On noticing the gap…

ShiroKuro · 2025-02-23T13:04:22+00:00

On noticing the gap between what I can play, and what I want to play…. Here’s a piece I’m working on polishing right now, New Day by Philip Wesley. This pie...

Josephine

pianoloverus

I don't completely agree. The music of some composers is more difficult for me than the music of other composers. A grade 7 Schumann piece is easier for me than a grade 5 piece of Edvard Grieg for instance.

pianoloverus

Josephine I don't completely agree. The music of some composers is more difficult for me than the music of other composers. A grade 7 Schumann piece is easier for me than a grade 5 piece of Edvard Grieg for instance.

If you know that's the case, then you simply have to make adjustments when choosing works by those composers. It doesn't mean you can't use my suggestion about finding your approximate level based on the pieces you play and using that together with some difficulty rating system to choose other pieces. No rating system is perfect for everyone. They're meant to be general guidelines. Unless you've played many, many works by both those composers, it's also possible you're making a generalization about those composers based on too small a sample size. Or you might have to play more pieces by Grieg To get used to his style or get more at ease dealing with whatever it is about his writing that makes it difficult for you.

ShiroKuro

Josephine this is a good reminder that these grading systems are inherently subjective, incomplete. Helpful often but only a rough guide at best.

I think this applies more to pieces intermediate and beyond, btw, rather than beginning level.

Intermediate and above, pianists start to have experience playing one style or the other more, and we may get lopsided in our skills etc.

So two people playing at an advanced or even upper intermediate level may react differently to the same piece…

twocats

Josephine I don't completely agree. The music of some composers is more difficult for me than the music of other composers. A grade 7 Schumann piece is easier for me than a grade 5 piece of Edvard Grieg for instance.

Sometimes it's the difficulty of playing it well! For Schumann you might have to bring out the melody notes while having quiet accompaniment underneath supported by the right hand. If you looked at just the notes, the Schumann seems easier but playing it well requires more skill 🙂

pianoloverus

ShiroKuro this is a good reminder that these grading systems are inherently subjective, incomplete. Helpful often but only a rough guide at best.

I would say it's more like a rough guide at worst.

Josephine

ShiroKuro

Yes, I don't know what it exactly is with Grieg. If it's not perfect it's horrible. Nothing in between.

ShiroKuro

pianoloverus I would say it's more like a rough guide at worst.

😂

Josephine

twocats

I think playing Grieg takes more skill. It's less forgiving, like Mozart.

twocats

Josephine it's a different kind of skill, for sure!

keystring

pianoloverus In terms of your last paragraph it's certainly true that just practicing a piece or a passage over and over will not necessarily lead to improvement or the improvement may be very slow.

I did not refer to this practice. I did spend some time in other posts exploring ways of approaching pieces. This went together with the idea that what may make a piece seem out of reach might be missing technique or knowledge, but it might also be approach. This might be huge. But by approach I was not thinking of something as simplistic as not to repeat something over and over.
I think a few others have addressed the idea of "ranking systems" since your post appeared. Certainly these can be a tool, with caveats. I'd have some thoughts and examples but am afraid it would bring this thread astray from its purpose.

keystring

Trying to get back to what I wrote a few days ago - I think the idea was that if you did not have incremental teaching that built one thing on top of the other, you may have holes in unexpected areas. If you run into such holes while attempting a piece, you might back off, address that missing (the hole) and then return to the piece. If the "hole" appears in one section of a piece that you really want to work on, you might work on everything except that part - then return to it at a later date, working on the "hole-section". You might work at it at a given level, then return to it adding a next level, if the piece is conducive to that.

Going through the piece before starting, marking out areas of difficulties and getting an idea (the pencil is your friend) could be a good first step.

These are all ideas around the idea of the "gap".

ShiroKuro

keystring I think the idea was that if you did not have incremental teaching that built one thing on top of the other, you may have holes in unexpected areas.

I think having holes is inevitable, even with a good teacher conscientiously making sure you're getting skills that build on previous skills. So things you just can't play until you encounter them in context (i.e., in a piece, not in an isolated exercise).

And that's ok. You encounter it in the piece, and then you learn it and it gets added to your tool box.

If you run into such holes while attempting a piece, you might back off, address that missing (the hole) and then return to the piece.

That's basically what I'm doing.... and I guess that's what I've been doing with my playing off and on for year. I find a piece I want to play, I practice it, realize it's too hard for me and set it aside and work on something else. Over the years, I've come back to many pieces and found them playable when they were not the first time I attempted them.

OTOH, I still have a long list of pieces that were too hard, and probably still all.

It's an iterative process. But getting to play wonderful music makes it more than bearable!

pianoloverus

ShiroKuro keystring I think the idea was that if you did not have incremental teaching that built one thing on top of the other, you may have holes in unexpected areas.

I think having holes is inevitable, even with a good teacher conscientiously making sure you're getting skills that build on previous skills. So things you just can't play until you encounter them in context (i.e., in a piece, not in an isolated exercise).

And that's ok. You encounter it in the piece, and then you learn it and it gets added to your tool box.

This is the generally used approach. If the hole is too big to fix that usually means the piece was not a good choice. The whole idea of a so-called stretch piece is. that it contains a hole.

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