Does anyone fancy a piano chat thread?

[LemonViolet]

I’m awaiting delivery of a new piano, squeee!!! I haven’t played regularly for 20 years. I got to grade 6 as a teen, failed grade 7, carried on tinkering for a bit but have not really lived anywhere with a piano since age 18 so am well out of practice.

Whilst I hope/plan to put a baby grand in our front room, once it is done up - which may be some time - at the weekend I just realised, what am I waiting for, I want a digital anyways for playing at less sociable hours, so went ahead and ordered myself a nice Kawai digital and it arrives on Friday!!!

There’s a music chat thread on the extracurricular board but that’s more parents discussing their offsprings’ exploits, I have seen on the music board it’s quite pianissimo but there clearly are other grown up women around here playing/learning/relearning piano for our own pleasure, entertainment, therapy etc! So thought I’d post to see if anyone else is interested in hanging out on a piano thread to chat about our piano journeys, successes and failures, pieces we like, what we’re practicing etc?

It could be called the piano bar or the pianist beaker, seeing as this is MN

If there is one I’ve just failed to find, please point me in that direction.

@LemonViolet that a beautiful piece, I’m ready to start a new piece so that’s me sorted. I’m guessing you’d like the Faure Romance no 3 which is quite similar.

I can’t play anything without the music, maybe I’m too old to remember!

Has anyone played Dawn from the film of Pride and Prejudice? I spent ages learning it and am thinking of revisiting it. I’m hopeless at keeping all my ‘finished’ pieces up to scratch, there just aren’t the hours in the day. Does anyone have a good method for keeping your repertoire going?

I’ve discovered a “new” composer (to me) these last few days - Granados, Spanish romantic composer. I have been exploring the grade 5 syllabus and was getting a bit bored of the Pachulski Prelude I’ve been working on so decided to try a few other B list pieces, and ordered Granados Cuentos de la Juventud as one of the pieces now it La Huerfana is on the list. Well I am in love with the whole lot of them! Not that I can instantly play them all but I can kind of have a bash at most the ones that are not quick sightreading accessible are lovely enough that I want to spend time on them. And listening to a lot of his other pieces on YouTube, a lot is well above my current level, but #goals. Really like the Spanish flavour to the romantic style.

What is everyone else up to at the keyboard?

Had a piano lesson today.
Currently working on:
Chopin - nocturne 72, prelude 4 in E minor
Clementi - various sonatinas and rondos from opus 36
My Fathers Favourite from the Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility

What kind of structure do your lessons take, Daphne?

I can’t quite imagine going back to lessons atm. Not that I set myself much structure independently though.

Last week I had my first piano lesson for over 20 years! Was quite inspiring. My technique is quite rusty, so she went back to basics - posture how to sit etc, as well as some finger strengthening exercises and how to structure practice. I'm noticing the difference already!
I'm working on Mozart sonata in c major, Chopin Waltz (op 64) and a Wieck study.

@LemonViolet - had a listen to some Granados pieces on youtube they're lovely! I might try some for a change - I'm a bit obsessed with Chopin which I play very badly.
@MatildaTheCat when my teacher talked about how to practice, she said to rotate the pieces, so you'd practice 2 -3 lines of one piece and then come back to it a few days later to keep it ticking over if that makes sense.

Can anyone recommend and good Christmas song books at an intermediate kind of level? I’ve got a book called “it’s easy to play Christmas songs” which is ok but a bit too easy, I’d like more of a challenge but not too much, I’m not great!

I’ve also just started learning some Ludovico Einqudi pieces and they’re beautiful.

I only have some old easy carol books in my collection. But have been looking at this blog post and thinking I might get something new to try www.davidbartonmusic.co.uk/my-top-10-christmas-books-for-piano/

pianodao.com/2021/10/21/the-christmas-2021-shortlist-intermediate-piano-music/

pianodao.com/2021/10/22/the-christmas-2021-shortlist-advanced-piano-music/

@LemonViolet

What kind of structure do your lessons take, Daphne?

I can’t quite imagine going back to lessons atm. Not that I set myself much structure independently though.

Well I'm only on lesson 4 but I I'll do this week. first we have a catch-up and a coffee, play with her cat. While she makes the coffee I warm up then she listened as I played. I played a piece we worked on last lesson She picked out a couple of bits that had sounded a bit dodgy and then we moved on to the 3rd movement, pedalling and some rhythm work on something that had gone a bit wonky. Then we worked a little bit on a particular couple of bars of my Chopin 72 to make sure I'd been practising it correctly as she'd identified a bit I was doing wrong. Finally she played a couple of the Chopin preludes she'd earmarked for me and we started working through the first one (number 4)

It's great and I get so much out of them

Thanks Daphne. I guess the value in lessons as an adult playing “for fun” is the being caught from just practicing in mistakes that is really easy to do by yourself, and I guess the moral support and help steering. I just remember my childhood/teenage lessons as being told what to play, what to practice…..and I don’t want that now, my time is so limited and precious lessons would really have to earn the time they take up!

I’ve been practicing 3 against 2 polyrhythm today. One of the Granados pieces has some speedy runs of it. The rhythm itself came back ok, I can do that with basic patterns on the keyboard or body drumming, even as a one-off moment in other pieces has been fine, but slotting it into the Granados piece as a run at pace is quite difficult.

