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Hi all im getting annoyed an frustrated.

I have played(the bit i can play) of LeOnde about a million times, i love the tune! But im wondering how to make it sound really good, like Kwai Girl's version or Einaudi's.

Mine just does not sound as punchy, im trying to work out why that is.

Is it my timing-too much (speeding and slowing)?

Inconsistent touch (tones not even)?

Playing the hands together improperly(i play from memory)?

Im not talking about the obvious mistakes (which there are a good few) but the the bits that are running well but dont sound right?


Maybe iv just played it too many times but i want to play it gooood!! (properly)

http://www.box.net/shared/drjc21zbid

tx Einaudi fans

NeNiRi, I thought your version of "Le Onde" was very, very good!! Maybe not in Einaudi's or Kawaigirl's league, but then again, few of us mere mortals are.

I wish I had some concrete advice to give you to make your already nice rendition even better, but it took me a very long time to get to close to where you are. The main difference I hear is that Einaudi's version accents the melody notes a shade more than you're doing, I think.

Ty Monica,

kind words and i liked your YouTube vids, you give so much to this forum, i have noticed that you always have time for people.

I shall take your advice and try to accent more. I dont know what it is about kwai girls play? but to me i think it's her tempo. I think mine sucks and also she plays they keys really solid i feel that every other note is slightly (non solid)

Every time i try to use a metronome i play like a robot but i feel i use way too much speeding and slowing.

best wishes

Listen to Einaudi, though, and you'll hear that he plays with tremendous rubato (variation in tempo). I don't think you want to play "Le Onde" too strictly according to the metronome. I think your tempo is slightly slower overall than how Einaudi plays, but not excessively so.

Wow. Excellent! This has got to be another one on my "Must Learn" list.

Sounds wonderful to me. Much subtly in this that you are handling very well!

I'm just starting out with Le Onde, with an eye towards performing it publicly at a recital in June. I must admit, it's slow going.

Don't have any specific questions, just an update. Frankly, I think the piece is beyond me, but I like it too much to set it aside so soon.

Just started with Le Onde last night (yes I'm VERY late to the Einaudi party) and already I'm looking for some suggestions.

Let's start with bar 5:

I've tried fingering the melody (looks like the notes of a broken D9 chord to me {D. F#, C#, E, A, D}) and have a few methods that seem to work.

1) p, i, r, t, m, t
2) p, t, r, t, m, t
3) p, t, p, t, m, t
4) p, i, p, t, m, t

Where:

t = thumb
i = index
m = middle
r = ring
p = pinky


Since this pattern is repeated a lot, I want to be sure that I'm getting the optimal one into my fingers. Perhaps there is another fingering pattern I didn't think of which would work better?? Thoughts???

Rodney

Hi Rodney,

I tend to go p,t,r,t,i,t.

However, looking at my hands while I play it, it seems to make no sense. So looking at your charts, the nearest 'sensible' way for me would be 2), only I use a larger i,t stretch instead of m,t

Hi Euan,

#2 was my first choice but for some reason I found #1 & #3 to be smoother for some reason.

I'd never heard of Ludovico Einaudi! Thanks! Lovely music. Reminds me of Philip Glass'. And great job, Monica!

Hi NeNiRi,

Beautifully played! I second the praises you've had above, well deserved! It's really refreshing to hear Einaudi (or indeed, any equivalent style) played well: the music may be simple to learn but it's this very simplicity that makes it so difficult to pull off a good performance.

My comments
1) Maybe a little less when you're "resolving". Whenever you're returning from A minor to B you tend to crescendo. To my ears it should be the other way round: it's much more magical when the "home" chord is less.

2) The rubato was getting quite "predictable" after a while. It might be because the music is repetitive and each time the same passage occurs you apply the same rubato (was that the intent?). Maybe a little creativity at this front will boost from a "beautiful" performance of this piece to an "breathtaking" one.

3) A matter of taste: a little less left hand would be so nice.

4) Again, a matter of taste: two instances of the passage with the F6->G->D progression (1:13, 3:42). Your interpretation says that the F6 chord should be important and therefore there should be a crescendo leading to it and a diminuendo away from it. Another way to show your appreciation of that beautiful harmony is to actually diminuendo into that F6. Again, it makes people listen harder. And since there're two instances, maybe do the first one with a dim and the second with a cresc?

I think the general observation is that less is more in a case like this. A lot of what I've said are my personal taste. In any case, I think it was superbly performed. Congratulations!

Thanks for the nice words, Thorium, and welcome to the forum! If you make your way through this mega-thread, you will be a hard-core Einaudi fan. I agree that his music is reminiscent of Glass's, but even prettier, in the sense of being more melodic.

Rodney, I'm away from my piano, but I'll try to take a look tonight and see what fingering I use for those measures. I *think* I use #2 but I have been woefully wrong before trying to recall fingering away from the piano.

Hey Rodney... I just sat down at the bench. Forget what I said about using #2. The fingering I *actually* use isn't one of your options. Instead, I play:

5-1-4-1-2-1, or p-t-r-t-i-t, exactly the same as Euan.

[Monica swears NEVER to answer a fingering question away from the piano again. ]

Hi,

I recently caught Einauditis. Having read several people comparing his music to Glass's, I thought I'd check him out too. I listened to snippets of several songs, and formed the opinion that shattering glass sounds closer to Einaudi than Philip Glass. Is there a certain album of his I should check out or should I wait for the Ludovico virus to subside?

Thanks,

Dave

Welcome to the forum, drm13, and welcome to Eindaudi addiction. You can start with the "Echoes" best of collection, or the La Scala concert (which I think is almost better), but I must warn you that Einaudi addiction is a progressive disease, and you will find yourself wanting to buy everything he ever recorded, not to mention paying large sums of money to fly across the country to hear him play live...

Actually, the Echoes collection was released before his latest albums, which are some of his best, so you might want to buy Una Mattina or Divenire instead of that. Or in addition to.

Hi Monica,

Sorry, my post was confusing. I did already purchase a few Einaudi CDs (Le Onde, I Giorni), and I'm saving my pennies for more. My question was more about Glass -- Which of Glass's CDs remind people of Einaudi, because to me they are like night & day.

Thanks,

Dave

drm13,

Some of his works for larger ensembles are very "out there", true, but the stuff for solo piano has much of the same elegant simplicity as Einaudi's, IMO. Glass is bit darker though, and perhaps more dissonant, and probably a truer example of Minimalism.

Have you heard his Etudes, and the Metamorphosis piano cycle?

No, I will go hunt them down. Thx, Thorium.

drm13,

I really like the music he wrote for the film The Hours:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R-bDSAl6ME