Wishing by Alexis Ffrench

ShiroKuro

@Josephine and I were talking about this piece, I'm planning to play it for the first piece in a recital next month and I uploaded a practice recording of it (in the member's recording forum). So we thought it might be good to have a thread for it, so here we are.

Here is the piece, played by the composer:

The score can be purchased here:
https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0222106

I was going to use this piece as practice for memorization, but it's so easy to read, so far I have really only memorized a few measures here and there (sorry @twocats !) but maybe I'll memorize it... we'll see 😃

@Josephine do you think you'll start working on this?

Josephine

ShiroKuro

Yes! I'm memorizing from the start and memorized until the first repeat yesterday evening. This morning I played it a few times without the sheet music. It was still memorized. This evening I will try to learn the next section.

While playing I heard that don't play the left hand notes exactly at the same time, it sounds sloppy. I have to focus most on the left hand I think. It's also not easy to play soft with the left hand in the mid section of the piano. But it's a fun piece!

ShiroKuro

Yay, I'm glad you're playing this too! 🙂 And good for you for memorizing it. I am of course reading it. 😅

Josephine It's also not easy to play soft with the left hand in the mid section of the piano.

Yes, I find that I need to pay attention to bring out the RH and keep the LH from overpowering the melody. Also, if the LH is too strong then it gets that "oom pah pah, oom pah pah" 3/4 sound, which I want to avoid.

Josephine

ShiroKuro

Yes, I agree, I have to be careful not to play the bass notes too loud.

Josephine

I did a test, I didn't pratice it anymore after my post here. To find out what sort of memory I use at the start. I just sat down at the piano, and I forgot what the piece sounded like. I didn't have the sheetmusic because it's only my phone.

So what I used was visual memory of the keyboard. I remembered the notes for the left hand, and I remembered the first note of the melody, so where they are on the keyboard. I played the left hand first, and then that one right hand note and then I remembered what the piece sounds like. Then muscle memory was back as well. I can still play it. (Only that first short section until the repeat, I didn't learn the rest of it yet.)

ShiroKuro

That’s a very cool test to do @Josephine !

Josephine So what I used was visual memory of the keyboard. I remembered the notes for the left hand, and I remembered the first note of the melody, so where they are on the keyboard. I played the left hand first, and then that one right hand note and then I remembered what the piece sounds like.

Fantastic! One of the things we haven’t been talking about in the memorization thread is sort a more general (?) musical memory, just our memory of songs and music like when we can hear a piece in our head…

And the great thing about your test is that it shows one example of thst musical memory, since although you thought you forgot what the piece sounded like, just a few notes (and possibly having your hands on the keyboard) triggered your memory and the music returned to your conscious awareness.

For me, I had been listening to this piece for a long time before I ever decided to learn it (because I have tons of Alexis Ffrench’s music in my phone and I listen to him a lot). So I couldn’t do such a test with this piece…. But maybe I’ll try it sometime with a piece I don’t know…

ShiroKuro

BTW in other news, but still regarding Wishing, I’m working on bringing the tempo up just a little and trying to smooth out the rough spots. I think it’s going well, and I’m really glad I picked this for my opening piece in the recital, I feel like it will be a very unstressful way to start!