I'm back to practice today after three very busy days, including one where I visited my friend and played her 2-year old Yamaha C5X which I hadn't seen since she first got it. It really threw me off and I'm glad I already know that the performance piano at the workshop is easy to play! I always thought I like a deeper key dip but the C5X key dip felt very deep compared to my Bösendorfer, and the edges of the keys felt sharper. It had very little resonance compared to my piano (small room) and the keys sprung back very quickly, and I felt that it was clear and unforgiving and highlighted all my mistakes. Also, my wrists were tired after just a few minutes.

I guess the light touch on my piano is why I can play for 5-6 hours without much break and not be tired! The touch response isn't what I prefer but after installing a new action and hammers from the factory and reweighting all the keys, it is very controllable and doesn't get in my way. My new tech says he specializes in key rebalancing and I was considering doing it at my next big regulation but now I think perhaps I should leave it alone unless he can somehow get it back to the touch it had from the factory, where I preferred the general feeling but the touchweights were all over the map so I always felt like I was fighting the piano.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting to play my friend's piano and find it so different from mine that I struggled. And funny thing but she finds my piano unforgiving! I guess we just all get used to what we have at home.

twocats Today I worked on the second half of the first movement, and I am reminded that when the camera is on, things that were fine before start falling apart 😆

Getting to that stage is exceptional/outstanding already.

      SouthPark Getting to that stage is exceptional/outstanding already.

      Thank you! 🙂 It took a lot of work to get to this point but there's still a lot needed to get it performance ready, or at the minimum "play mostly the right notes at speed". But I think it is achievable in the 3+ weeks left.

        22 Days Left: second half of 3rd movement

        I practiced for maybe 3-4 hours today. Today I was supposed to work on the second half of the 3rd movement and also the 4th movement but I'll have to work on the latter tomorrow.

        This still needs a lot of work and then it got much worse when I was recording, but I'm sharing it warts and all. I'm also very tired and I'm not sure if my brain absorbed all that much today. Usually I see progress happening during every session and it's very motivating! I am determined to get better rest and more practice over the next few days.

        Also watching myself... ugh. I hate the way I look when I play! A couple of years ago I took some lessons with a guy for ergonomics; he was trained in Taubman and Alexander technique. He helped to train me out of my "floating pinkies" (pinkies sticking up when not in use) but now I see that my right hand fingers are very tense and curled upward when I'm playing chords. I think I need to make some efforts to relax them. My left hand has no problems playing in a relaxed way but my right hand always looks activated.

          twocats
          I love your video, and the way your hands move on the keyboard!
          I'm just curious, your hands don't look very large (I hope you can take this as a compliment 🤣). Can you reach a tenth? I'm asking because you don't seem to have much trouble playing Brahms' chords, and yet they're not made for small hands.

              Rubens thank you, I'm glad you don't think my playing looks terrible!

              My hands aren't big but thankfully they aren't tiny! I can play octaves with ease and can reach a ninth depending on the circumstance. There are a couple of places where I'm rolling a tenth chord but other than that Brahms didn't put many big chords in this piece! There are quite a lot of legato octaves though. There was a local teacher I went to briefly for help when I got obsessed with Chopin Ballade No.1 (actually the piece that started my piano upgrade journey!); she used pedal to do legato seemingly everywhere and then would do whatever was easiest for her hands. I never bought into that and think you actually need to play the melody line legato for it to sound convincing. I'm able to play a slow octave with my 1st and 4th fingers so if they're adjacent notes I do a lot of 1-5 to 1-4 to 1-5 walking so that I can keep the top note legato.

              I had abandon plans to play the 4th movement of the Franck violin sonata (which can stand on its own quite well without the rest of the movements) because once I started looking at it, it was filled with tenths! I started marking up the score to use my right hand to play the top notes of the left hand chords but it made it way too complicated, so I gave up 🙁 I don't know what a professional with small hands would have done, do the awkward RH substitutions? Roll everything? Skip the top note?

              My Polish piano teacher had us do hand stretching exercises so my hands can reach their maximum span (pic below). Also, since I'm already taking a photo, do you ever show off your piano muscles? I tell people my hands have biceps 😆

                  I watched the video and it's actually great that I'm recording, because now I'm seeing a lot of places where I should be playing the left hand more softly!

                  twocats Wow! I can comfortably play a ninth and with a lot of work I can play some tenths, but if my hands were as flexible as yours are I think the tenths would be easy. I'll have to look into hand stretching exercises!


                  !<

                  My hands don't have biceps either. I've got to get them to the gym!

                      rogerch I did the exercises as a teenager, never did them after that but I think playing all those octaves automatically stretches my hands. It's never too late to start! 🙂

                        rogerch oh I should probably explain how to actually do the hand stretching. Aside from stretching out your hand as wide as it'll go, use your other hand to spread each pair of adjacent fingers apart. It might be slightly painful but just be gentle and don't overdo it. Over time you should become more flexible!

                            twocats
                            Thanks for this tip. Before reading your post I would have said I could play a ninth. With regular hand stretching a tenth may be possible.

                              @twocats Strong looking hands. Look like they could squeeze real tight. And open foreign beer bottles. And yet still ladylike.

                                I'm really enjoying your practice sessions! It seems kind of odd to say that but there's something enjoyable about the music making process especially when you are playing great music and you have a really good approach.

                                  Pathbreaker I'm really enjoying your practice sessions!

                                  Thank you, and nice to have you all following along! It feels like my little project has become an online social gathering of sorts 🙂

                                  I think I'm going to go back to the 1st movement today and tomorrow since I'm planning to play it at a piano gathering on Thursday. Someone suggested I just do it "Quartet Minus Three" since I said I don't have time to work up a solo piece. Hopefully hearing the same stuff over and over in the next 3 weeks doesn't get old for all of you!

                                    twocats I'm able to play a slow octave with my 1st and 4th fingers so if they're adjacent notes I do a lot of 1-5 to 1-4 to 1-5 walking so that I can keep the top note legato.

                                    @Rubens I'm practicing and just realized I can also do slow 1-3 octaves! Super useful to have options for legato octaves 🙂

                                        Rubens I've been doing it already, I just forgot! I realized it when I looked down, haha.