An invitation for the pianists of WTF
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Do people usually play it straight?
Hough effectively ignores 'a tempo', sings out a nice counter in bars 15 to 32.
And then his final 8 bars, love his interpretation...
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@ShiroKuro Yes, I still have my Weinbach grand at home, and still love it. I use it for choir practice, finding my notes. And occasionally try to play it. It also makes a perfect black/white balanced background for photographing yarn. Ha!
I sold my digital piano several years ago. Roland FP something or other. I like the way sound runs through me from my acoustic piano way better.
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@ShiroKuro Yes, I still have my Weinbach grand at home, and still love it. I use it for choir practice, finding my notes. And occasionally try to play it. It also makes a perfect black/white balanced background for photographing yarn. Ha!
I sold my digital piano several years ago. Roland FP something or other. I like the way sound runs through me from my acoustic piano way better.
@AdagioM said:
I sold my digital piano several years ago. Roland FP something or other. I like the way sound runs through me from my acoustic piano way better.Same!
When we moved from Japan back to the U.S., for a long time (7 years?) a digital was all I had (apartment life). After I finished grad school, I kept the digital even though I had two different uprights (not at the same time), both were kind of crummy, but I always played the acoustic pianos, even though they were not the greatest instruments.
But when I bought my grand, I finally sold the digital. I knew I would never play it.
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I passed Grade 6 with a distinction in spring of 1978 so would have just turned 16 years old. I recall it would take a year to learn four pieces plus the new scales & arpeggios.
I miss my old piano teacher, Miss Armstrong.I've kept a 'five-bar-gate' count of my practice over this last month since printing the music. I'm off to our London flat again, so no piano for a week
; decided to record my efforts so far.This is the 79th time I've played it through. I still need the music for some bars so it doesn't flow, and there are three mistakes. I'd like to think Miss Armstrong would say "it's coming along nicely"
Link to video -
I passed Grade 6 with a distinction in spring of 1978 so would have just turned 16 years old. I recall it would take a year to learn four pieces plus the new scales & arpeggios.
I miss my old piano teacher, Miss Armstrong.I've kept a 'five-bar-gate' count of my practice over this last month since printing the music. I'm off to our London flat again, so no piano for a week
; decided to record my efforts so far.This is the 79th time I've played it through. I still need the music for some bars so it doesn't flow, and there are three mistakes. I'd like to think Miss Armstrong would say "it's coming along nicely"
Link to video -
Thanks. It's been interesting.
Without a teacher who would have stressed the fingering needed in the first lesson (e.g. to get legato on the octaves) it took me probably 40 attempts before I adopted most of the suggested notation.
I can play it faster & slower but not without a fumble or two because I need the dots. Another 20 times for memory?Five-bar-gate counting:

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Without a teacher who would have stressed the fingering needed in the first lesson (e.g. to get legato on the octaves)
Fingering is so important. I once thought I would get to the point where I didn’t write in fingering anymore. But now I think that’s never going to happen. At least not with any pieces that are at or above my playing level. Deciding fingering is sometimes a very slow process, but I’ve found that taking the time early in the process to not just decide fingering but also write it in makes the overall process faster in the long run.
Five-bar-gate counting
I had no idea that was that was called! In fact, I don’t think I would have had a name for that, I googled and it said hash marks or tally marks, a name I recognize but wouldn’t have used without prompting.
LSNED
BTW in Japan (and probably in China) this kanji is used for counting. 正 It has five strokes, and you always write the strokes in the same order, so you can just keep writing it over and over, and if there’s a half finished character, you can tell what the number is by the shape and the number of strokes.
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Thanks. It's been interesting.
Without a teacher who would have stressed the fingering needed in the first lesson (e.g. to get legato on the octaves) it took me probably 40 attempts before I adopted most of the suggested notation.
I can play it faster & slower but not without a fumble or two because I need the dots. Another 20 times for memory?Five-bar-gate counting:

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First time ever I've counted as I was curious...
It's years since I've sat to properly learn a classical piece that ought to be within my capabilities and wondered how long it would take to learn & memorise at my age. So extrapolating, if I sat for an hour or so daily and played it through 15 times, I could in theory learn it in a week.Love the kanji, very neat. What order are the five lines written?
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I passed Grade 6 with a distinction in spring of 1978 so would have just turned 16 years old. I recall it would take a year to learn four pieces plus the new scales & arpeggios.
I miss my old piano teacher, Miss Armstrong.I've kept a 'five-bar-gate' count of my practice over this last month since printing the music. I'm off to our London flat again, so no piano for a week
; decided to record my efforts so far.This is the 79th time I've played it through. I still need the music for some bars so it doesn't flow, and there are three mistakes. I'd like to think Miss Armstrong would say "it's coming along nicely"
Link to video -
I passed Grade 6 with a distinction in spring of 1978 so would have just turned 16 years old. I recall it would take a year to learn four pieces plus the new scales & arpeggios.
I miss my old piano teacher, Miss Armstrong.I've kept a 'five-bar-gate' count of my practice over this last month since printing the music. I'm off to our London flat again, so no piano for a week
; decided to record my efforts so far.This is the 79th time I've played it through. I still need the music for some bars so it doesn't flow, and there are three mistakes. I'd like to think Miss Armstrong would say "it's coming along nicely"
Link to video -
I passed Grade 6 with a distinction in spring of 1978 so would have just turned 16 years old. I recall it would take a year to learn four pieces plus the new scales & arpeggios.
I miss my old piano teacher, Miss Armstrong.I've kept a 'five-bar-gate' count of my practice over this last month since printing the music. I'm off to our London flat again, so no piano for a week
; decided to record my efforts so far.This is the 79th time I've played it through. I still need the music for some bars so it doesn't flow, and there are three mistakes. I'd like to think Miss Armstrong would say "it's coming along nicely"
Link to video -
@andyd (and anyone else interested) the Wiosna recital at Piano Tell is up, if you’re interested in other listening, or contributing your recording, please take a look:
https://forum.pianotell.com/d/2405-piyw-9-play-chopins-wiosna-your-way-is-now-live
I haven’t practiced this is weeks, but I still might try to throw something together and submit it. It’s really fun to listen to each recording and think about which tempo works or how different interpretations create a different feel.
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I had thought about working on it, even read it through a few times, but I made the decision in late spring to take on Chopin's Polonaise Fantasie in hopes of having it ready for class this fall. At the moment I don't know if I'm going to make it. I think class starts in September, so maybe. There are several pages that are coming along nicely, and one or two that need more struggle. I'll see when I get there. I can fall back on the first Polonaise if need be, but darn, I'll love to do the Fantasie. Since class time is shared and limited, I can probably buy time for the challenging passages by only presenting a few pages per week. There just won't be time to play through the whole thing every class plus time for comments and the teacher's coaching. It might work.
I will, though, come back to Wiosna. The subject interests me.
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Bernard, you are learning this one?
Link to video
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