Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day - the final product!

Normally I don't like recording but for the most part this past Monday morning was an exception.  For two hours I was alone in a beautiful recital hall, sitting at a wonderful concert-grand Steinway, playing a piece that I truly love.  Not a bad situation.

And here's what I ended up with after 15 days of practicing for (about) 15 minutes a day:

Now I am officially entered into the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's concerto competition.  The waiting begins!  

During the next two weeks a panel of judges will listen to the entries and whittle away the list of contestants to 20 semi-finalists.  From April 13 until April 30 the videos of those chosen will be posted online and viewers will be able to vote on who they think should make the final round.  The top four musicians from this round will be flown to Pittsburg at the beginning of June to perform the entire concerto for a panel of judges and the winner will solo with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the end of November/beginning of December this year.  

It feels like a long shot for me, but my main purpose in doing this was to take advantage of a challenge  and an opportunity that is rarely given us older musicians.  I've enjoyed the process from start to finish and am very proud of what I managed to accomplish.  My goals were to:

• put together a 10 minute version that I felt represented the concerto and my playing well.  I also wanted it to not sound like a bunch of excerpts but rather to sound like a piece of music that could stand on its own, even without the accompaniment.  
• memorize my selection.  I'm not real great at memorizing and am not asked to do it very often these days so I was a little apprehensive about this.  
• prepare for the competition in an efficient way that could easily fit into my already busy life.
• videotape my practice sessions and blog about what my various strategies were and to share what my challenges were.

I think I did pretty well with all of these goals.  So I'm smiling! 

And now we wait.  I'll be sure to report back when I hear anything more.  Many thanks to everyone that has been so supportive during this project!

Tweet

Releasing Beethoven into the Wind

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I think I've come to the end of this Beethoven project.  The recording won't happen until Monday but as is my tradition it is time for me to release Beethoven into the wind.  What follows is a little different but reveals a bit about how I see this stage in performance preparation.  It's a bit fanciful, a bit odd perhaps, but it's what works for me and it certainly beats getting myself tied up in knots of anxiety.

- 15 days have been spent selecting, preparing, and putting together my bouquet of balloons - now it's time to let them go and to see what happens.

- If I'm too afraid to let go of my balloons, if I persist in woodshedding, my balloons will stay tightly clenched in my hands until performance day.  When I do let go, those balloons will be right where I released them and won't have much of an opportunity to fly. 

- If I choose to let go of the balloons now, I will have the indescribable joy of watching those balloons rise and bloom into the sky.  At performance time what I will have is an awesome vision of what the music really is to me.

- In the next few days I will take the opportunity to perform my piece for anyone who will listen, not listening for perfection but rather to see where my balloons happen to be on their little journey.  I fully anticipate that some may get stuck in trees along the way, some may get shot down by little kids throwing stones, and some may completely disappear out of sight.  But those remaining will be mine and they will make me smile.

So here I stand.  And here I go.  Until next Monday's recording session, happy balloon watching!

Tweet

Beethoven in the homestretch - Day 14

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Wow.  I'm so close now I can almost taste it.  But with the homestretch comes the question of how to practice.  It's different when I get to this point in the game.  I could keep drilling, analyzing, and woodshedding but as I touched on in my previous post, I often find it more nerve-wracking than beneficial.  And when it comes time to performing, if I've been filling my last days with detailed work and focusing on what I'm struggling with, guess what I'm thinking about when I walk onto the stage?  Yep, all those details and challenging passages.  As a result, here's one of the most important pre-performance mantras I have -

"Ignorance is bliss."

Right.  I didn't make that one up, but I sure do like it.

So, in a spirit of ignorance, you'll see that I start to let go in my next few practice sessions.  Every once in a while I fall into some detailed work because even though I like my ignorance mantra I'm still a perfectionist at heart.  But I truly am trying to focus on the big picture now.  

Before I share this fourteenth practice session, I do want to mention a few comments that a dear friend of mine, Sue Hammond, passed on to me after watching and reading about Day 12.  She had two great ideas that I decided to try out in the practice session below.  The first one has to do with my question of how practice getting the sound and legato that I want in the slow movement.  She says:

 " In slow movements, I like to feel as if I'm pulling the piano into my body rather than 'setting down' chords.  That way, the legato gets richer, enjoining the notes AT THE KEYBED without pressing or weighting.  It's like 'releasing' the sound magically into the air -- using the natural beauty of the piano...The quality of legato is everything, so I sometimes overlap the notes with hand or pedal until my ear demands a rich legato -- then reduce the overlap to just 'enjoyed'. Even in descending phrases, I try to feel the spiritual ascent of the line."

I really love her image of pulling the piano into one's body as opposed to what I discussed in my post, where I talked about sinking into the keys.

