Would you believe that I went up there, and there was a stupid horn player in the hall, sitting on the Steinway's bench and practicing? hmph...I'll be going back soon.

The measure is getting better, by the way. The one after it, with all the little notes, is near perfect now, and I never thought I'd get there. The chromatic run later in the piece still isn't there yet, but that's because I've barely worked on it at all. It's not as interesting:



I've never had to play anything chromatic that fast, so it will just be a matter of repetition.

Stuff a dirty sock into his bell.

Glad it's getting better for you. I love that Etude, one of my favs from either Op 10 or Op 25. Never played it, but I sure love listening. Nothing like repetition to master those tough spots. I've been doing the same with all my pieces.

Her.

Oops, my bad.

So, Terez, did you get any practice on the Steinways without errant horn players butting in?

On another note, I here there's supposed to be rough thunderstorms down your way today. Duck and take cover!

haha, yes I did get tons of practicing in, but I started practicing other stuff besides that annoying measure. At least I've finally got fingerings I'm happy with for it. That's a good start - now I just need to add speed.

Because I know we're all bored...

Been mostly practicing the courante from the Bach e minor partita. It's got some tricky stuff in it that I'm finally almost able to play perfectly. Almost. This is at eighth note = about 144-160 (I think - not good at figuring out tempi in my head, don't pay attention to the numbers on the metronome, and I know I'm just playing it about as fast as it can possibly be played):


On that one ^ I'm suspending bottom sixteenth note in the right hand, in the last measure of the first line, and etc. in the next two measures.


Trying to suspend the pedal tone somehow in this one - right now, just with a touch of pedal on the downbeats, but I've thought about using the sostenuto pedal. In the second, third, and fourth measures of the first line, I just hold the descending bassline with my finger while playing the other notes (probably staccato).


This one is fun to play, but tricky cause in that last measure on the top line, in the right hand, you have to do some rapid stuff with 4 and 5, and the RH first bit on the second line is STILL vexing me - the change of direction, I think.


This is the trickiest bit in the whole piece, but I think I've finally got it down. I'm playing the right hand staccato through this one right now, just to make SURE I've got it, and it will probably be staccato-ish in performance.


Same thing in a different key, but I'm suspending the top note of those same measures instead of the bottom one.


Same thing in a different key, but this one's harder I think, because of the second measure. And the third.

Wow. That looks hard. Glad it's coming together for you, though. Those rhythms in some of those excerpts look downright scary.

Meh, the rhythms themselves are easy for me. I played this for a master class the other day, and the lady running told me that I had a "good sense of rhythm" and that most people have a lot of difficulty with this courante because of its syncopations. But the syncopations don't bother me at all. Just the fast bits with awkward fingerings.

Glad to hear it.

I was mainly kidding. At least they fit together in some way, unlike a polyrhythm.

Yeah, it's not really hard, unless the fingering is awkward. But it is so much fun to play.

I played that courante in departmental recital class this morning (not a big deal - just for the piano majors/faculty) and managed to screw up every single excerpt I posted above.

Back to the practice room.

I hope you can get it down to the point it's second nature, even in pressure situations.

Yeah, I hope so. I'm really good at screwing things up though.

I know the feeling. I totally screwed up the Rach Op. 3 no 5 that was in my sig at my teacher's studio recital a few weeks ago. I lost count of how many times I had played it through. I managed to improvise my way through it.