summer boredom sets in in musical force!
Aug. 13th, 2004 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageOkay, you know the summer is starting to wane when I start putting in serious time on the piano.
I'm not talking little doodles to amuse Elizabeth, or the standbys that I know by heart and play fairly often.
I'm talking scales, people. I just played through all my major scales, triads, and arpeggios. I even played some of them twice, since they were rusty from long disuse.
I then played one of my standbys, Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, 2nd movement, which is beautiful and takes some concentration on dynamics and phrasing. Nevertheless I memorized it two years ago, at about this time in the summer, and haven't touched it for serious effort since. I spent a few minutes reminding myself of the sections where the melody line is picked up in the left hand, and how to make those chorded runs easier and more melodic.
Then I did something unprecedented. I went on to the third movement. Not only did I play through the first page of it, I stopped, went back, repeated phrases, and then played it again. And again. Then I sped it up.
In other words, I practised. For twenty minutes.
I even took out my Mozart book and played the Marche Turc, which is one of the few pieces by Mozart that gets my blood moving. It's fairly simple - I sight read it, with some trouble on the octave runs - but still, it took effort.
My hands feel like they've had a workout, which is good - I haven't stretched them this much in I don't know how long. I have a feeling I won't do this again for a few days, because my right hand in particular will be sore from those octave runs.
It felt good. Maybe I'll keep it up - at least until school starts. I think I'll try to add the Marche Turc to my standbys.
I'm not talking little doodles to amuse Elizabeth, or the standbys that I know by heart and play fairly often.
I'm talking scales, people. I just played through all my major scales, triads, and arpeggios. I even played some of them twice, since they were rusty from long disuse.
I then played one of my standbys, Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, 2nd movement, which is beautiful and takes some concentration on dynamics and phrasing. Nevertheless I memorized it two years ago, at about this time in the summer, and haven't touched it for serious effort since. I spent a few minutes reminding myself of the sections where the melody line is picked up in the left hand, and how to make those chorded runs easier and more melodic.
Then I did something unprecedented. I went on to the third movement. Not only did I play through the first page of it, I stopped, went back, repeated phrases, and then played it again. And again. Then I sped it up.
In other words, I practised. For twenty minutes.
I even took out my Mozart book and played the Marche Turc, which is one of the few pieces by Mozart that gets my blood moving. It's fairly simple - I sight read it, with some trouble on the octave runs - but still, it took effort.
My hands feel like they've had a workout, which is good - I haven't stretched them this much in I don't know how long. I have a feeling I won't do this again for a few days, because my right hand in particular will be sore from those octave runs.
It felt good. Maybe I'll keep it up - at least until school starts. I think I'll try to add the Marche Turc to my standbys.