And then in regards to how to practice at this point in the project she offered this practice technique:

" Near performance, I play the whole movement (or section) using Ebb and Flow.  I play the 'good parts' at full tempo, then imperceptibly slow down for the 'hard bits' to make sure they're played accurately and with ease, then pick up the speed again.  Within a few days, I FEEL as if I'm playing those hard bits slowly, but actually they've come up to tempo.  They just feel easy because they've been practised without tension.   Even in performance, I emotionally bail to navigate those bits.  This let's me get an overview and stamina without junk-practising the more challenging sections.  There are less and less of these sections each time."

I tried this as well and although I found it a bit tricky to actually know when I wanted to ebb and when I was ok to just flow, I have a feeling that will get easier the more I do it.  I definitely like the concept of building ease into the trickier sections and trusting that they will quickly and naturally arrive at performance tempo instead of doing the "junk-practising" that she mentions.  It can be so easy to fall into that not-so-helpful mode.

So thank you, Sue, for taking the time to share those two ideas with me and with anyone here who reads this post!

Now on to the music.  Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, this video was taken in my studio at school.  I figured it would be good to start playing on as many pianos as possible.

Tweet

Beethoven in a Quandary - Day 13

It's more like I'm in the quandary, but I decided to stay consistent with my titling.

Rodin's "The Thinker," image from
Wikimedia Commons

It all has to do with fingering.  Here I am, one week before I'm going to record the Beethoven, still finding new and sometimes better fingerings for various passages.  I suppose it's inevitable because at this point I'm really nitpicking and being sensitive to the little things that aren't working as well as I'd like them to be working.  And when things don't feel like things are comfortable in my fingers one of the first things I do is examine fingerings.  I think that's fine, especially early on in the learning process but what I'm wondering is when I should stop changing things and just make do with what I've got.  In this post's practice session I spent quite a bit of time at the end of the cadenza figuring out and writing in new fingers but after listening to day 13's session and having another go at the passage in question today I'm having second thoughts about whether or not I should really be changing this late in the game.  I feel like I'm confusing myself now and I'm concerned that when I go to perform I'm going to be trying to remember the fingering instead of playing the music.  Probably not a good thing.   So my conclusion, for now, is that I'm no longer going to be changing fingerings.  If I play this piece again in the future, then perhaps I'll revisit some other options.

Following my fingering fest I grappled with another passage in the cadenza that I want to improve.  I decided to use another one of my practice techniques that I often use.  I call it my "Reductionist" technique.  It is comprised of reducing a passage of music to the bare bones, more importantly what I consider the essential bare bones, leaving out a lot of the filler material that can often distract me from the important line.  When I do this by memory, it makes the technique even more challenging but also productive.  You'll hear several wrong notes while I'm working this all out but I think that's ok - the wrong notes aren't there out of ignorance, they're there because I'm struggling a bit and for me, cognitive struggling produces more solid understanding.  I see several other advantages to doing this exercise.  First of all, the process of distilling what I think is important prompts me to really listen and to make some important decisions - I'm not just playing the notes because that's what's on the page.  Secondly, if I have a specific line that I'm following it can help me stay on track should a few filler notes get played incorrectly.  I can more easily say, "Oh well...here's what's really important anyway" and move on while maintaining the musicality that I want the audience to grasp.  Doing this exercise also forces my mind to slip out of automatic mode, engaging it in an activity that usually re-energizes me, which is always a good thing when it comes to practicing.  

I practiced the opening of the slow movement to review what I had worked on the previous day in regards to opening my sound up a bit and allowing all the notes to sing.  I was so tempted to just keep playing on in the movement but since I only had 15 minutes I moved on to the third.  Sigh.  

Third movement - continued drilling in the coda.  It's a tricky passage and my hands keep getting quite tired so I tried to find places to make sure that I was retracting my hand so that it wasn't staying open for the entire time, thus tiring me out.  I'm hoping that it's partly my piano that's contributing to the problem - I think I need to try it out on another piano to check on that.  More woodshedding in the third movement and then "ding" - time's up!

Time flies by when you're having fun.  

Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Timeless Minutes a Day - Day 12

First off, I have to say that I find the slow movement to this concerto to be one of the most exquisite pieces of music to play.  I wrote about it more in detail in my post, "The slow 'moment' from Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto," but to sum up why I feel this way about this music, Beethoven manages to stop time with music such as this.  In our busy, crazy world I feel that's a unique gift and one that has a lot to offer anyone listening or participating.  

To relate that to today's practice session...

Because I love this movement so much I think I tend to treat it with kid gloves.  The result?  A weak, fragile sound that sometimes prevents all the notes from speaking.  In an effort to combat this problem I decided to practice the opening without regard to time, focusing instead on letting my weight sink into the keys and allowing the keys to go all the way down for each and every note.  Perhaps this sounds crazy, but my goal was to have a physical sensation that feels yummy.  I know, I know - a strange word in relation to playing the piano but that's all I can come up with that adequately describes what I was going for.  I didn't want to feel held back, nervous, or careful.  I just wanted to enjoy every aspect of it.  Otherwise I'm afraid the audience won't get the full effect of the beauty of it all.  

