What Piece(s) Are You Working on Right Now?

Pallas · 2024-05-31T12:42:16+00:00

I've been posting my progress inside an Alfred thread for some time now, but I'm interested to know what other people are working on, not just us method book...

iternabe

Picked one piece I really want to play from Faber Popular Book 1. Still working on dynamics and tempo, but at least I've got one recording that's passable.

iternabe

iternabe Picked one piece I really want to play from Faber Popular Book 1. Still working on dynamics and tempo, but at least I've got one recording that's passable.

Finally at tempo now. Having a hard time keeping left hand quieter. And getting that arpeggiated chord at the end come out even is still hit or miss.

lilypad

Faber did a great job on that arrangement. I sounds very authentic. Your recording does it justice even at the slower tempo.

I tend to get too obsessed with tempo at the cost of a piece not sounding as good as it should.

TC3

Let's see here ...

I'm working on some tunes for my little garageband in which I sometimes play bass and other times keys.

learned but still very much practicing an arrangement of "Baby Please Don't Go" loosely based on the Them version, me on "organ" (Roland VR-730)
polishing my arranged / semi-improvised version of "How Long Blues" by Leroy Carr, me on piano (Roland RD-2000)
just starting to learn "Karma Police" by Radiohead so that a friend can guest-sing with us, me on piano again

For my own stuff, I'm working on playing and singing a semi-arranged, semi-improvised version of "Worried Life Blues" by Big Maceo Merriweather. Like "How Long Blues" above, it's something I can do on my own or with the group as the spirit moves us. My feeble singing is really sticking out as the weak point right now ...

Pallas

TC3 just starting to learn "Karma Police" by Radiohead so that a friend can guest-sing with us, me on piano again

I love Radiohead an unreasonable amount. I hope you'll consider sharing when it's ready?

TC3

Pallas Would love to! It may be a while yet. The "band" is me (bass / keys), the missuz (drums), and our pal Steve who just started playing guitar this year. As such, he's still learning a lot of new chords and it can take a while for us to get up to speed on things -- which is just fine since this is all in fun. I'll be sure to share when it's ready, thanks for asking!

Pallas

TC3 Until then, I look forward to whatever you share. I really enjoy your videos.

thepianoplayer416

2 weeks ago played 2 pieces at a piano meetup across town including a Bach chorale and "Sarabande" from French Suite 3.

There is an upcoming piano meetup on the weekend with the theme "peace". I'm working on an arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" for the event in additon to the 2 pieces I'm already playing. Probably a simplified version of Bob Dylan "Blowin' in the Wind" which is a song written for the anti-war movement during the Vietnam war.

Pallas

I'm working on Melody by Schumann, and when I started it, I had a sinking feeling that it was way over my head, and I would never get it. But I'm just doing the MG shuffle, one measure at a time, and finding it bending to my will.

But it's like that with each new piece. Oh no, I'm NEVER going to get this one! It's over for me! No, just a bit more work, 20 minutes at a time, set the timer, stop whinging, and go!

Gooseberry

Pallas Melody is a lovely piece, very rewarding. I’m sure you will play it beautifully 😀

Pallas Oh no, I'm NEVER going to get this one! It's over for me!

I know that feeling only too well. My teacher used to tell me in moments like these: “I know you can do it, believe me”, and I believed him and did my best…
Now, since I don’t have a teacher, I tend to give up too quickly. That’s what happened a few weeks ago when I tried to learn Olafur Arnalds’ “Saman”. But maybe it was really too difficult for me, I don’t know. The constant changes of metre from 4/4 to 6/4 were intimidating and I couldn’t quite figure out the rhythm, which added to the overall difficulty of the piece. But I still love it and will get back to it sometime in the future.
Then I found a new piece, which I really liked, and it turned out that I could play it even in a shorter time than expected. Oh, what a wonderful feeling, what a comfort! It was “Pigalle” by Virginio Aiello - well, evidently the piece was a more reasonable choice for my current set of skills 🙂

Now I’m working on:
Patrick Doyle “My Father’s Favourite” from Sense and Sensibility (from the book “Jane Austen’s World” for piano),
"Down by the Salley Gardens" (from the book “Irish Folk Songs Collection” arranged by June Armstrong),
“Wild Horses” from Martha Mier “Keyboard Kaleidoscope 2”,
“Van Gogh” - another piece by Virginio Aiello,
each of them in a different stage of learning.

I have also fallen in love with the music of another Italian composer, Andrea Vanzo, and would like to learn his “Spring” and “Valzer d’Inverno”, but maybe in a year’s time, as both are still too difficult. Or maybe when I have a teacher again.

