Instrument Players - Come and chat (Part II)

[CoteDAzur]

Previous thread is here.

We filled one thread, so here’s another

For some reason 3 quarters of the population of this house is trying to play various versions of Joplin's The Entertainer ...

Does anyone feel a bit crap after lessons sometimes? Mine are ultimately very rewarding and useful (and I am much better for them) but when you practice and think you’re doing okay and then spend about 20 minutes in a lesson completely deconstructing two bars I usually come away feeling a bit crap..

How long are your lessons? Maybe the answer is a longer lesson so you can do more than just focussing on a very short section? My lessons are an hour which is long enough to be able to do several things and feel like I am getting somewhere. Usually start with technical exercises then 2-3 pieces depending on where I am in the learning process. Teacher is generally good at finding something nice to say .

I have a programme for the coming year. After doing lots of Bach last year, I'm going to be doing more romantic pieces. Have started work on a Mendelssohn piece from songs without words (op 38 no 2, will probably do op 102 no 4 too) and have Schumann (romance op 28 in F# major) and Brahms (intermezzo in A major) on the list as well. Going to do some Chopin too but not right away. The kids have already bagsied two of the easy nocturnes and the one I fancy (op 9 no 1) is a bit hard.

The Mendelssohn piece isn't that difficult tbh, can play the first page OK (slowly) after a couple of days which is a good sign. The hard bit will be bringing out the melody.

As an aside, I am encouraged that I can now look at grade 7-8 pieces and think "ok that's not too bad" .

My lessons are 1 hour long, though often we only manage to work on one piece, like one movement of a sonata. Sometimes I make sure I ask my questions about other pieces first. My teacher's piano is more sensitive than mine, so I often discover that I don't sound as good as I thought. But I do discover that I can do a lot more nuances on her piano than mine. Perhaps I need a new piano ...

I have an hour lesson too (although only once a fortnight). Scales and technical exercises first, then we have to be very disciplined to get more than one piece done and have been known to run on for an hour and a half because we got carried away and there's no-one in the slot after me Love the Brahms, Mistigri - have you ever played any of the Field nocturnes? They were my nocturne gateway drug. Have you looked at the 2019-2020 ABRSM syllabi? Liked the Sabarande and Gigue, the Schubert and the Poulenc.

I don't do scales or technical exercises, though we do periodically talk about whether one should learn scales to play Mozart or whether one learn scales from playing Mozart.

I don't do any scales at all but I do play at least once a day

Having said that, my mum has found my notes & sheet music from back when I was taking piano lessons as a child. In her infinite wisdom, she had them hardcovered as a 'favour' to me. Now they look great but they don't stay up open There is a Hanon book of exercises among them, so I might start doing scales if I manage to find a way of actually using the book

Jaffacake I haven't played any romantic or more modern pieces in 40 years as I only started playing again this time last year ;)

I won't be doing any exams (impractical anyway as I am in France) but my teacher does organise concerts at least once a year. Unlike a lot of adult learners I play better under a bit of stress, and I quite enjoy doing it. In the absence of exams I find it useful to have something to aim for!

Never, I quite like doing exercises because they can be done whenever I have 5 minutes. Last year we worked a lot on hand position and finger independence and tbh doing exercises was quite helpful. This year the focus is on speed and octaves.

Mistigri - Do you follow France's Cycles system? I was on parcours libre for 2 years but last year I started at 2ème Cycle, 1ère année which was the lowest I could convince the Conservatoire to place me. (I didn't think there was anything to be gained from entering at a higher level and then being pressured to pass ever harder exams!)

Côte, I take lessons privately, though with a conservatoire-trained pianist.

My DD went through the conservatoire system though - she was put in the last year of cycle 1 (1C4) for her first year - this was obviously a nonsense as she was already playing at UK grade 6-7 standard and they didn't make her do the end-of-cycle exam because "it would have been unfair to the other candidates" lol. The second year, she was put in the last year of cycle 2 (2C4), and this past year she was theoretically in 3C1. I would have said you should go straight into the amateur stream of the third cycle tbh .

For reference, for her second cycle exam she played Debussy Arabesque no 1, Schubert impromptu no 4 and a modern piece (the only compulsory piece). So realistically the equivalent of around grade 8 but without the scales and the sight reading.

Or maybe the professional stream cote - do you have any ambitions to make a career of this? Eg teaching? You could sign up to do musicology at your local uni for a few hundred euros a year. My teacher did the professional conservatoire diploma plus a licence and masters in musicology. Very, very over qualified for teaching mostly not-very-good adults.