My work in the cadenza was mostly about memory and woodshedding.  Same goes for the last movement.  Today and in the days to come, I will be doing a lot of slow memory work, some of which involves blocking* left hand accompaniment patterns.  It is all too easy to keep playing pieces through up to tempo (or faster) in an effort to memorize but I feel that when I do this a lot of details get brushed over and I'm not truly memorizing, and more importantly internalizing, everything.  If I can play through it slowly by memory, it's testing everything - my brain, fingers, and ears.  It gets everything working together.  In performance this means that I have a stronger, multi-strand cable on which to rely when it comes to memory.  

We'll see how it works in 7 days.  

* Blocking is when I take the all the notes of a beat or several beats and play them all at once, as a chord, as in the example below.

Tweet

Beethoven revisits the metronome but in a new way - Day 11

My in-laws are in town this weekend so my posts are going to be a little shorter, fortunately for anyone reading!  

At this beginning of the day 11 practice session I decided to use one of my favorite metronome tricks.  I set the metronome to mark every half measure but treated the click of the metronome as the offbeats.  This exercise can be a bit of a mind game but I do it often with lyrical sections in order to propel myself over the barlines and to feel the melody in a more fluid way.  With a lot of practice the most beautiful, flowing melodies can often end up very square and mechanical - quite the opposite of what I really want with such a passage.  Such is the case with this one from the cadenza.  I usually start off at a pretty slow tempo doing this and then I bump up the metronome until I find a tempo that feels right and allows for the musicality that I'm looking for.  

The rest of my practice session is pretty self-explanatory.  I will say though that right now I'm consciously working on bringing up the tempos and memorizing.  As of today everything is pretty well memorized so I'm feeling much, much better, especially since memory isn't really my thing.

Now, since it's almost time to go out to dinner with my in-laws, I'll leave you with the video.  I hope you enjoy.  And in case you're keeping track, only 8 days until recording! 

Tweet

Beethoven in 15 not-so-good minutes a day - Day 10

I was due for another slightly discouraging day.  But crazy as I am and as painful as these times are, I actually embrace the not-so-successful practice sessions because they more often then not inspire me to a new level in subsequent days.  At first I was very tempted to leave this particular video out, partially because I look absolutely terrible after a long day of practicing and rehearsing, but I've decided to include it for the sake of honesty and integrity.  Who knows.  Perhaps it will provide some needed entertainment or encouragement for someone else out there.  

So without further ado...day 10.

This session was made up mostly of what I call spot-checking.  I did a lot of jumping around to various passages that have been giving me trouble.  With all that jumping came very little focus, unfortunately.  When I was watching the video a little later it occurred to me that even though I had recorded my second assessment just the other day I hadn't taken the time to carefully listen to it and to note what I needed to be working on.  Perhaps that was part of my problem - I didn't really know what I should be doing.  Perhaps I'll have a little more focus the next time around.  

Here's hoping!

Tweet

Beethoven meets my metronome! - Day 9 and Assessment 2

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Warning - this day's practice session involves my lovely, charming metronome for part of it so consider yourself warned.  And I promise I won't be insulted if you turn down the volume on your computer a little bit!

So why pull out the metronome now after I mentioned just the other day that I tend not to use it, especially when I'm in a time crunch?  Several reasons...first of all, someone reading my blog, Jamey, suggested after one of my previous sessions that I use the metronome, not necessarily because of my rhythm but as something to focus on and detract from my obsessing over insecurities.  Here's what he said:

"I don't write this to imply that you need help with rhythm, but instead to suggest you use it as a tool to help quieten any inner voice of self-doubt while you practice. Concentrating on something external may have a paradoxical effect of helping you focus on the music rather than yourself. Just a thought."

I saw a lot of wisdom in that suggestion so I thought I'd give it a go.

Secondly, I was still sensing that I'm not absolutely convinced of the rhythm in this slow movement.  It's in this incredibly slow 3/8 and I'm not accustomed to calculating such small subdivisions.  I've been trying to just do it in my head but I felt like I needed the metronome to double-check what I was doing.  Lo and behold, in doing so I discovered one passage that I had marked incorrectly in my music and that I was doing wrong, or maybe a more positive way to say it is that I was doing it not quite right.  The metronome showed me that I needed to take a good look at the rhythm away from the piano and to correct what I had marked in the music.  So that's what I did after recording this session.  Here's hoping it's right the next time.  

After working on the slow movement, I moved on to the third movement for some more woodshedding.  In this session I decided to also use a technique I learned from the wonderful pianist, Petronel Malan, a friend on twitter.  For passages that have fast notes in both hands she suggested playing the left hand an octave or two higher than written which forces me to cross my hands.  What this does, at least for me, is enable me to hear the left hand better.  My left hand is usually not as clean as my right hand so putting it on top reveals what needs to be strengthened.  It can also reveal which notes I'm not exactly sure of.  Last but not least, this technique is also just plain fun since it's something different.  And in my book, variety is often the name of the game since it keeps me from slipping into automatic, mundane practice.  

