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Interesting metronome anecdotes!

To add mine... my digital has a built-in metronome, but I hate using it. I have another electronic one that I used when playing viola that I really like. It's a huge help in playing slowly and making sure everything is even. It does require more focus, but that means if you can play well with the metronome, you'll play great without it!

Guess I should add an AOTW if I'm posting... nothing big, but managed to play through all of Bethena for the first time in a lesson. Huge change going from my digital to a Steinway grand!

Farmgirl - Hey! Eb minor (gotta love six flats) has been my scale (and arp) of the week too. Its kind of neat to imagine all the piano players that are simutaneously practicing away at the same material all over the globe. Thats the horizontal connection. The vertical connection is across time. (LOL I've got to stop reading reading these Brian Greene books.)

All your metronome comments are interesting. I haven't heard anyone mention using it in quite the way I do sometimes. That is, after I've worked on a piece or a section of a piece hands together for a little while (usually without metronome), I like to put it on the metronome at a slow tempo and see how it holds together. Invariably the metronome reaveals those places that are not secure, so that I can go back to fixing those spots. Its usually not a tempo or rhythm thing, just the added pressure of the metronome reveals the weaknesses. And I'm often surprised by which spots are revealed, because they are not the ones I thought were weakest. As a result I've sort of grown fond of my metronome and think of it like a carpenter would with his level -its ok to eyeball some stuff, but if you're hoping to line up walls and corners you'd better be sure its right at the start.

SeanC - Congrats on Bethena. It is such a nice piece - and on my every-growing "hope to play some day" list. Don't you just love the sound of that grand and its feel when you coax out a nice sounding group of notes?

No real AOTW. The MacDowel is so lush with big chords in the right hand and octaves in the left. I want to hear them together, but for now it is all I can handle to try and play them smoothly one handed. I actually don't want to listen to it on utube before I can play it and decide how I think it should sound. But if anyone finds a performance of it you should have a listen - really a gorgeous piece that I sense is not done too often. Chestnuts HT up to the last page now.

Jim

whoo hoo!

Cathy

As my ear improves, I find myself using the metronome more and more, the way Jim does: to be sure the bit is properly memorized. If you don't have it very solidly, the metronome will trip you up.

That's an exact description of how I like to use the metronome too! Although for me it's usually due to impatience in wanting to figure out how everything sounds. I probably should be using it from the start... :P

As for the grand... I might love the sound if it was in better shape. My lessons are at the university, and unfortunately they don't maintain their practice instruments as well as they should. Now if only I can manage to use the Baldwin at my teacher's church...

I had been working on a piece with a key change, well two actually -- one from and one back to the original key. Up to now, I'd been letting my digital do all the modulations on my arrangements at the flip of a switch, but so many people commented about liking the sound of my accoustic, and I liked its old fashioned sound for this song, so I redid part of the bridge and last verse today with the modulations. I thought I'd have a lot more trouble with it but I really like the way it came out.

Several weeks ago now my teacher assigned to me the third movement to Beethoven's Tempest sonata. I was skeptical about whether I was ready to play such a piece or not and when I talked to him about it he said to work on it for a few weeks and we would decide whether or not I could handle it.
Because of conflicts with my work and his school its been a few weeks longer than we planned, but I played the first 3 pages of the sonata for him at about 80% performance speed which has some hiccups at that speed.
He told me I was ready for it and should continue to learn it, the only things he said to work on was to bring out the dynamics more in a few spots and to try and get my left hand quieter in another section.
This has been a very challenging but very fun piece to work on and getting the go ahead definitely got me excited.
Oh, he also asked me to play it at a master class he's having next week, which is cool. Hopefully I can work out those hiccups before then.

Thanks, Dave T.

JimF - so you and me are scale cousins:) I hope you are not doing the second half of the hannon #49. exercise of the 6th I am still doing this. My teacher does not pass me. She is just increasing the speed. Every time, I go up the speed by a notch, the damn thing fails (yikes!). Speaking of a metronome, I did see a Penguin shape. it looked cool.

My AoTW - of failure of the week. I went to the lesson. My teacher heard me play the Rach piece I've been working on. She has not heard the piece at least a month and half because we have been working on the piano ensemble piece. She told me that the PPP section was too loud. There are notes with tenuto marks. So I was just trying to bring those notes out. It turns out that I did it too much. In an effort to emphasize those notes, I was playing those notes at MF and the rest of the notes MP, far away from PPP. I needed to emphasize the sound within the PPP environment and have to play the other notes absolutely quietly, evenly with the same volume. So basically redo. For these measures, I need to go back to hands alone, 1 note at a time until I can achieve the sound I want. I also missed "poco a poco accelerando...", in short, I needed to pick up the speed. I really have to study the score before I play.

The newer stuff (Rach, shostakovich, Bartok etc) is really hard for me. Not used to it. I really love the way the Rach piece sounds. It's just it has too many notes. I know I am just complaining. I will eat ice-cream now. It will make me feel better.

