[Journal] Brahms g minor piano quartet performance readiness

I practiced for two hours very quietly after I got home, because it was already 10pm and now it's midnight. I worked on the 3rd movement with lots of repeated practice on any spots that have been giving me trouble (which hopefully will ferment in my brain tonight) and then went back to the 1st movement, which had already magically improved from when I last practiced it.

There are so many tricky parts that I had focused on all these months while pretty much sight reading the easier parts, which meant that they always got sloppy the minute I hit record. Today I practiced every single note with intent.

I think it's going to be acceptable by the time I go but none of the movements are feeling great. The Dvorak quintet was in excellent shape last year both technically and musically; the 4th movement was weaker but still ready and I could be proud of how I played the rest. The Brahms doesn't feel remotely close to that. Well, this quartet is famously difficult and it was a bucket list piece! All I can do is see how much better I can get it in the next week. Maybe all this late night desperation will pay off

9 Days Left: 3rd movement

Single digit days left I have never felt so desperate and unprepared for a piano deadline before.

But I'm really glad I practiced late last night because I see progress. There are a couple of pages that need more memorization to play fluently and then a few spots here and there but I think the 3rd movement is going to be ok. I'll take a little break from it for the next few days to focus on the other movements.

Back to working on the 2nd movement before I have an appointment.

9 Days Left: 2nd movement

I'm about to have my appointment but I recorded the 2nd movement right before I left and saw that it finished uploading. It's pretty good! I realized that during the una corda chords if I hold my wrists higher and have flat fingers the tone is better and more controlled.

I know what bits I have to work on and I need the Animato to be a consistent tempo (either start it slower or play the rest faster) but there aren't any really big things that I have to work on. Yay!! Now back to the 1st and 4th movements, which are the hard ones.

Pallas Sending you good thoughts.

Thank you! I am not actually freaking out, I'm just being dramatic But I am cancelling what I can this week so that I can practice!

Rubens Btw I find it quite puzzling that you feel the action of your piano is so different when playing una corda as opposed to tre corde, because all the una corda does is shift the entire action few millimeters to the right. I feel zero difference in the action on my piano,.only a difference in sound. Maybe you can describe in what way the action feels different to you?

So maybe this story will explain it. When my tech brought back my new action and hammers from his shop, I could not play pp. I literally could not play softly; I would try and nothing would come out. He's not a very delicate player and could not replicate it. I told him I've never had this issue with any other piano. After a bunch of thought and discussion he had a theory that the hammers needed to be voiced down. After he left I realized that I could easily test the theory by closing the lid! I did that and suddenly I could play softly again!!

What was happening was that the piano was so loud that my touch was instinctively light, so to play softly I was lightening my touch to the point that I was only playing ghost notes.

Not sure if that's related to the una corda issue but I suspect the new hammers are too heavy and it already takes more effort than I'd like to play pianissimo. I'm used to my piano now and I can do it (it helps that the regulation is very dialed in), but it's not effortless. I think my touch is different because of the softer sound of u.c. and the heavy hammers are more obvious and I can no longer "fake it" with the control as well.

I think lightening the hammers and doing a key rebalance will be expensive work if it needs to be done and I might wait a year or two, let the regulation deteriorate a little first. My new tech said he won't have time to check the weights with his equipment his next visit since I want him to voice down the whole piano and it'll have to be during a future visit. So it's more of a long term plan...

Rubens It seems the issue is that it's difficult to play pianissimo on your piano without hitting ghost notes.

Oh that issue is long resolved. He voiced down the piano a lot and no more ghost notes. I have no idea whether they were true ghost notes or not. He did a concert regulation (3 rounds of regulation) so I have no problems playing softly in a controlled way, but because of the assumed heavy hammers I have to have a certain touch and minimum amount of force to do it.

keff thank you! Do you mean that you like the tempi that I'm attempting or the fact that I'm taking the time to do slow practice?

keff thank you! I have been working on it for almost 10 months now. At the beginning I could only get through a few pages in an hour and it was painfully slow. I find that unless it's all techniques that I know well from years of practice (scale runs, arpeggios, etc), it really comes down to being so familiar with the piece that your fingers just know where to land next. I'm only now getting to that point. Then you will find yourself naturally being able to play faster.

I think if you give it a few months to get note fluency the speed will come in the Mozart! Practicing scales and those kinds of exercises will definitely help as well, because then you'll already know the patterns.

Rubens haha the "CHEATING!!" thumbnail is a bit of a clickbait but that was a great video. I watched it while I was cleaning up in the kitchen

Hands are tired today... I think I'm going to take it easy and not play anything too loud and fast. Will continue trying to get the notes "under my fingers".

5 Days Left: all movements

I should have done this before; instead of making the videos at the end​ of my practice I decided to go in cold and film it all at the beginning of my practice, at performance speed. It really exposes everything that needs work!!

The 1st movement is generally pretty good except for the two bars with new fingerings and the hardest section. I'm working on it now and making notes in the score to remind myself when the pattern changes so that I don't stumble. There's also a page near the end where I'm not solid on the notes but today I played it fine for the recording. But I was internally panicking so that's a sign that it needs more practice!

The 2nd movement is the most solid, except for una corda foot confusion. My left foot is not used to doing much, let alone figuring out when to hit the Bluetooth pedal vs a piano pedal. Plus a few minor places where I need to memorize where my fingers need to be at a page turn. But overall it's feeling pretty good.

The 3rd movement weird chords are not solid, and the part with the "military sounding" bits are barely memorized and today they fell apart at the faster tempo. Not feeling ready at all for those parts and they need a lot more work.

The 4th movement: maybe I started too fast? But it's clearly also not solid with wrong notes all over the place. Weirdly enough the parallel runs where I said I couldn't play the left hand well were surprisingly good. And my right hand scales are always super solid and sound great. Even if I play a bunch of wrong notes in the cadenza it still sounds impressive if I play it with confidence But there's still so much to work on and it's difficult and fast.