I ended the session with the cadenza to the first movement again, tweaking here and there and doing some more woodshedding.  I'm also continuing my work on making sure that the more awkward passages feel good in my hand and in my mind...that everything is working together smoothly.

After my practice session I decided to do another assessment.  It's such a good way for me to know where I am and what I need to do next.  Plus it only takes 10 minutes!  Why not?

Here is my second assessment.  It's getting there!

That's a good thing considering I'm down to 11 days!

Tweet

Beethoven in the woodshed - Day 8

Image from Wikimedia Commons

If nothing else, I actually came closer to hitting the 15 minute mark in this practice session.  That may seem pretty inconsequential to some but not to me.  I like to rejoice over the simplest things.  I actually feel that it is very important for successful practicing to have a feeling of accomplishment as often as possible.  If I get used to feeling good playing a given piece of music that same feeling usually follows me onto the stage when it comes time to perform.  

Enough philosophizing...

Yesterday's practice session was all about woodshedding.  With only 15 minutes this can be a bit of a challenge because woodshedding inevitably involves repetition and repetition takes time - there's simply no way around that.  I've been working a lot lately, however, on making repetitions really work for me.  What that means is that before I repeat something I make sure I have a reason for why I'm repeating it.  Or I give myself a goal for a given repetition whether it be to make a line smoother, more comfortable in my hands, to find something musical to do with the passage, to memorize the music, to internalize the harmonies that are involved...the more senses that are involved, the better.  I call this type of practice...

Repetition with cognition

Now to clarify, especially to any music teachers out there, I'm not saying that sheer, mindless repetition doesn't work in the long run, it's just the "long run" part I can't afford to spare right now.  

And I should add here that I'm not perfect.  I find myself drifting into mindless repetition every so often and if I'm not thinking about it I find myself there practically all the time.  It takes a lot of effort to steer clear of this tendency but in my experience it's worth it to consciously avoid it as much as possible.  

With all that said, here's me, woodshedding away...I hope it doesn't drive you too crazy and if it does, just remember, there are only 12 more days until I stop blabbing on about all of this.  

And one final note...if anyone has any comments, feedback, or suggestions, by all means, feel free to leave them here on the blog.  I'm not promising that I'll take everyone's advice but at this point, I'm doing this all without a teacher or a coach so I'll listen to what anyone has to say.  

Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day - Assessment and Day 7

In yesterday's post I started by talking about some non-musical things that I did in order to gain some more footing on my Beethoven concerto project.  I continued in that vein after recording my day 6 practice session by performing what I will be performing in a couple of weeks and videotaping it.  Here's why I did that...

As a collaborator, I have been doing this more and more often as a way to keep me on track and to keep me focused on what I need to do in my very brief practice sessions.  The idea is that I let go of my practice room mentality and perform, not worrying about mistakes since those are bound to happen, but focusing on musicality, rhythm, energy, and intent.  This might ruffle a few feathers, but I actually use the opportunity to see what I have to do in order to get through the piece musically, even if that means leaving some notes out or rearranging it.  (I talk more about this in my post, "Confessions of a piano collaborator.") This is not to say that I disregard the composer's intentions - quite the opposite, really.  Because I do a lot of analyzing in my practice sessions, I work hard at understanding the core of what's important about any given piece of music or about individual composers.  Then when it comes time to perform or to do one of these assessments I have something to focus on - the composer's language, rather than nailing all the hard passages and remembering every little detail I'm supposed to remember.  I let go and just play, which sometimes involves some minor, undetectable adjustments all in the name of a musical, engaging performance.  With my assessments I pay close attention to sections where I couldn't let go very well or where I couldn't get through the music - these are the places that I need to delve into more deeply to get to the root of the music.  The assessments also expose passages that need more technical or memory work.  

With that said, here is my first musical assessment of the Beethoven as I will be playing it for the videorecording...

Doing this also gave me further peace of mind since it gave me an opportunity to determine whether or not I feel good about the arrangement I have made.

With that done, it was time to move on to my practice session.




My assessment convinced me again that I need to get through the entire cadenza before I do anything else.  The cadenza will be first step out of the starting gate and it's an important piece of music, in my opinion.  I think Clara Schumann did an amazing job of summing up the entire concerto, not just the first movement, in the way that she wrote it so I want to do it right.

For the first part of the session I concentrated on this left hand pattern that I find physically awkward.  I was determined to find a way to move my hand so that it would fit all three notes, connected with the next set, in a comfortable, smooth way.  I then moved to my right hand to make sure I knew the melody without having to really think about it.  This enabled me to focus at first on the left hand while leaving my right hand mostly up to my ears.  At the tail end of working on this passage I made sure that I could connect it with the one that follows.  I find that it's very easy to work on sections one at a time but to forget to connect them so that it makes musical sense and so that it feels good in my hands.

