WTF-Beta

thanks for the comments everyone!

@AndyD said:

What grade have you passed & how long ago?

I have never taken any grade exams, so I don't have a sense of my level. I've been playing for over 25 years, but I started as an adult.

Although, one piece I'm close to finishing is apparently an ABRSM grade 6, and that piece is easy for me. The internet AI says CdL is grade 8, so that should be do-able in theory...

@Bernard said:

Clair de Lune is not much harder (if any) than Arabesque No. 1, some might even find Clair de Lune easier. I think Reverie is harder than either of them.

this is interesting because just looking at the score, CdL looks harder to me...

re fingering

@Bernard said:

They can always be worked out and your teacher should be able to contribute to that.

Yes, but I don't want to spend my whole lesson working out fingers for the whole thing, if it's a piece within my level, I ought to be able to do the bulk of it myself.

OTOH, learning this would probably push me forward...

Anyway, I'll see how I do during tonight's practice.

I posted this question on Piano Tell, but I think many of you here may have helpful advice, so I wanted to ask here as well.

A few weeks ago, my piano teacher and I looked at Clair de Lune and she said she thought I was more than ready to tackle it. I now have a new teacher (that’s how the uni music school works) and she agrees, so last night I started working on it. But I’m worried it’s too hard..

I was looking at the score for Arabesque No 1 and Reverie and they both look easier than CdL… and the patterns look quite similar to other things I’ve played.

So here’s my question: would playing either (or both) of these pieces, Reverie and Arabesque No 1, before starting CdL make CdL much easier to learn?

When I spent some time last night working on CdL, I felt like it was much harder to read through than I’d anticipated. One thing that felt challenging was making fingering decisions, especially in the section that starts in measure 27 …

It’s not that I felt the piece is beyond me, but more that it felt like I would have to devote so much time to it that I couldn’t really work on much else… which is not how I want to spend my piano time.

OTOH maybe I just need to spend a little more time with it (I was exhausted last night and didn’t get to the piano until after 9pm, so that didn’t help). Maybe working through fingering choices for a few key sections would make the rest of it easier to get through.

Anyway, so my core question right now is, would Reverie and/or Arabesque No 1 act like stepping stones to Claire de Lune? And if yes, which one would you recommend to start with?

Or is it possible that neither of these pieces would necessarily prepare me for CdL because CdL has challenges that are a bigger jump? (metaphorically speaking, not literal keyboard jump!)

TIA for any comments or advice any of you can share!

Power

@jon-nyc

Bedbug

Happy birthday Ron!!

Spandex

Sun

Wig

@Rontuner excellent discovery! I bet that is indeed what it's for! That would make it the correct length, and that would also explain why it's still there!

plant

@AndyD said:

Anyhow moving on, to CdeLune and maybe jazzy Don't Know Why.

Yay!

I need to "finish" two pieces before I start CdL and Don't Know Why in earnest. But I have been having a blast listening around online to different versions, esp of CdL

Alert

@AndyD that was lovely! I really like your performance of this!

(Left-right balance is a never-ending challenge)

@andyd and @realplayer it's too low for either of those purposes. I've seen the clothes drying thing, this is not only too low but also too short for that.

It's also too short to have anything to do with being a plug or stopper for the drain as well....

I recently stayed in an older hotel while attending a conference at another large university, I stayed in the hotel in the student union. (They also had a really nice Steinway B in the lobby that I played every morning while I was there, which was an absolute dream to play

Anyway, the bathroom probably hadn’t been updated in years. (For the record, it was fine, bathroom included, just old).

So this was attached to the wall by the shower/bathtub. Does anyone know what it’s for?

Major

@AdagioM said:

I’m not sure it’s just girls. I think there’s an entire generation that has self-diagnosed, trying to understand themselves and life.

My impression from the college students I encounter (and and outside of my own classes) is that it is spreading in general, but it’s much more common among girls than boys. At least here anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more even across gender lines in places like CA, OR, Seattle, but out here in more conservative places in the Midwest, it hasn’t quite spread to boys as much. But I suspect it’s coming. (Again this is just my subjective impression from the students I encounter).

I think pandemic shutdown was traumatic, and has had lasting effects on mental health.

Yep, my first-year students now would have been 12 in 2020.

Method