Pallas

I didn't get a lesson last week because my teacher was out of town, so I'm having to remind myself that I'm paying for her expert opinion on things like, "It's taking me more time than usual to learn this piece with the articulations we talked about versus the legato way this piece is often played, so I would like reassurance that I'm not punching too far above my weight class." I mean, she picked it, so I'm guessing the answer will be that it's fine. But I think there's a sweet spot of difficulty, where it's not too easy, not too hard, and I'm glad she gets to decide these things not me, because left to myself I would probably not have been so ambitious. I keep having to back up and go one note at a time to find the LH/RH lifts.

hebele

Pallas please tell me that "Minuet in G" is not an early beginner piece as opposed to what some part of the internet thinks. I've recently gave that version a go instead of the simplified version in my method book. And found myself saying "I will never be able to grok this". My hands are refusing to play together, even after disregarding the trills. I really like how it sounds though. So I'm not going to give up. But the progress is sloooow 🦥.

lilypad

Pallas The local community college had this piece as part of a Piano III class. The teacher also taught it in his Piano II class that I took years ago. My guess is that it was either too difficult for some of the Piano II class students or he was teaching it again to add more layers to the onion.

As far as the internet and piece levels go, I recently watched a YouTube video where a concert pianist was recommending pieces for intermediate pianists. They sounded pretty advanced to me and when I looked them up on the Piano Street syllabus they were grade 10!

Baroque music seems to take up a lot more bandwidth for me than other eras. I generally have to learn in much smaller chunks. I've had good luck with just adding a new note each time I repeat a passage. I also discovered a close to painless way of adding "onion layers" of articulation or dynamics. When I do "X times perfect" repetitions I work on adding in whatever I can manage at a time with each repetition.

BartK

hebele please tell me that "Minuet in G" is not an early beginner piece as opposed to what some part of the internet thinks

The internet is stupid (except this forum of course 😉). The adjective "early" means that you have just started that level and "late" means you have been at that level for a while and are close to moving to the next level. So, "early beginner" means you just started playing piano. That piece is not something a raw beginner who just started is expected to play.

Pallas

hebele I've recently gave that version a go instead of the simplified version in my method book. And found myself saying "I will never be able to grok this". My hands are refusing to play together, even after disregarding the trills.

I've found "not knowing what I don't know" to be the hardest part of piano. I can sit down with this piece, and throw myself at it, and completely not understand what I'm not getting. And then in the lesson I'll find out there's yet another layer in the ol' onion I didn't know was there. I keep thinking I can figure it out! I can! But, I can't. I need it broken down and explained to me using small words, one syllable words, enunciated slowly. 🤣

Pallas

lilypad Wonderful, helpful reply. Thank you so much. My lesson is today, so I'm going to tell my teacher how it went with this piece and ask her how that sounds. If she thinks it's fine and I'm track as she expected, I'll stop worrying about it.

thepianoplayer416

The last piece my teacher got her students at RCM level 3 to play was "The Elegant Toreador" by Seymour Bernstein. A modern Spanish-sounding piece like you're in a bull fighting rink.

In the middle are 2 notes (1 for LH and 1 for RH) with a wavy line "gliss.". The teacher did a demo in class how we'd use the finger nail on 1 hand and glide across the white keys. Be careful not to cause your finger to bleed.

keff

thepianoplayer416 Be careful not to cause your finger to bleed.

I was taught not to use tips of fingers/finger nails but to use the back of fingers. I find it most comfortable if I use three fingers to sweep up and down but also possible with one or two. This technique will not cause bleeding or be painful.

WieWaldi

iternabe Never watched Dowbtown Abbey, so I don't know its soundtrack and how fast it is played in the TV series. I listened to both your versions back and forth, and I like the slow one better. It has more musicality in it.

Pallas

iternabe In my still not very informed opinion, I think you're making great progress. I'm noticing that you seem to have quite a bit of tension in your hands. I also have tension in my hands, and I often get feedback that relaxing my hands and focusing on hearing the singing line of the phrases will help smooth out what sounds a little choppy/thunky right now. I think the balance between hands is actually good, and the legato is what needs more attention, including holding all the notes to the full value. So you might consider slowing the piece back down quite a bit, until you can really feel for the tension and locate the source. I always love your videos. Good luck!

BartK

iternabe

I haven't listened to any previous version but I think this tempo is good. It does sound a bit choppy though. To make it more flowing and musical you should think in phrases rather than notes or measures. Imagine signing the melody line. You start a bit softer and then it grows to a high point and then tapers off. The final phrases should be like an echo - much softer.

A few comments about your technique. In the LH you are using too much finger movement and not enough rotation. Your hand arch is too flat and your joints are collapsing. Go extremely slow and observe your hand shape. The knuckle joints should be the highest point of the hand and make a nice arch, and when you press keys the last joint of the finger should not collapse inwards. It's better to practice slowly with correct form than try to go faster and ingrain bad habits.

thepianoplayer416

The last piece was a simplified version of the Bob Dylan song "Blowin' in the Wind". It's for an upcoming piano meetup event tomorrow.

iternabe

WieWaldi iternabe Never watched Dowbtown Abbey, so I don't know its soundtrack and how fast it is played in the TV series. I listened to both your versions back and forth, and I like the slow one better. It has more musicality in it.

@WieWaldi If the faster one sounds less musical, it's entirely on me.

The tempo marking on the sheet is "Moderately fast". Faber's own demo is at 148 bpm. My faster version is about 135 bpm, and slow version is about 100 bpm.

« Previous Page Next Page »