I continued moving backwards in the cadenza, looking for patterns and practicing using rhythms.  This is all sounding pretty old hat now, isn't it?  It should because it's really not very complicated.

We'll see in 13 days whether or not it will all pay off! 

Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day - Day 6

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Thank goodness last night's practice session went a bit better.  I woke up after day 5's session with a determination to figure out some things I could do to make myself feel more organized and secure.  My hope was that doing so would also organize my pianistic mind and body as well.  One of the first things I did was to scan the bits of my score that I will actually be playing, print them out, and then put it all in a binder.  In previous days I have been working from the score, trying to remember what I had decided to play and leave out, putting in paperclips to facilitate with page turns, and wondering whether or not my plan would really work out in the end.  This approach, or perhaps I should call it a dis-approach  wasn't working for me and was actually making me quite nervous.  Last night, armed with my new abridged score, I played and timed out what I had, saw that I was about 1 minute over the 10 minute time limit, and then figured out an additional cut in the slow movement to make up for that.  These simple steps probably took about 45 minutes but it was without a doubt, worth it.  As the author and advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Napoleon Hill said,

"Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness..."

I had enjoyment and happiness...I just needed the peace of mind part.  Now that I had found it, it was time to move on to my Day 6 practice session.

I started out with the very end of the first movement on a run that I want to be sure is clean, powerful, and full of fire.  I drilled it using rhythms, surprise, surprise.  Next it was on to the cadenza again, still moving backwards.  I spent quite a bit of energy just soaking in the harmonies since this part tends to just wind its way around the different keys and I want to make sure that I am really hearing the twists and turns to that the audience can sense them as well and feel the sense of relief I feel when I finally land in the next section.  At times I throw in some of my rhythms, just for good measure and to keep me on my toes.  I feel that practicing gets pointless once the mind shuts down and goes on automatic.  I end the cadenza portion of the session by reviewing the rest of the cadenza and starting to push certain passages to performance tempo.  I've learned that it can be deadly to only practice slowly, especially when a deadline is looming, since music can feel entirely different in various tempos.  It's better for me to know now what it's going to all feel like in my hands.  

In the third movement I wanted to really concentrate on a handful of fast runs that have some odd groupings of notes that I have a hard time keeping track of - groups of 4, 3, 5, and 6.  It gets kind of confusing so I was trying to see if I could find a way to simplify it for myself.  There's also a really fast run at the end that I find particularly tricky so I used a technique I call "add-a-note" to work on that.  I find that technique works really well, especially to nail the various hand-position changes that are necessary.  It forces me to land securely on those notes in the process of the exercise rather than just skimming over them and praying that everything is in the right place.  

Which brings me to something I want to say about perfectionism in music...

I spoke with my mother the other day - she is following my Beethoven project and is actually listening to my videos - what a brave woman!  She mentioned that she was surprised by how thorough I am and detailed I get when I'm practicing.  I told her that when I practice my goal is to practice in such a way that I rarely play a wrong note and never play the same wrong note twice.  She was surprised by such a statement coming from someone that touts their anti-perfectionism, especially when it comes to music.  I could see why she was a bit confused.  But here's my answer to why I do what I do...

When I practice, I am a perfectionist, most of the time.  I am always striving to teach my mind, ears, and body what it needs to know in order to really know and understand the music.  I am constantly problem solving, analyzing, absorbing every aspect of what's on the page and beyond the notes. (Aha!  The title of my blog!!)  I try to practice in such a way that I regularly experience success, but always in a musical way.  I have found that when I practice in this way I know nothing else when I get up on stage to perform.  Does this mean I never make mistakes when I perform?  Ha!  Of course not.  I frequently make mistakes but because I have internalized the piece from the very beginning of the process and because I haven't repeatedly flailed on the harder passages or done what I call "random practice," I can let go of my practice-room self when I walk onto the stage and focus on the music and on communicating with the audience.  Adopting this attitude has completely transformed my life.  I now love to perform, even if the performance isn't "perfect" according to my practice-room side of myself.  

So there you have it.  A bit of musical philosophizing and a little insight into why I named this blog, "Beyond the Notes."  

Here's last night's practice session...

14 more days!

Tweet

Beethoven in...not enough minutes a day! - (Day 5)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sigh.  Perhaps you can tell from the title of this blog post but I'm a wee bit discouraged.  Last night's practice session was anything but encouraging.  Admittedly I went into it with not such a good attitude - I believe I even wrote in yesterday's post that,"I find it [Clara Schumann's cadenza] a bit intimidating."  Not a great way to start my practice time.  

Oh well.