I'm a piano teacher (only up to G5ish though ) of children. I'm about to have my first adult piano pupil in ages so it's really useful to read about what you want from your lessons. I always ask children from teens onwards what they want from their lessons anyway but your post resonates with my jazz musician son's comment that often for people having lessons there's the music they choose to listen to and then there's the music they're required to play on their instrument and they're not the same.

there's the music they choose to listen to and then there's the music they're required to play on their instrument and they're not the same.
I think the music you enjoy playing can be different again as well! I listen to jazzy stuff but not a huge fan of playing it and no big desire to divert down that route with my playing/learning either. And can spend hours noodling away with stuff that I probably wouldn’t choose to listen to often, aside from research for my playing.

As an adult returner I guess we have a lot of opinion about what our goals are, what we like, what we don’t like from previous experience, some interest in “what is good for me” but no inclination to spend hours doing tuneless exercises, time is very precious and I know I will never be a virtuoso and this is not a possible career option. Exercises must serve a very specific purpose to allow me to access a piece I want to play (like the 3-on-2 stuff, or recently I was doing studies with repeated notes), or at least be a joyful experience to play in themselves, so I favour Bertini or Heller over Cramer or Czerny, and go nowhere near bloody Hanon! If I did look for a teacher I’d want much more of a collaborative, supporting/mentoring type approach, not a didactic, rigid syllabus, they’d need to be quite flexible I think.

Funnily enough I recently discovered a book of mini Hanon exercises which I'm using with my pupils. They're simple repeated patterns of quavers going up a note through the C major scale each group of quavers so minimal note learning involved. All in C major. Some of my pupils are enjoying powering through them.

Do you know any good studies for polyrhythms? Anything less fiendish than Chopin Nouvelles Etudes!?!

So the Faber Christmas Piano Anthology arrived today, and I had a little tinker before dinner. Lovely so far! There is so much in it. Massive book so have to pin it back on the music stand but that’s alright. Nice arrangements so far.

What sort of stuff do you play for yourself @mibbelucieachwell
?

My 2 John Rutter books have arrived today so looking forward to looking at those. The Christmas album has Candlelight carol which I love
and am singing in my choir . Unfortunately it’s 6 flats!!! I might transpose it!

Can anyone offer some inspiration for a new piece? Around grade 6-7, slowish preferred (love Chopin) but happy to consider other stuff.

@MatildaTheCat. Really recommend the book "World Renowned Piano Pieces" compiled by David Willison. It is full of lovely pieces - all around grade 6-7 (my level too) with lots of variety. I'm playing Chopin Waltz in C sharp minor and a Beethoven 2nd movement Sonata Op.13 (Pathetique) from there and loving them both. They're beautiful pieces and have just the right amount of challenge for me. Am also dabbling with a Satie piece Gymopedie which is slower and easier than the others

Thanks @Hilda41 I’ll take a look. I’ve learned the Beethoven, it’s a lovely piece other than that pesky middle section!

@Hilda41 which Gymnopedie is it ? Is it 1 ? I love that piece but 2&3 😳. I just can't stretch my hands enough for thr chords

What about Debussy Clair de Lune ?

@LemonViolet how are you getting on with your Christmas book ? I'm quite tempted as I love the variety of styles but the Amazon reviews were very mixed and it's not cheap

Ive entered our local music festival competition 😳. The last time I played in public was at school. Ive entered the Chopin class (hopefully doing nocturne 72) and DD and I are doing the "family music making" which will involve her playing her flute and me accompanying her.

Finchcocks 2 weeks today !!

I’m enjoying the Christmas book. It’s slightly awkward on the stand but well made and I can get it to stay open no problem. I like almost all of the arrangements I’ve tried so far. It’s not a singalong book, it’s piano solos, which is what I wanted. I’m playing at around grade 5-6 and can easily bash out around half of them from the get go, some faster/more complex ones I’d have to work on. I’m happy with the purchase and think it will come out every year. It’s a beautiful thing physically too, the cover is lovely.

We’re off on holiday tomorrow for a week, staying in a cottage, bit of a countryside retreat. I had ordered grade 4 & 5 theory books to work through during the week but Amazon have messed up delivery which is annoying.

I love the two books in the Faber Anthology series that I’ve bought. I’ll put the Christmas one on the list for next year! I’ve made a Spotify playlist with most of the songs from their original piano anthology to decide which I most want to play (haven’t got to the end yet but I’ll finish it soon!). Link below in case any of you are interested. I like that the book is arranged in progressive order: open.spotify.com/user/lbrierly/playlist/0RBqITwPfd3ZOTpQsD26XJ?si=_wmysdyPQvab_DjScAW0Wg

Does anyone know of any links to good advice / videos on technique? Not something I focused on when I was younger and I’m pretty sure I haven’t got the wrist and arm technique right now.
Lemon Violet - how long did it take you to get back up to playing G5/6 pieces? I was that level originally but feel like I’m more of a solid 2/3 at the minute!

@FleetingMind interested in technique videos too. I've searched, but not found anything that I like.
@DaphneDeloresMoorhead Good luck with the competition. I've played a few Chopin Nocturnes, including 72, I butcher them, they're out of my league - love them though. Interested to hear what Finchcocks is like!