Is Clair de Lune too hard for me?

[CHAS]

Hay SK, This should get you going.

Link to video
Thought I had seen Hugh Sung was doing something like this.

[Big_Al]

I remember meeting Hugh Sung at a piano party hosted by Rich Galassini at Cunningham Piano a number of years ago. I saw he was playing a Cunningham piano in the video.

Big Al

[ShiroKuro]

@CHAS Oh nice, thanks for the link! I've seen other Huge Sung videos, he's quite at explaining things!

@bernard I think he is or was a partner or employee with Cunningham? Maybe someone else here remembers...

Ok, I was mostly right, I checked Wiki, it says:

Sung became the Director of Institutional Solutions at Cunningham Piano Company in 2016, and then became its Vice President in 2018.

[ShiroKuro]

Here's the second video:

Link to video

The video is something of a trip back in time. There are at least three in this series, maybe more?

I wonder if these videos were made back when there were more time limits on what you could upload to YT...

[ShiroKuro]

Holy cow, it looks like there's one video for each measure?? Wow.

Also, watching him work in whatever program he's using is kind of nostalgic (I wonder if this is the precursor to Newzik, the app that he promotes)

Anyway, @andyd Andy, his approach to the LH part for measure 27 is interesting, instead of only taking the top two notes with the RH, he takes the top 3 with RH, which means the LH only plays octaves. Interesting... Probably not what I'll do though...

[ShiroKuro]

oops, here's the video, measure 27 part 1

Link to video

[ShiroKuro]

I haven't watched this one yet, but I'll post it here so it's easy to find.

Piano Lesson with French pianist, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet on How to Play 'Clair de lune'

Link to video

[Bernard]

@ShiroKuro Oh, that was wonderful! He reminds me a little of the teacher of our group class (except our teacher is Polish or German, I'm not sure which).

[ShiroKuro]

@Bernard oh good! I plan to watch it tomorrow morning

[AndyD]

Bars 27 & 28

Bars 29 &30

I'm playing as the score as written, bars 27 and 28 both start with 4 notes left hand, then 3 and 3 in the LH.

[AndyD]

Quite interesting is if you play the first page, 9/8 time signature, counting each bar as 123, 223, 323, and fit the notes... strictly, exactly.

[AndyD]

@shirokuro
I'd add that in bar 27 the second arpeggio in the right hand may be better played fast using 2/1/2 then 3with5 rather than slipping over 1/2/4 then 3with5. I'll choose what feels better when its up to speed. Such is the learning process.

[ShiroKuro]

@AndyD I worked on those bits a little bit yesterday, and my fingering is the same as yours. Of course I’m only just getting into this part, so it might change, or maybe my teacher will suggest a change. But this fingering is also in line with how the score is written, and I’d prefer to play it that way.

In his video, Hugh Sung says he tries to make fingering choices that avoid over-stretching the hand. This is a good idea as a general rule, and I usually do the same. But those LH notes are not held notes and you don’t need to keep your pinkie on that Db (for example) so I don’t think playing those first four notes with the LH will necessarily cause an over-stretch.

Actually, maybe it’s just as important to work on bringing the LH over (to the right) as you play those notes… I’m trying to remember which video it was, but I was watching someone play CdL with a nice overhead video shot and really noticing the horizontal movement of their hands.

Anyway, I’m not saying I’m in a position to question an accomplished pianist like Hugh Sung, but for now, I’m going with the standard fingering.

Also, as an aside, I seem to keep wanting to type this name as Huge Sung…. And the famous actor as Huge Grant…

(Sometimes you can’t blame it on autocorrect…)