I did end up spending my entire session just on the cadenza because I wanted to get through more of it, thinking that would make me feel a bit better about my progress.  But as you can tell I ended up stumbling quite a bit and even had a crash-and-burn ending - not something I usually encourage.  In the video you can see me put my hand up to my face in dismay.  Dramatic, aren't I?

But you know what?  I think this is all good for others to see and for me to go through.  It is, after all, the way it usually goes when learning and refining any piece of music.   As long as I keep pushing ahead, I will make it to the other side.  I always do.  And in the end, that process of finding myself up against a wall will serve me well and will give me something to really feel proud of when I'm standing on the other side.

I've got some new tactics in mind for the next couple of days - I hope they will be enough to get me to the other side of this wall.  After all, there are only 15 days left!  

Attitude, attitude!  Attitude is half the battle.  And maybe some chocolate.

Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day - Day 4

Phew.  I'm playing single mommy right now while my husband is out of town so I'm going to keep this post short but I wanted to make sure that I posted last night's practice session.  I don't have too much to say about it although I want to confess that even though I absolutely love Clara Schumann's cadenza, I find it a bit intimidating.  I have a feeling that shows in my practicing these past few days - I'm moving through it as slowly as a snail.  I think it's the dense texture in the middle section that's getting to me.  Oh well.  I'll keep taking it a little bit at a time and perhaps it will just click one of these days.  I'm also thinking I may just devote tonight's practice session to the cadenza.  

In the third movement I had a bit of an odd struggle at the very end of the main passage I was practicing.  I kept tripping over my fingers in the left hand.  Thankfully I figured out pretty quickly that it was a simple fingering issue.  Hopefully that will clear things up from now on.  You'll hear me practicing using lots of rhythms.  I do these rhythms pretty religiously as a way to test the strength of all of my fingers - the different rhythms tend to reveal weaknesses.  They can also expose where any doubts about notes are.  

And a final note, this time about practicing with metronome or perhaps I should say not practicing with the metronome.  I know it's simply terrible that I rarely use this incredibly useful tool but in all honesty, these days I don't have the time it takes to fiddle around with one.  When I literally have 5 minutes or 10 minutes at a time to practice the repetitions that go hand-in-hand with metronome practicing are impractical.  I know, I know...horrible.  But that's the reality in my life right now.  I guess we'll see how I fare at the end of all this.  Perhaps I'll end up running back to the metronome and apologizing for my gross negligence.  Or maybe not.

So here it is...day 4.  And now only 16 days until recording. 

Pulling a concerto out of my hat
Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 1
Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 2

Beethoven in 15 Minutes (or maybe a few more) a Day: Day 3

Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Minutes (or maybe a few more) a Day: Day 3

My goodness.  I'm having quite a difficult time keeping my practicing of the Beethoven down to only 15 minutes!  I think that says something about Beethoven's music - it's difficult but also incredibly wonderful to play.

Before I talk about day three's practice session I thought I'd share something I'm excited about in regards to this project.  I contacted the powers-that-be at Radford University, where I am an adjunct faculty member, and asked if there would be any way that I could make my video recording for this project in the beautiful hall there, on their fantastic concert grand Steinway.  They said YES!  This makes me even more excited and eager to keep going on this project.  And now I have a very clear deadline - Monday, March 19th, from 9:30 until 12:30 in the morning.  

So now I've got the goal, the music, the piano, the hall...I'm so excited. 

Now on to my practice session last night...

I was really pretty exhausted by the time I got to the Beethoven last night and it was after a full day of work and a full piano trio recital in the evening.  As soon as I started practicing, especially the last movement, I could tell that my fingers were in a bit of a rebellious state so I didn't push it.  Here's what did instead.

Last night I started with the second movement.   (I start each day with a different movement, rotating them in a pretty systematic way so that I ensure that every movement gets fresh attention every couple of days.)  Continuing on in the work I did on day 2, I made sure that I started by finding a pulse that works well throughout several different passages.  Once that was internalized I worked on in the movement paying particular attention to the rhythm of this one particular turn that always throws me for a loop and then worked on figuring out some more patterns and fingerings.  I stuck to this movement for a while as a bit of an indulgence (I love it!) and as a rest from the evening recital's many, many fast notes!

Next I worked on the coda of the third movement.  I tried working on the octaves at the end but my hands weren't going to hear of it so I moved to woodshedding and coming up with better fingerings to match the patterns in some of the previous passages that I worked on the day before.  Hopefully these new fingerings will make it all make more sense to me.

Last but not least, the cadenza of the first movement.  I backed up just a tiny bit and then reviewed what I've already worked on to hopefully start building up some speed since this needs to be ready to go in...

17 days! 

No problem.  (Can you tell I'm feeling a little more confident today? We musicians are such a roller-coaster of emotions, aren't we?)

Until tomorrow, happy practicing. 

Pulling a concerto out of my hat
Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 1
Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 2


Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 2

Only on day 2 and I'm already doubting myself...

