WTF-Beta

plate

@Jodi said:

But the art gallery and the ceramics studio (which are in the same building) have become meeting place for me. We do first friday openings every month, so now when I go places uptown (like the farmer’s market) I run into a lot of people I know.

That's really nice! My problem is, all I do is work and play the piano...

We've lived here since summer 2023, and really have very few local connections. Thankfully there are people we've connected with through my job, but lately I've really been feeling the lack of a community. Work friends aren't quite the same...

Much harder in larger cities unless you have some sort of neighborhood gathering place.

Yeah, this town's not that big, but it's certainly bigger than 4000 people!

@Jodi Yes same town, I'll PM you the HS name (I don't like to share too much out in the open internet

@jon-nyc yes, well not “from from,” but that’s where I graduated from HS.

@AndyD also she’s married to Elvis Costello, right? He’s another singer with a very original style.

What an interesting couple, musically!

@AndyD LOVE it!!!

I always love her phrasing, piano and voice btw! I wanted the piano solo to be longer !

@AndyD said:

he first is a recent Diana Krall transcription of Pick yourself up; the second a transcription of Carole King You've got a friend as she played in NY Central Park 1973.

Nice! I don't recognize that title from Krall, but I love her music.

And Carole King's singing and piano are great! I have the full scorebook for Tapestry but have never played anything from it. Yet!

BTW my voice is kind of right in the range for her songs. When I used to sing a lot, I thought I would sing "So Far Away" and accompany myself. It fits my voice really well. But I was living in Japan at the time, and I couldn't really sing it without getting choked up!

@AndyD said:

It's one thing being able to play faltering through it, and quite another to get it to a musical level.

So, so true!!

The thing that bugs me is that, I haven't been distracted. I work on CdL every day, in the same systematic way I work on all my pieces. And right now, I'm only working on 3 pieces, and not spending much time on maintenance of rep pieces, no sightreading practice etc. My practice time is very focused on these three pieces.

And I'm zooming through the other two, but CdL moves at a snail's pace.

Ah well, moving at a snail's pace is still moving...

Yikes! Those domain names are pretty sketchy aren’t they!

@Bernard I look forward to both!

@Bernard said:

Our graduating class only had 100 students.

That's really nice! I bet the reunions are fun!

@jon-nyc that's great!

If I could easily get to one, I might try it, but I live far away now.

@Bernard thanks for these comments!

My score is 7 pages, and I am up to 38 measures out of 72, so just barely over half.

The new part I'm working on right now is the first two measures after the key change. That section is only six measures, so if I can push through that relatively, then the next section is Calmata, which is only eight measures... And then, as you say, hopefully the last bit will be easier.

I also wonder if I'm doing something "wrong," and maybe it's taking me longer than it should to work through new measures. Like if I changed how I approach each new section, maybe it would go faster??

Maybe I need to do some listening and reading away from the piano... I just got this Alfred edition from the library, and it has a CD with it. Maybe the recording will be a little "pedagogical" and that might help. (I feel like listening to the pianists I like play this doesn't help me because their performances are too advanced, and too original).

I need to sit down and get the CD onto my laptop, since we no longer have a CD player set up to listen to. That can be something I make it a point to do today! (Yay for Saturdays!

@Jodi said:

The meeting place I really miss is the little cafe where we lived in Maine called Doris’s. It was the Saturday morning place everyone went, it was always crowded, and you saw everyone. We went every Saturday, it helped us feel like we belonged to that tiny town with families that had lived there forever. Great food, lots of laughter. So important.

I long for a place like that. I wonder if we could find a cafe like that around here.

The trouble is, we don’t really drink coffee (I have one cup at 6am and that’s it) and I’m trying to avoid sugary things. So what would we do at a cafe.

And that’s probably why we don’t have any friends here.

@kluurs said:
Nope. We had a 1000+ graduating class but don't believe any of my closer friends attend so not much point to catch up with people I didn't know back then.

Wow that’s a big class!

To your point though, I don’t really remember that many people. One friend who I would love to see again passed away when we were young (19). Another friend lives in the UK. Two others I’m in touch with on FB.

The others.. .. I can’t call their names to mind.

Maybe I should count how many notes are in those measures and see if 38 measures of CdL has the same number of notes as 96 measures of MCML.

@kluurs said:

Heh... It depends on how much you like/love a piece. CDL is one of the few pieces that even non-classical music lovers know and love. Even once you have all the notes down, there's a gestation period before you really get to work in the depth of the piece.

Oh I’ll definitely keep working on it. I want to get through to the end, and then of course have that gestation period, or maybe I’ll just let it fall out of my fingers completely so I can come back to it in a year or so.

I just think it’s really interesting to observe these differences in rate of progress. I’ve been working on Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence for 3 weeks (half as long as CdL) and I’m working on about 96 measures (out of 104). Whereas in 6 weeks with CdL, I’m only up to measure 38 (out of 72).

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Thank you!

Retreat

BTW MCML has 5 flats, like CdL, but no key change. It has a section of five-fingered chords and a challenging ending. I’ve been working on it for three weeks and I’ve worked on every part of it except the last 8 measures. I’ll probably try to tackle that part tomorrow.

It’s really beautiful, if you’re curious:

Link to video

Clair de Lune update…. So the rolled chord is now a non-issue since I decided to drop that Db (thanks again @bernard !)

But wow my progress is so slow with this piece! I am working through the first 4 pages so far, well not even, since I’m only up through the first two staves of page 4.

That’s after 6 weeks of (literally) daily practice on the piece.

I can only add maybe 2 to 4 new measures each week. At this rate it will take me another 4 months to get through to the end! And that’s not even getting up to tempo or polishing, that’s just working out fingerings and getting all the notes in my fingers.

That’s probably not how long it will take in actuality, but my teacher thinks I can play this for my jury — which is about two months away. There’s no way.

Fortunately, I’m working on two other pieces, and I think either would be fine for the jury. But it’s a little frustrating to me that she seems kind of clueless about what it means that I’m progressing so slowly through this piece. For the record, this is my new teacher at the music school, I’ve had 6 lessons with her so far. She’s a doctoral student in the piano program here, as was my teacher last year. But my last teacher and this teacher seem miles apart in terms of teaching experience. Anyway, this post wasn’t meant to be about the teacher…

So back to CdL… I feel like my rate of progress is a clear sign that this piece is too hard for me. With other pieces, I can move through an entire page in a week…

But could it just be a sign that my other pieces are too easy for me? Is this pace (2-4 measures of new music per week) how most people move through learning new music?

For comparison, one of other pieces I’m working on is Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The internet tells me it’s maybe a grade 6-7 piece, while CdL is grade 8. And compared to CdL, MCML almost feels easy, so obviously that’s part of it.

Anyway, part of the point of this post is to ask, is CdL too hard for me, or are my other pieces too easy?

The other point of the post is to say, my god, CdL is hard, but I’m going to keep working on it till I get to the end!

@bernard how cool! And the case is really beautiful isn’t it! Will you make a video so we can hear it?