Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Rethinking 26

Okay, so now I've spent a few minutes with this little exercise. It's not hard fingerwise -- when I was a student, I probably didn't practice, and ended up sight reading a lot of things at lessons. And the recording I made was after only a brief lookover. So what have I learned by listening to myself play this?

1. I can't count as well as I think I can. The high A in bar 14 is three beats and a bit long, but I only hold it for two. Didn't realize that until just today, when I listened to the recording while looking at every note in the music.
2. It's only 25 bars of music, and maybe two minutes long, but nevertheless, I think I'm having endurance problems. Quavery notes.
3. It's fairly rich, musically. I should spend some time working through exactly how the phrases should go. And where to breathe!
4. I actually suck at making obvious to the listener even the dynamic contrasts that I attempt to make. Eg, the big rise/fall on the last note. I tried, but the result is pretty subtle at best.
5. Garbage in between notes, bad attacks, bad releases... yeah, they sound bad on tape, too, not just to the player.
6. Maybe I should memorize it? Jeez, my son can memorize anything, and pianists usually know all the notes for everything. If I knew the notes, it'd be one less thing to be thinking about.

So yeah, lots to work on, even in just this little piece.

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