"Erica, what were you thinking?  15 minutes a day?  That is not going to be enough time to whip this together! You're crazy.  Just forget about it.  Go eat some ice cream instead."

Ah, the power of my mind and emotions to completely mess me up.  

"Self, be quiet.  An experiment is an experiment.  Let me be!"

So with that little psychological exchange out of the way, here is my practice session from last night, officially day 2 of my "Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day" challenge.  My strategy for this session was to start with the first movement cadenza this time since I started with the third movement on day one.  I'm working backwards in the cadenza and only had time to deal with a handful of measures since the texture is quite thick in this particular spot and I remember having trouble with it when I first performed it a few years ago.  You may hear me playing a "wrong" note repeatedly when I'm practicing the right hand at the beginning of the clip.  I'm doing that on purpose.  When there's a note that keeps surprising me I will play what I expect several times in a row, really listening to what that sounds like and then I'll play it correctly, listening carefully to what makes that better than what I had expected.  Often times that is enough to get me playing and expecting what's really on the page.  After reviewing what I worked on in the cadenza the night before I then spent the next few minutes in the next section of the second movement, focusing on patterns that I could find and listening to sound.    You might notice that I picked a really bad tempo to start with but thankfully I saw the error or my ways and figured out a better one that would allow me to fit in more of the notes.  Last but not least I began work on the coda of the last movement.  For some reason I find the patterns at the beginning of this section very tricky and kind of hard to lock into so I spent much of my time just dealing with that.  I'm not sure if I made much headway but it's a start I suppose.

So with all that said, here is day two's practice session:

20 days remaining.  I have a feeling I'm going to have a few battles with doubt along the way.  We musicians just love that, don't we?

Pulling a concerto out of my hat
Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 1


Tweet

Beethoven in 15 Minutes a Day: Day 1

Last night I announced my decision to enter the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's concerto competition.  As soon as I wrote that post it dawned on me that perhaps I should practice - what a concept!

So here is a video of my first practice session.  Keep in mind that I'm practicing - it's not exactly the most entertaining thing to watch or to listen to.  But since I've had several people mention to me that they wished they could hear me practice I decided to give them an opportunity.  So here goes.  In the days to come I may figure out a way to annotate the videos so that folks will know why I'm doing what I'm doing.  But for now this is what I've got.

(In case anyone's interested the first 5 minutes or so are devoted to the cadenza leading up to the coda of the 3rd movement Beethoven's piano concerto.  The next 5 minutes are me working on the rhythm of the 2nd movement.  And the final 5 minutes contains some woodshedding of the Clara Schumann cadenza for the first movement.)

For more info on this project, feel free to read the first blog post in this series, "Pulling a concerto out of my hat."

Stay tuned for more.  21 more days until submission.  Gulp!


Tweet

Pulling a concerto out of my hat

Just when I thought I couldn't be more nuts...

A few weeks ago a tweet flitted by on twitter that announced a most unusual concerto competition being put on by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.  Here's a little video about it:

It took me all of about 3 seconds to decide that I wanted to enter.  At that exact same moment I also got in touch with two very distinct sides of myself.  There was the one that was already running to my piano and there was the other that was seriously wanting to take the other to the doctor to get her head examined.  I mean really!  Do I not already have enough to do?  

After an entire week of arguing with myself I'm stating here on my blog that yes, I am going to do this.  But I'm going to do it as more of an experiment - a practice experiment.  I am only going to allow myself 15 minutes a day to prepare for the submission date on March 22.  And since I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about practicing and finding efficient ways to learn music quickly but accurately and musically, I'm going to post my progress here, hopefully on a daily basis.  I may livestream my practice sessions, I may just put them up on YouTube or Vimeo but I'm going to have this be a public experiment.  

I have my concerto - Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto, a piece I've performed recently with orchestra.

I have a Reader's Digest version of the entire concerto that will hopefully fit neatly into a 10 minute package.

I have a goal of having it all ready in 15 days.

Not sure I have my sanity but...

...here goes!

Stay tuned to watch this most exciting (or crazy) endeavor.   It could prove to be highly entertaining!

Tweet

What we can learn from Beethoven and his 3rd Piano Concerto

Only nine more days until performance day!  In preparation for the New River Valley Symphony concert on May 1st, I have written program notes for Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto.  Although you can read these same notes at the concert, I thought it would be good to post them here as well so that if you are still deciding whether or not to attend, you might be more tempted to come if you knew some background on this fabulous piece of music.  I have to admit that learning some of this info has made me even more excited about the performance!  What I find so inspiring is that Beethoven, in spite of being completely dismayed by his serious medical issues, was determined to keep writing the music he found inside of himself.  He didn't just pout, moan, and groan, which I'm tempted to do.  So without further blabbing, here are the program notes:

Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto is an impressive, inspiring work especially considering the circumstances in which it was written.  Composed at various times over the course of several years, between 1799 and 1802, Beethoven was starting to come to the realization that the hearing problems he had been having were more than just a temporary problem.  He had already started his retreat from society in order to hide his encroaching deafness and was struggling to understand why fate had dealt him such a terrible blow.  In a letter to a friend he admits, “Beethoven lives most unhappily, in discord with nature and with the Creator.  More than once I have cursed the latter for exposing his creatures to the slightest accident, so that often the loveliest blossoms are destroyed and broken by it.”  Although he was only about 30 years old at this time, his hearing was bad enough that he had difficulty having conversations with people and hearing certain instruments play.  In his Heilegenstadt Testament, written in 1802, he even admits that he wanted to end his life but didn’t, feeling that he was called by “Art” to produce all that he was capable of producing.  It is thanks to this calling of his that we have this piano concerto and many other monumental works in our repertoire.

Contrary to the feelings of dismay that Beethoven was having at the time, the Third Piano Concerto is full of triumph, beauty, and light-hearted humor.   The first movement shows the more serious of the composer, opening in C minor with an unusually long orchestral prologue in which all of the movement’s themes are presented.  This is followed by the piano’s dramatic solo entrance, marked by ascending scales.  The movement’s ending is preceded by a piano cadenza or improvisatory passage which in tonight’s performance is one written by the pianist and wife of Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann.  The pianist then ends the entire movement in the same way it began, with the same ascending C minor scales.

 The pianist starts off the second movement in the key of E major – a key that is not ordinarily used in conjunction with C minor.  The effect of using such a distant key is transforming, making one feel as if time has stopped and as if we have been transported into a completely different world. 

 The third movement brings us back into C minor but not for long.  This rondo is full of twists and turns, taking the audience on a whirlwind voyage to many different keys until Beethoven finally settles on the key of C major.  A brief piano cadenza towards the end of the movement further highlights the change in mood as it jokingly taunts the orchestra and the audience before diving into a triumphant coda. 

Voila!  Pretty cool stuff, I think.  And here are some links to some other posts I have written about this piano concerto in case you're interested:

WANTED: Pictures and storylines inspired by Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto

The slow "moment" from Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto

Another Florence Foster Jenkins scenario? (a.k.a. Erica makes the crazy decision to rent a concert grand piano)

A discovery about Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto and Clara Schumann

Let's play, "Stump the Pianist" - AARGH! (a.k.a. How Erica finally memorized the cadenza)

And if you are wanting to hear and watch a great pianist, Mitsuko Uchida, performing the entire piece, click here and scroll down until you see the YouTube videos!

Videos of Mitsuko Uchida performing Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto

Stay tuned in the next week for more posts about this concerto!

Link to a sweet article about the slow movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/song/6DavidAnderson.html

The slow "moment" from Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto

Learning and practicing the slow movement of Beethoven's third piano concerto has become therapeutic to me and yesterday I had a bit of an epiphany about it all.  Well, at least it felt like an epiphany to me.  What I realized is that music such as this slow movement is so earth-shatteringly exquisite because it brings us all to a place that we rarely find ourselves these days - a place where time is not rushed, where there is no agenda staring us in the face, where motion is not surrounding us.  This movement, at least to me, brings us to another world where we are finally permitted to stop the clock for a few minutes.  Perhaps we should not even call it the second "movement" but just a "moment".  And what also struck me is that in our time, in our culture especially, understanding such a concept of stillness, of quietness, can be very difficult; we are not used to slamming on the brakes and shutting out all time constraints.  So how am I supposed to achieve this monumental task?  How am I supposed to achieve this zen-like state?  I'm not quite sure that I'm up to this task, at least not in this lifetime.  I've always secretly wished that I lived in the time of Jane Eyre, sitting around in parlors doing needlework and playing clavichords, taking walks in the countryside without a schedule pressing in on me...it would come in handy at times like this...when I need to perform the second movement of Beethoven's otherworldly third piano concerto.

I'm currently reading a novel, A Fine Balance, written by Rohinton Mistry, http://www.amazon.com/Fine-Balance-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/140003065X, that takes place in India in which two of the main characters, young untouchables from a village travel into the city to take up apprenticeships at a tailor's shop, which is unheard of.  They have never been in a city before and they spend two days sitting on the stairs in front of the tailor's shop in absolute shock.  They have no way to comprehend the life that is whirling on around them.  While I was practicing yesterday, I remembered this passage and it occurred to me that if Beethoven were to step into our world today, he too might react in a way similar to how the two apprentices reacted.  But he isn't here, and the world he lived in was very different from how our lives are now.  I feel that in order to do justice to this incredible musical moment, I am going to have to be the one to do the time travelling.  I am going to need to step back in time and forget about hurrying and worrying for a few minutes.  I am going to need to just slow down and share a few moments of heaven with my friends...

I think I can do that...with practice, of course.