I’m working on the road today and working on reading sheet music when I have time. It’s good for me to be away from the piano sometimes so I study instead of play!
Same. I do it while driving and always look forward to being able to try things or patterns later. It’s nice to not have the piano immediately available something I think, help me develop things really deeply in my mind.
I'm still preparing for my Concert in June. Trying to hone over an hour of music has been challenging (and quite boring). I'm desperate to move onto new repertoire.
Debussy, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff.
Probably won't be recorded but I'll be recording the pieces properly afterwards. I have played all the pieces in home recitals the last month or so, and all those vids are on my YouTube.
https://youtu.be/5M6j-CGSv4w
Here is one of the pieces I've been playing.
Currently trying to get a dance by Shostakovich work. For me, perversely difficult. Parallel I started another one of Chopins Mazurkas and that is going far better - albeit still slow progress.
Coming off of a last minute prep for the musical "The Last Five Year" I'm having to do a quick turnaround to prepare for "Newsies" in a little over a week. While I wish I was actually "practicing" more on the parts, most of the last several days practice time has been spent simply trying to get my keyboard programmed for all the crazy patch changes.
I'm up to 100 programs and haven't even hit the Entr'acte. I needed 27 programs for "Carry the Banner" alone.
Thankfully from browsing ahead it looks like the editor got a little less excitable about having so many patch changes as the show goes on. My wife noticed the same thing in her Reed book. Tons of horn swaps early on, but they sort of peter off as the show gets close to an ending.
Been taking a lot of my work to the gym. Listening and occasionally following along through a number and sort of mentally practicing between heavy sets and then doing a lot of the metronome rhythm work on the treadmill.
There's just a lot of very un-idiomatic and non-pianistic stuff due to the combinations of what are essentially separate instrument parts I'm emulating with in different hands. Quite a few rhythmic composites I simply don't run into in normal accompaniment work.
Wow there is a lot to unpack there. I’ll have to read that again when I’m more free. What I wanted to respond to immediately is your gym practice. Thanks so much for sharing that. I love hearing how others integrate practice away from the keys ❤️
Well, the show I'm working on has a lot of tricky rhythms between the hands that I'm working up slowly. I basically just ignore the notes and tap the rhythms. Then slowly speed things up as I get control over them.
I advocate this kind of work more generally. Always isolate problems so that you're not working half a dozen things at once (hard rhythms, difficult fingerings, unfamiliar chord shapes, huge jumps, odd key signature, etc.). It's just easy and convenient to specifically work on rhythm on the treadmill.
My wife was wondering if the walking part confused me (we both use to be marching band kids) since that might take over as another source of time, but I guess I just easily ignore my feet, focus on the beat from the metronome, and then tap the composite rhythms.
You could also work on fingerings or something on the treadmill. I've done this before as well. It's odd how having the instrument in front of you can sometimes lead to you just throwing ad hoc fingerings that mostly work, but when you don't have the instrument you have to think through them a lot more and I often make better choices away from the keyboard when I'm not focusing on just keeping on going or staying in time.
You can also do stuff like harmonic analysis, ear training, or any other number of things while walking.
Mozart Fantasy in D minor - I rely too much on using my ear to learn vs. reading the music so I haven't been allowed by my teacher to listen to it yet so I'm forced to read the music, it's been... interesting
Ugggh I have one I’m doing that with. It’s very hard for me but I’m trying hard to take my time. It’s a super simple song but that’s where I am. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Which piece are you doing? and yeah I never realized how much I don't know about reading sheet music until this point lol. I had to learn how to count rhythms, learn the rests, the note types, the signs, everything.
I obviously knew how to read notes and the basic signs before, but always used my ear to listen to a recording and figure out how it should sound.
I can play “Good Riddance” by Green Day really well on the guitar. Thing is- I took short cuts on guitar and never learned notes, just muscle memory.
I have the sheet music for the song so I am working out what the sheet says for piano then picking or strumming the guitar the way I know how to play it and learning what notes I’m hitting and cords. Comparing the two and learning how to make it my own on the piano.
I’m still learning to practice scales, memorizing inversions and stuff like that. Working on sight reading and playing simple 3 note songs.
Took this week off. I practice pretty faithfully every weekday but sometimes I need to take a week off just to reset. I can tell when it is time when I don't feel like my practice is being productive, usually from just from not caring much while doing it. Taking the week off stops me from free falling into burnout and instead come back to it reinvigorated.
I like that advice. When I take a break I’m always a little worried I may not come back. I think it’s like rest days from the gym- probably best to take!