That sounds fantastic. It's not an easy piece. I love the piece. I am not there yet but it is definitely in my bucket list. Please post it when you are able to play through the piece. We have quarterly recital.

Finally, an AOTW for me... I've gotten so I can play Bach's Minuet in G fairly smoothly through! As I've mentioned before here, I found it pretty tricky to learn (and I'm not done with it by any means) but it's been very fun.

I believe, based on a score I found at IMSLP, that it's BWV 114, not the more complicated one Andy Platt mentioned a while ago... I didn't realize until then that there was more than one!

You are so funny! This cracked me up. It sounds like you are really learning a lot by tackling these pieces, though. And "poco a poco accelerando"... I think that's going to be my motto for the day.

Good job Bessel.

Your first Bach piece is the toughest. They do get easier - or, I should say, the learning of them gets easier, with each one you knock off. What's next on your plate?

I'm working out the third movement of a Clementi sonatina, Op 36, #2. Very different... that will keep me occupied for quite a while... but I'll be working on the minuet too, as I don't "own" it yet, and want to.

My AOTW is that I went to Piano Row in Manhattan today and played my "repertoire" fearlessly and without any nervousness, even though critical ears were listening. I really blew myself away with how good I sounded on a concert grand compared to the dinky old U3 I normally use. Those crescendos in Fantaisie Impromptu...just WOW!! The Fazioli concert grand was really something else

Considering how bad my performance anxiety was when I started playing last year, this is a big achievement for me.

My AOTW: My teacher said "Wow!" My teacher is Russian, and was trained in Russia and in Switzerland. She is not free with praise, so this blew me away. My last couple of lessons have been discouraging and I felt like I could not do anything right. So today I played through the Chopin Waltz and she had several points to improve my interpretation, but overall liked my playing. Somehow I managed to miss ALL the A#'s after the key change, but that is fixable. Then we worked on the Bach prelude, and she was satisfied with my progress. Then she had me play all three of the movements of the Clementi Sonatina, and when I finished she said "Wow!" and praised my playing. I prefer a teacher that makes you work and only praises when things are really right. I have to say she made my day. I am going to go drink Champagne (Prosecco) now!

wow that is deep that whole witholding the praise thing is a duesy

I used to teach martial arts and found that when you praise a student they get lazy they start to feel accomplished

good for you for having a teacher you love to hate and hate to love and just love at times like these


they say chinese say that a relationship with your teacher is like that of a father and son
or in this case a parent

kudos

Sam Rose, nice to hear your ear improves (no pun). You are blessed to have played on a Fazioli concert grand. Must have been a very nice feeling playing a fast piece on that grand.

DMT3339, I didn't heard the tempest 3rd movement before. But it's really a beautiful piece. TY, for introducing that piece into my life. Oh, and it's really fast. If you can play this, then you have the skill to play the other piano sonata's from Beethoven too!

Starr Keys, I love the piano set up in your youtube vid in your signature. With the light, the lamp... it looks cozy.



This week I had the same feeling. I thought Für Elise was pretty good, but my teacher said it needed more work. Better staccato technique and bringing out the melody at the second fast part. Though I didn't eat icecream, but homemade grilled hamburgers, when I came home from lesson, heh.

Bessel, great that you have finished BWV 114 menuet in G major. I like the piece. Are you gonna do the other part of the menuet too, BWV 115 menuet in G minor? It's almost the same and with BWV 114 as thirst and last part and BWV 115 as second part, you have a complete menuet.

SwissMS, a real WOW is always fine to hear from your teacher. My teacher doesn't do it often, but when she does, it is real.



Ah that's why my boss at work doesn't give me compliments, haha!

My AOTW is that I've learned to relax my thumb in fast octaves: I can play the first half of Dark Eyes Boogie at the right speed. It sounds very boogie now.

Well done Chirs. That song has a very difficult left hand. Congrats!

I’ve managed to play complete the Little Prelude BWV 926, at last. I’m proud, because I always crashed against these bars. I even thought of giving it up, but the effort has been all worth it.

Yay! Recital done. Same two pieces as at the adult "musicale" - Debussy Arabesque #1 and Clementi Sonatina, Opus 36 no 4 (F Major). My wife says I'm greedy doing two

It went pretty well - the Debussy was much better than at the "rehearsal" last month (just because I've had a few more weeks work on it). I would say the Clementi Sonatina might have been a fraction better in parts but I mucked up the very last four measures. Classic end of piece lurgy I guess.

So I've changed my list of pieces in my signature. Though I still need to work on getting a good recording of the Arabesque before I can move it to the retirement list.

Congrats, Recaredo and Andy! all I've managed this week is to sound less like a robot when I play pieces with broken chords. I still can't quite believe my teacher said that to me, but I console myself that since she's Japanese, it probably wasn't as bad an insult as I've taken it to be.