what I'm thinking of here is whether it makes sense to view Miracles as improvised but other pieces of his as not...

                                        ShiroKuro
                                        It sure makes sense.
                                        Even in classical music, there are parts where those accompaniments could be played differently from the score, when they serve as a tapestry of overtones (e.g., parts of Scriabin Etude Op.42 no.5).

                                          ShiroKuro for pieces with multiple voices, I think it’s also helpful to have very clear in your head what the different voices are, because if you don’t have that clarity, then when you play it, that lack of clarity is quite apparent, and things can become garbled and/or lost. For me, it’s very helpful to spend some real time practicing the different voices on their own, which helps me hear and understand them individually, before trying to understand how they relate to each other. Visually, you can use different colored highlighters to mark the different voices, which may help clarify the musical lines in a visual way. I have the impression that you’re a pretty visual learner!

                                              ShiroKuro also if you end up redistributing notes, it can be helpful to re-write things so that the score looks more like what your hands are doing. For notes here and there, it is pretty simple to white notes out and bubble notes in, whether on printed scores or through your favorite score reading app. It can take some time, but having it written out in a way that reflects what your hands are doing can really decrease the cognitive load of reading.

                                                  Sgisela for pieces with multiple voices, I think it’s also helpful to have very clear in your head what the different voices are, because if you don’t have that clarity, then when you play it, that lack of clarity is quite apparent, and things can become garbled and/or lost.

                                                  Yes, this is very important! I keep going back and forth about whether Miracles or Sept Song is harder (not that it matters but...) but one way that I think Miracles is harder than Sept Song is that Sept Song has a very clear melody (to my ear anyway), and that melody is much easier to pick, and sing for example, than the melody in Miracles. @Rubens advice early on to make those melody notes in Miracles stand out is a case in point.

                                                  For me, it’s very helpful to spend some real time practicing the different voices on their own, which helps me hear and understand them individually, before trying to understand how they relate to each other.

                                                  Yes. I rarely do HS practice (for example), but I think playing the non-melody voices and really hearing them, will be helpful for me.

                                                  Sgisela also if you end up redistributing notes, it can be helpful to re-write things so that the score looks more like what your hands are doing.

                                                  Ugh. I probably really need to learn some notation program. I am so incompetent in that area.

                                                  With Sept Song, I tried to write in all the spots where I distributed notes into RH or LH (i.e. notes written in the lower staff but played by the RH etc.)

                                                  I'm not at that point with Miracles yet, and working on it yesterday, I found it much more intuitive to distribute notes across LH-RH than Sept Song was, but I probably need to write in on the Miracles score so that I'm playing it the same way each time, and so that I don't have to re-think each time...

                                                      ShiroKuro I’m not very sophisticated with this. I had tried using musescore a while back for a project and just gave up. But what I do is use Newzik (you could also do this with ForScore) and just white notes out and put notes in, like you’d do with pencil and paper. Examples:
                                                      Original score:

                                                      Score with Fs redistributed to the RH— I think it’s pretty obvious where I used the white marker on the bottom staff and where I added the notes in the upper staff:

                                                      Here’s another one. Original score:

                                                      This is in B major, and for the final chord, the choice to redistribute was to play the low B octave with the left hand, the B major 2nd inversion with the right hand, and the final b with the LH. For a while I tried to just use hairpins:

                                                      But even though it was physically easier to play than how I was playing it before the redistribution, my brain was having a hard time with the RH 2nd inversion that was split between the two staves. So i edited it to this, which may not be totally musically kosher, but it makes sense to my brain, and makes it very easy for me to understand what I’m supposed to do.

                                                      I did a lot of redistributing in the piece, and for most of it, I just used hairpins:

                                                        Ahh, ok, I don't feel so bad for not using notation software then. 😅

                                                        I do that kind of thing with forScore all the time. I just need to make it a point to do it for Miracles I think.