Instrument players - come and chat!

[NeverEverAnythingEver]

I thought we could have a thread to chat about playing! I play the piano (not as badly as I fear but not as well as I hope) and have recently tried my hand at chamber music. Would love to hear what other people are doing.

CoteDAzur Here's a picture of the instruments they used in Rameau's Dardanus.

Never totally agree with you!

Loose Did you ever post your Indian Pony Race?

Loose I'm just the same, don't like the A pieces at all. I sit at the piano with a metronome app despairing . Just been out and bought a load of frames to put up our lovely certificates. I got three slightly smaller, older fashioned looking ones and I'm going to put up both my grade 8s and my advanced certificate as well. Don't see why they shouldn't go on the wall of honour too! I've also asked for some lessons from the DS' teacher but with three lots to pay for a week already I think I'm going to need to rob a bank. Want guitar lessons too but that would take the monthly total to nearly £300 I love music but there has to be a limit!

I haven't posted the Indian Pony Race - too shy! I'll see if I can still play it, in which case I might just record it...
MrSlant it's good to know someone else sympathizes about the A pieces. I actually do like the Weber but it's the least A piece of the ones on offer, if you see what I mean!
I'm hoping my teacher will let me have a go at the Chopin Sostenuto in section B.

I just tried to record Clowns and my fingers went on strike so much easier playing to yourself! Reading the notes back from my exam I made three small slips in each piece that I'd never made before due to sheer nerves and if I'd not done just one of them I'd have had distinction!

I need a canvas of opinions now, I've got Clowns in the bag, my A piece (actually a fun Beethoven dance, not too arduous for once) is a weekend of hard work from done and only the B piece to really work on (Tom Bowling by Dibdin, first time I've come across playing a different notes as well as the melody with one hand, that's probably got a sensible name hasn't it?) but I'd need to say by next week if I want to do the exam this next session and I won't have had a lesson by then. I'll be bored stupid of these pieces by November though! Just learn the pieces for fun and skip a grade exam? Or skip these all together and go on to grade 4 now ready for November. Or does that defeat the object of learning properly. I really just want to skip learning the weird hand technique I think! One of the B choices is a Tchaikovsky piece that I actually really don't like and I didn't think that was possible!

Funny things happen when you try to record yourself.

I would say learn the pieces and skip the exam. Don't skip the weird hand technique!

I'm not a big fan of Tchaikovsky... He's a bit OTT for me.

But Beethoven being jolly is a bit funny.

Agree you should do the weird hand technique just in case it appears again! Nothing wrong with skipping the exam, though, especially as you're progressing so fast!

Do the weird hand technique! It will crop up again!

Actually, just out of morbid curiosity, what is the weird hand technique?!

I don't actually know - I'm assuming that it's one where you have to play more than one line of music with one hand, so you may have to hold some notes with some finger(s) while playing other notes with other finger(s). Is that it MrSlant?

Yes NeverEver! Melody on that hand then descending notes with my 2nd finger 'off' the beat IYSWIM? Although just to be a pain I've found another one that I prefer, it's got some beautiful harmonies. I may just learn all 4 then I've covered lots of different styles. None of them will take me more than a weekend to get to 90% I wouldn't think. Maybe order the grade 4 music too. I have to confess though Loose, once upon a time I had to pass grade 5 piano as it was compulsory for the A level music I was doing (I think that's what they said anyway, long time ago.) So I did 18 months of piano in school, grade 5 then one grade 7 piece for my A level so I learned a grand total of 4 piano pieces and all the scales in a very accelerated fashion. There must be some muscle memory in there, I'm not completely new to it. Although as my darling mother has thrown away all my certificates I'll never be quite sure (so glad I kept my 'best' ones with me). That must have been quite a skip full as I did the speech ones too (do they still do those? I had to memorise poetry and prose and then you'd get the equivalent of sight reading which was a postcard with a picture on and you had to speak about it for a set amount of time.)

Beethoven may not have intended it to be jolly, it might just be the way I play it. Really need to have a lesson! I'm a huge fan of Tchaikovsky, love OTT .

