WTF-Beta

This is Jon Batiste’s lovely tribute to Dolly Parton:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1807922880366556

️️️

I was reading about him and I didn’t realize that the RHPS was his debut movie. Wow!

Meal

@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…)

@DougG certainly not me, I don’t have a word for that…

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

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'

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

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...

Here's the second 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...

@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.

y'all

@Bernard I hope everything works out!

Private (one-on-one) lessons can be quite expensive, so I can get why you might prefer the group lessons. Also, the group lessons sound like they have an interesting and compelling dynamic, I would be interested in that if we had something like that here.

At the uni music program, the only group lessons they offer for non-majors are for very beginning level pianists. I think there's something called a studio class which is a group class and students play for each other (and the teacher of course). It kind of sounds like a semester-long masterclass. But you have to be a music major (or music grad student) to enroll.

@Bernard said:

The nice thing about the chords at measure 27 is that they are easily recognizable.

We shall see!

@Bernard said:

As I have become less young I've noticed that having good light and a good manuscript is more important than ever.

I may actually be in need of a new glasses prescription. But I also think it has a lot to do with the layout of the score I have, and the harmonic density of the notes.

So anything that makes it easier to read, and makes it feel easier to learn, is all to the good!

She was wonderful. One of my friends posted on a Facebook a photo of her (my friend’s) child surrounded by books they had gotten from Dolly Parton’s library.

So I also officially started working on Don’t Know Why yesterday. It’s a little tricky just because I don’t usually play jazz (or jazz adjacent). But it’s also almost comical how much easier it feels compared to Claire de Lune! DKW is also only 23 measures (not counting the repeats of course), so it’s a third of the length of CdL and that makes it feel easier as well.

Having said that, this doesn’t mean I’ll be able to play DKW with the proper jazz inflection. We’ll see. But it’s super fun to play and I really like the arrangement I picked.

@AndyD said:

Yes.
I'd be surprised if the linked music and the Henle have many differences in fingering. There's usually an accepted best way for fingers.

I’m going to sit down (at a table, not at the piano) and compare the two scores. It might be that the one you linked just has more fingering written in.

Anyway, practice went much better last night. I just focused on the first 15 measures. Oh, and as I wrote about, I turned my iPad sideways so that the score was much bigger. That might seem silly but I feel like the Henle score I have is rather cramped and it just made it feel hard to read.

As soon as I could see it better, it became much easier to read-play and that made a huge difference in subjective feeling of “difficulty.”

I also decided not to work in the part that starts in measure 27 (where the LH from chords to 16th notes). I’ll work on that with my teacher. Or maybe I’ll work on it this weekend, turning the iPad sideways makes everything feel easier

Anyway, thank you again everyone for encouraging me. I may yet decide this is too hard and put it away, but I’ve done that with a lot of pieces, and then when I come back to them, they are much easier the second time around. CdL is only 72 measures. If nothing else, I will aim to get through the end of it before putting it aside.

@AndyD said:

And the fingering on the free music I limked on the other thread works well

This one, right?

https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/5/5a/IMSLP664379-PMLP2397-SheetMusic_29267.pdf

I wish it were bigger, but it’s very helpful!

I think I’ll use my Henle score and use this one tonight in some fingering away from the keyboard.

Also I just realized it suddenly seems much easier if I turn my iPad sideways, bc the score is larger and easier to see