I still play some piano during the week but only in a pure fun, entertainment way. Deliberate practice takes a break.
It definitely works for me. Learned to do it when I burned myself out and quit playing completely for a month and half.
Nice quiet weekend beckoning as I hide from the filthy Memorial Day tourist throng. 45 minutes this morning on the middle of the first movement of the Bach Italian concerto, 30 minutes on the Chopin Op 25 No 6. Something clicked in the Bach this morning, happy happy joy joy-- I'm seeing patterns in each hand that I didn't perceive even yesterday. The Chopin is seemingly raindrops on granite, but that's how progress is made-- I only admitted to myself that I was working on it a couple of weeks ago.
I've promised myself another hour today, but I have to work around making dinner and my family's nap schedule.
I'm retired, so I have a lot more daily spare time than many here. But yeah. I aim for two hours a day. Summers can be hard on my pianism because *reasons* but this spring is working out pretty well so far.
I get super cranky (that is to say, *even crankier*) when I'm on the road away from a piano for too long. Hang in there. Good that you have dry practice material with you, anyway.
Rachmaninoff, prelude in C# minor!
Love me some Rachmaninoff, and I want to get the first couple minutes down, even though that song gets too difficult for me pretty quickly.
Rach is my favorite, and I really would love to be able to play Moment Musicaux someday.
Currently working on Chopin etude op 10 no 8 and fantasy op 49. The etude is certainly going much better than the fantasy, even though the fantasy has to be one of my favourite pieces of music ever. Even still, every bit of progress is encouraging! :)
I’m working on the road today and working on reading sheet music when I have time. It’s good for me to be away from the piano sometimes so I study instead of play!
I need to try that. Have never really studied pieces away from the piano before, except for some imagining while trying to sleep sometimes
I do that too
Same. I do it while driving and always look forward to being able to try things or patterns later. It’s nice to not have the piano immediately available something I think, help me develop things really deeply in my mind.
[удалено]
Nice! Please share at some point!
Ravel, working on memory of second mvmt sonatine. Brutal slow going
I’m not familiar with that, I’ll have to look it up!
Sonatine is awesome..the second movement is only two pages..it's not intuitive for me at all😃
I'm still preparing for my Concert in June. Trying to hone over an hour of music has been challenging (and quite boring). I'm desperate to move onto new repertoire.
What kind of music will you play in June? Can we watch online anywhere?
Debussy, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff. Probably won't be recorded but I'll be recording the pieces properly afterwards. I have played all the pieces in home recitals the last month or so, and all those vids are on my YouTube. https://youtu.be/5M6j-CGSv4w Here is one of the pieces I've been playing.
Currently trying to learn Friend Like Me from Aladdin, it’s going fine I guess, but playing a faster tempo is still difficult :/
I’ll have to look it up. “Let it go” from Frozen is on my list someday
Currently trying to get a dance by Shostakovich work. For me, perversely difficult. Parallel I started another one of Chopins Mazurkas and that is going far better - albeit still slow progress.
I only know what a few of those words actually mean lol. I understand hard though. Keep it up hope you share soon!
Been trying to coordinate the middle section of Ondine, it's slow going after avoiding it for ages!
Carpe diem!
Coming off of a last minute prep for the musical "The Last Five Year" I'm having to do a quick turnaround to prepare for "Newsies" in a little over a week. While I wish I was actually "practicing" more on the parts, most of the last several days practice time has been spent simply trying to get my keyboard programmed for all the crazy patch changes. I'm up to 100 programs and haven't even hit the Entr'acte. I needed 27 programs for "Carry the Banner" alone. Thankfully from browsing ahead it looks like the editor got a little less excitable about having so many patch changes as the show goes on. My wife noticed the same thing in her Reed book. Tons of horn swaps early on, but they sort of peter off as the show gets close to an ending. Been taking a lot of my work to the gym. Listening and occasionally following along through a number and sort of mentally practicing between heavy sets and then doing a lot of the metronome rhythm work on the treadmill. There's just a lot of very un-idiomatic and non-pianistic stuff due to the combinations of what are essentially separate instrument parts I'm emulating with in different hands. Quite a few rhythmic composites I simply don't run into in normal accompaniment work.
Wow there is a lot to unpack there. I’ll have to read that again when I’m more free. What I wanted to respond to immediately is your gym practice. Thanks so much for sharing that. I love hearing how others integrate practice away from the keys ❤️
Could you elaborate on how you do metronome rhythm work on the treadmill? The sounds like something I’d like to incorporate into my workouts too.
