Hi Zindaras, your friend is correct. The 1 C. stands for una corda, which on a grand would be the left-most pedal. Then when it says 3 C., you let up. Le Onde is a beautiful piece, but deceptively tricky to pull off those accents in the melody just right.

The notes of Primavera are definitely doable for somebody with your repertoire. The main challenge of the piece is to play it at the blistering tempo that Einaudi plays it at.

The good news is that Primavera also sounds beautiful played at a slower tempo, so I'd encourage you to go ahead and work on it.

Hi Zindaras, your friend is correct. The 1 C. stands for una corda, which on a grand would be the left-most pedal. Then when it says 3 C., you let up. Le Onde is a beautiful piece, but deceptively tricky to pull off those accents in the melody just right.

My family rarely goes out to see movies in the theater, so we're usually months behind the times when it comes to keeping up with popular culture. This past weekend we got around to seeing "Kick-Ass," which is a movie I almost didn't rent (I'm not a big fan of the super-hero genre), but was swayed by the 8+ rating on IMDB. And I'm glad I did, because it turned out to be an excellent and unexpectedly thought-provoking movie that's not about superheroes at all, just ordinary humans engaging in heroic acts. It's not often I finish a movie thinking that I really want to see it again, and soon, but Kick-Ass was one of them.

So... getting to the point of why I'm posting about it here [everybody sighs in relief], I really enjoyed the instrumental score accompanying the movie. But I was taken by surprise at this particular track, the first 20 seconds of which will be immediately recognizable by any Einaudi fan:

I am having a lot of fun with "Limbo." I have a question for all of you "seasoned" Einaudi folks. What strategy do you use to bring the piece up to tempo? I can play a page and a half without mistakes now, but (as my older son so warmly pointed out this weekend) I am playing at about 1/4 of the necessary speed.
Do you generally master a section until you get it up to speed, or learn the whole piece and work on speed later? While everything I have learned so far, I have learned with the latter strategy, for some reason I am tempted to do the former for this piece given the amount of repetition in it. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

I am having a lot of fun with "Limbo." I have a question for all of you "seasoned" Einaudi folks. What strategy do you use to bring the piece up to tempo? I can play a page and a half without mistakes now, but (as my older son so warmly pointed out this weekend) I am playing at about 1/4 of the necessary speed.
Do you generally master a section until you get it up to speed, or learn the whole piece and work on speed later? While everything I have learned so far, I have learned with the latter strategy, for some reason I am tempted to do the former for this piece given the amount of repetition in it. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

I got Nightbook for Sinterklaas (Dutch holiday) last weekend. Is it just me or are the pieces in there generally a lot more difficult than those from Le Onde?

Nefeli I'd rate as easier than Nuvole Bianche. There's a tricky stretch of about 4 measures on Nefeli that require painful and repeated slow practice, hands separate and then together, but once you get those down, the rest of the piece is no big deal. Nuvole Bianche has a more challenging left hand and tempo and voicing issues.

This is the thing that is perplexing me about Nuvole Bianche tonight:

That tough left hand highlighted in the above quote from Monica is indeed a little challenging because most of it is 4 note arpeggios. I finally delved into the second half tonight (basically a repeat) but there are only 3 note arpeggios for the left hand in the second half according to the score I have.

I was a little relieved to discover this, but why in the heck would Einaudi do this?

You know, BenPiano, I shared your perplexion (if that's not a word, it should be) on this issue. Why have the two different left hands? And, why, if you're going to make it different, would you have the most complex version come first? It sort of violates my intuitive notion of how a piece of music proceeds.

I never really had any brilliant insights on the issue, other than to conclude that Einaudi probably did it that way for a reason, and who am I to argue with how he does it?

My advice would be to put in a good faith effort on learning the more difficult section. But if it really is beyond you at this point, and it's the only thing holding you back from playing the piece, I'd urge you to go ahead and just adopt the 3-note arpeggios throughout. That part of the melody is so engrossing that I can hardly hear the difference in the bass.

Have fun again TTigg.

I'll just have to hope that Ludovico stops somewhere in the midwest again. I'll take Milwaukee again or even as far as Chicago. I'm afraid San Fran is right out unless someone feels like getting me a birthday present!

...and musicroom.com has released the sheet music collection for the Islands album, which now leaves me grappling with the dilemma of whether I buy it just for the two new pieces.

Okay, the "Islands" album has been released overseas, and some enterprising fan has uploaded it onto YouTube, so those of us stuck in the backwards states can hear the two new tracks ("The Earth Prelude" and "High Heels") on YouTube while waiting impatiently for the album to make it over here.

http://youtu.be/5AovNqx-czI

http://youtu.be/yMXg3maUDCQ

...and musicroom.com has released the sheet music collection for the Islands album, which now leaves me grappling with the dilemma of whether I buy it just for the two new pieces.