Ah, that is very impressive 😀 I get the weird hand technique now! But that's a shame about your certificates - at least now you can have your own wall of fame! The speech ones sound fun - but hard work, too.

Nothing wrong with jolly!

I'm at a complete loss regarding "the weird hand technique"

Someone please take a video and post it for those of us me who are slow of understanding?

the melody is in the R hand but some of the 'accompaniment' is too. It's a beautiful piece though, the end is just lovely. There was nothing impressive about my piano at school, I only needed two Es in any subject to do my degree so spent two years just doing music and english and playing in every orchestra/band/group and choir I could find and living in the music building having a great time! Was easy enough (as a plastic brained teenager!) to 'just' learn a grade 7 piece. I've regretted ever since not learning how to do it properly which brings me full circle!

Getting so cross, 'Clowns' is perfect but every time I try to video it...

Also check out the way that guy has rigged up a ladder to record him playing .

I still don't get what you mean by "weird hand technique"

That video looks like just normal (slow) piano playing.

I love the ladder contraption, though

"you may have to hold some notes with some finger(s) while playing other notes with other finger(s)."

This is just normal piano playing though, isn't it?

Look again at the 1st page of Gavotte. See the very fist notes played by the left hand? One is white and the other is black, right? That means you hold the white note while you play the black ones. As you can see, the first two lines are full of those notes that you hold down.

(And yes, you have to play them like that. No cheating. )

On a different note (pun! ha!) does anyone know anything about silent pianos? We now have space in 2nd home and DH agreed to get another piano as long as it's silent (I may have been playing a little too often for a little too long every da ). Does anyone have any recommendations?

Normal piano playing for someone who knows how to play the piano, novel to someone who was rushed through grade 5 with the easiest pieces 25 years ago and is now trying to teach herself . I'm getting to grips with it but I definitely need some lessons now.

Sadly I can offer you no help at all on silent pianos although I would love one because I wanted to practice tonight but everyone had gone to bed!

As well in the piece I'm trying to learn the minim is at the start of the bar for but then by the third quaver the main tune has dropped to that note, so I can't hold it for the length of time required. The best I have is the person with the ladder and it's hard to work out!

"The best I have is the person with the ladder "

I bet you never thought you would ever use this sentence anywhere, at any time in your life

Post a photo of the sheet music and we'll try to give some pointers?

Hi all
Loose nah, I think they're only grade 3/4, so you're ahead
I'm struggling with the rhythm in the minuet, where it has the ornament-like semiquavers then quavers. I have little control. Some of the fingering is evil. The Entree has some huge reaches, oof, want spade hands.
Never they are lovely.
I do like the piano fruit metaphor, like the composer growing fruit and shedding it for people to play
I know what you mean about holding some notes and playing others MrSlant, I find that challenging.
Totally agree with everyone about 'how to play exam piece' YouTube videos by professionals, so mechanical, they don't let you forget they find it easy.

Oh and 1yo plays Flight of the Bumblebee videos
I like being an adult player, I can tell the difference emotionally from being a teen.

Cote I have a silent piano. So normal acoustic piano, but you can press down the middle pedal which shifts the hammers away from the strings and they hit some sensors which converts it to sound via headphones.

Upside: You can play all hours, and you have ready-made recording function which is possibly more accurate than you want because you never sound as good recorded. But it's a good practice tool. On headphones you can switch to different instruments. When I told DS2 that the piece he was playing was written for harpsichord he nodded wisely and said he knew because that's what he's been playing on.

Downside: You pay a lot more for a lower quality of piano. The bloke in the Yamaha shop says 2-3 thousand pounds more at the good-piano range. You can also still hear the thumping of the keys - if I listen I can hear the kids thumping on the piano from upstairs.

I have a Kemble. It's quite small, and the range is not big, but the touch is good and even, and the sound mellow. One day we might upgrade. I would love to spend the money on the piano rather than the mechanisms, but practically that may be impossible seeing that we live in a small house and have neighbours who probably already hate us and will hate us more if DS2 does manage to take up the trumpet...