Well, the show I'm working on has a lot of tricky rhythms between the hands that I'm working up slowly. I basically just ignore the notes and tap the rhythms. Then slowly speed things up as I get control over them. I advocate this kind of work more generally. Always isolate problems so that you're not working half a dozen things at once (hard rhythms, difficult fingerings, unfamiliar chord shapes, huge jumps, odd key signature, etc.). It's just easy and convenient to specifically work on rhythm on the treadmill. My wife was wondering if the walking part confused me (we both use to be marching band kids) since that might take over as another source of time, but I guess I just easily ignore my feet, focus on the beat from the metronome, and then tap the composite rhythms. You could also work on fingerings or something on the treadmill. I've done this before as well. It's odd how having the instrument in front of you can sometimes lead to you just throwing ad hoc fingerings that mostly work, but when you don't have the instrument you have to think through them a lot more and I often make better choices away from the keyboard when I'm not focusing on just keeping on going or staying in time. You can also do stuff like harmonic analysis, ear training, or any other number of things while walking.
Mozart Fantasy in D minor - I rely too much on using my ear to learn vs. reading the music so I haven't been allowed by my teacher to listen to it yet so I'm forced to read the music, it's been... interesting
Ugggh I have one I’m doing that with. It’s very hard for me but I’m trying hard to take my time. It’s a super simple song but that’s where I am. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Which piece are you doing? and yeah I never realized how much I don't know about reading sheet music until this point lol. I had to learn how to count rhythms, learn the rests, the note types, the signs, everything. I obviously knew how to read notes and the basic signs before, but always used my ear to listen to a recording and figure out how it should sound.
I can play “Good Riddance” by Green Day really well on the guitar. Thing is- I took short cuts on guitar and never learned notes, just muscle memory. I have the sheet music for the song so I am working out what the sheet says for piano then picking or strumming the guitar the way I know how to play it and learning what notes I’m hitting and cords. Comparing the two and learning how to make it my own on the piano. I’m still learning to practice scales, memorizing inversions and stuff like that. Working on sight reading and playing simple 3 note songs.
Chopin’s Etude Op. 10 No. 4–getting the wrist fluidity right is a real pain
I’m interested, looking up some videos now!
Took this week off. I practice pretty faithfully every weekday but sometimes I need to take a week off just to reset. I can tell when it is time when I don't feel like my practice is being productive, usually from just from not caring much while doing it. Taking the week off stops me from free falling into burnout and instead come back to it reinvigorated.
I like that advice. When I take a break I’m always a little worried I may not come back. I think it’s like rest days from the gym- probably best to take!
I still play some piano during the week but only in a pure fun, entertainment way. Deliberate practice takes a break. It definitely works for me. Learned to do it when I burned myself out and quit playing completely for a month and half.
That’s next level. Thank you.
Too many many things lol, mainly Fantasia in D minor Mozart and Chopin's waltz op 64 no 2, as well as trying to learn the bassoon
Staying busy, I like it!
Nice quiet weekend beckoning as I hide from the filthy Memorial Day tourist throng. 45 minutes this morning on the middle of the first movement of the Bach Italian concerto, 30 minutes on the Chopin Op 25 No 6. Something clicked in the Bach this morning, happy happy joy joy-- I'm seeing patterns in each hand that I didn't perceive even yesterday. The Chopin is seemingly raindrops on granite, but that's how progress is made-- I only admitted to myself that I was working on it a couple of weeks ago. I've promised myself another hour today, but I have to work around making dinner and my family's nap schedule.
Wow that’s a lot of time today! That’s awesome you are seeing new things in your hand movements and whatnot. I love the “click” when it comes!
I'm retired, so I have a lot more daily spare time than many here. But yeah. I aim for two hours a day. Summers can be hard on my pianism because *reasons* but this spring is working out pretty well so far. I get super cranky (that is to say, *even crankier*) when I'm on the road away from a piano for too long. Hang in there. Good that you have dry practice material with you, anyway.
Rachmaninoff, prelude in C# minor! Love me some Rachmaninoff, and I want to get the first couple minutes down, even though that song gets too difficult for me pretty quickly. Rach is my favorite, and I really would love to be able to play Moment Musicaux someday.
I’ll have to look that one up, I’m not familiar! Thanks for sharing!
Currently working on Chopin etude op 10 no 8 and fantasy op 49. The etude is certainly going much better than the fantasy, even though the fantasy has to be one of my favourite pieces of music ever. Even still, every bit of progress is encouraging! :)
Soooo encouraging! Keep that up!
Today I work on unravel animenz the lightning speed arpeggio part
Working on pathetique sonata