Can you imagine me as a teacher? No, I don't have any interest in obtaining a diploma. It's just that being a student at the Conservatoire allows me access to not only harpsichords and a harpsichord teacher, but also singing lessons, participation in a superb choir, and music theory lessons where I get to bore the teacher to tears, talking about the books I have read about Bach, Rameau, and Handel. It is a far more stimulating environment imho than weekly 1-on-1 lessons with a teacher who comes home.

And it's very cheap. I pay 300 Euros for a whole year's chorale lessons, music theory, instrument lessons, and access to everything Conservatoire has/does like concerts, its vast sheet music library, etc.

The catch is that I have to perform solo on stage once in a while but making a fool of myself once in a while is a small price to pay for all of the above

"I would have said you should go straight into the amateur stream of the third cycle tbh"

I went in as low as I could, because I want to take it easy for as many years as possible and stay for as long as I can. My teacher was a bit worried when I said to her, "I hope you like me as much as I like you because I'll be your student for as long as you are at this Conservatory"

Oh yes cote it's a great deal. I paid €140 a year for DD! For really top class piano tuition. But it's not practical for me because of the time commitment (I work f/t and travel quite a bit) and in the past they had very limited places for adults.

Getting on well with my new Mendelssohn piece (op 38 no 2), first page just needs speeding up a bit now, and the second page is basically more of the same. Bit stretchy for the left hand in places but that was probably why my teacher chose it . It feels a lot, lot easier than the Bach fugue I did last term.

Been on hols.... No practice for over a week now.

I'm just back from a long holiday where I only had the hideous weighted-key electric instrument to practice on. Finally, I ended up taking the cover off the grand piano at the hotel bar and playing it at 9 AM to the surprise and amusement of cleaning staff

Cote to their delight, I'm sure! Lovely to find a proper piano, though.
Resuming practice here after a couple of weeks off. Oh dear. Need to do more!

I had two weeks of no piano on hols - lovely to come back to my lovely Yamaha. Getting to grips with the grade 5 pieces, and I've just started looking at the scales. It's the arpeggios that I don't like, I struggle to get them up to speed with both hands together. However, as I only started lessons in November (after doing grade 2 over 20 years ago) I am so thrilled to be playing again. I'm planning a little break from exams after grade 5, to consolidate and have a bit of fun with non-exam pieces. I'm naughtily looking forward to the kids going back to school so I can practice guilt-free while they are at school!

I haven't had much chance to play. The piano is monopolised by the kids playing the X-Files theme tune, among other silly thing, at the moment.

Just been entered for piano grade 5. I'm getting to grips with the pieces, although I can't imagine ever getting the Scarlatti up to speed - its ridiculously fast! I'm practicing it slowly to get the accuracy and hoping I can pick up the tempo later. Anyone else exams coming up?

Fluke I learnt a Scarlatti sonata last year. I'm not sure I ever got it to the indicated speed, but eventually it was fast enough to sound okay. Working out the best fingering was essential - some of the marked fingerings (in the Henle version that I used) really did not work for me at all.

I also did quite a lot of exercises aimed at improving hand position and finger independence. Finally, when the Scarlatti was about three quarters done, I learnt a Bach prelude and fugue, after which the Scarlatti seemed quite easy !

But as a general observation I find that some Scarlatti pieces look easy but are hard to play well for reasons that are not always obvious: I abandoned a second sonata because it just wasn't happening for me (will return to it this year).

I'm having trouble practising enough at the moment because DS plays so much. He jumps on the piano when he comes home from school for lunch, and as soon as he gets home in the evening, which eats into my available practice time. But my two Mendelssohn songs without words are coming along (they are quite easy tbh) and I am starting on a very pretty Brahms intermezzo.

Fluke good luck! I've put mine off till next term but I might play in a concert this term.

How do you guys structure your practice? I'm finding now that I don't have enough time to thoroughly practice all the grade pieces and go through all of the scales etc each time I practice. Do you concentrate one of the pieces each day along with scales?

The key to the Scarlatti is definitely the fingering. I'm hoping that relentless practice at a slow tempo will consolidate the fingering and the speed will come later.

I'm really looking forward to what we do after the exam - my lovely teacher wants to broaden my experience with jazz, modern and pop as well as lots more classical music. He's a fantastic organist too so I'm hoping to branch out a bit with some organ lessons too.

I tend to do more than one practice session a day. I usually start with exercises or scales to warm up. Then work on one of my pieces. The second time I'll do different exercises and the other piece. Sometimes I'll play pieces I already know to warm up too. I try to do an hour a day, not always possible, especially with DS wanting to play all hours of the day and night.

I do little sections but no scales and exercises...

We have to fight for piano time too here.

I am finding the practice process frustrating at the moment. Just so hard at 50 something to get pieces wired. There must be some learning strategies that I could use but I'm not finding them.