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.

I've started practising again...

Good news! Why the weird face?

LOL. I've had access to a piano all the time on holiday and didn't practise.

We are back home from holiday and I'm doing 2-3 stints per day at the piano, for at least 1.5 hours each.

I think this is the summer holiday when DC want the school to start as badly as I do

Missed two weeks of practice but slowly getting back into it again.
At the moment I am trying to conquer the F sharp major and minor scales. Some way to go...

I'm officially old. I had to go and find a bigger and cleaner edition of my Chopin piece because I can't read my current one.

Oh Never

Loose, how are your scales going?

Meanwhile, I got my music theory book and it starts with "there are 5 lines and 4 inter-lines, here is what the Sol key looks like" This will test my patience, won't it?

DS1 is going through the grade 5 theory book and even that is fairly dull. After 2 examples of transposing by an octave we had to skip it so as not to die of boredom.

The cleaner bigger version is pants. Wrong notes.

Harrumph.

Will just have to peer...

My teacher would properly hiss at "cleaner" notes. That just means "simplified for easier playing".

All she lets me get is Urtext version.

I would like an Urtext version but I don't know what that is for Chopin. I will have to consult. But I'm not buying VOLUMES just because I fancy one prelude. Chances are I won't play anything else...

The "cleaner" version simply have BIGGER notes. My eyesight is not what it was (not that it was very good to start with).

I never played any Chopin so can't help you there, I'm afraid.

Funny enough, my eyesight is better now than it was in my teens, thanks to age I still wear contact lenses, though, although I can get by without.

Scales are progressing, thanks Cote!
I'm playing Chopin for grade 5. I am having an aargh moment with one bit which actually looks impossible but after saying ' yes, that is difficult!' my teacher explained we will get round it by using the pedal. Suspect this is a feature of Chopin but I haven't tackled him before!

Yes loose - Chopin = pedal. Lots of it. What are you playing?

It's Sostenuto in E flat. I have visions of one day playing it with great expression. At the moment the main expression is mild panic and relief about the pedal!

cote I'm trying to upload some of my Rameau's Gavotte but my phone is on strike ...

Oooh I can't wait!

Just the gavotte. My phone can't cope with more than one vid at a time ...

Yay! Very well done, Never

I would have loved to see more of your hands (as fingering looked different than mine). Can you try& put the phone on the piano next time? I find that if I stack up enough books & put phone on top, video angle becomes quite OK.

I'll try. I'm mainly concerned with not letting the phone fall off. If I put it on the piano it gets too much interference and the sound is no good. For that vid I put it on the music stand. I'll see if I can record the first double at some point.

During a lightbulb moment (literary) I realised that I can't read music scores because it's too bloody dark! I bought a lamp. I can now read the music. Hah. Take that, stupidity!

Disclaimer: Not all sightreading problems can be solved by buying a lamp.

Never

I recorded Bach's Partita in C Minor for Lute or Harpsichord (BWV 997) on the piano. . I do think that it sounds better on the harpsichord!

Lovely pieces! Thanks Cote and Never for sharing. I am studying the fingering!
I like the lamp story - our piano is in a dark spot and the lamp is essential if I'm going to read anything. DS2 doesn't necessarily agree.
Practice has been very disrupted recently but I'm trying to get back into good habits!