Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Grieg recital: Proposal.....

Dipsy, thank you to you and to Beric. That is very helpful. In a way, it lets me feel OK about just continuing to live with the piece, and wait for the music to tell me what it wants, rather than try to be too consciously Illusive.

dynamobt, if you are uncomfortable filming your performance, you can simply use Windows Movie Maker or similar software to put a picture over your sound. It's very easy to do. What matters is that all performances can be found nicely together on YouTube.

Well, it's not that I'm "uncomfortable" filming myself. I lack the skills to sync video with audio. Never used Windows Movie Maker, though I did download it to have it. Worse comes to worse, you'll all get a nice picture of my piano with some background music!! LOL and that's if I can figure out how to do even that!!!!

dynamobt, I am similarly a Windows Movie Maker neophyte, but I'd like to figure it out, so I'll tackle it and then I can offer advice on how to use it. Or you can send me your sound file and a picture you want to go with it, and I can put them together for you. I think there are other people on this thread who can also offer advice.

Do you have a YouTube account?

Thanks PianoStudent88!!! I do have a YouTube account. Never used it though. I'll have my piece done well before the deadine. It's nearly ready as is. I was lucky and got to pick a relatively easy one!!!

Hi everyone!

An update from me: I've realized that my practice was becoming chaotic, so I'll have to be a metronome's slave again. And I'm still on the first page !

How slow I am when I have to learn a new piece.

This is usually my approach too, looking for a pleasing musical effect rather than trying to conjure up an image although it's not difficult to hear in many of the lyric pieces a blatant attempt to set a mood.



I spend a lot of time listening. I’ve no basis for saying this but I think most ordinary mortals need to go through a phase of emulation before striking out on their own. More importantly, listening to the pros playing a piece, trying to figure out their differences, is an educative exercise for the ears – let alone trying to grapple with the technical challenge of trying to replicate something they’re doing – often futile but rewarding wherever it’s possible.

You do get ideas when you listen to others, and while it's great to try and get your own ideas going, sometimes it's good to hear other people's to get inspired. I will just as often *not* do what I hear another doing as I will - but by listening that helps me determine what I like.

Listen to several different recordings, but not any enough to memorize what they're doing, just to make note yourself of what you want to do. I often will be going through the piece in my mind throughout the day, working through how I want it to sound. That way I know what it should sound like before I sit down at the piano. Then it's all about figuring out how to play it like I hear in my head.

Thanks to the suggestions about listening. I've now done some listening. I now have some ideas about varying tempo and dynamics in Illusion, Op. 57 No. 3.

Listening to it, I have also discovered that right now I don't actually like the piece very much. It just goes along endlessly Daah-di-di-di Daah-di-di-di. I love minor key pieces usually, but it doesn't sound very minor to me, perhaps because of all the shifting things Grieg is doing with the harmonies. And I can't really hear shifting harmonies (for example, to tell "ah that is shifting as opposed to more stable") so that aspect of Grieg's artistry is lost on me, at least consciously.

Don't worry Rostosky, even through I'm not liking it very much I'm not going to ask to change.

I'm listening to it now.... I fear that from this point on whenever I hear it I'm going to think "Daah-di-di-di Dah-di-di-di..... Thank goodness it isn't a piece I'm likely to run into on a regular basis

Oddly, I often like minimalist music, so maybe I need to shift my expectation from "lush romantic lyric piece" to "nascent Norwegian minimalism", and then I will start to like it better. Not sure if I mean this with a or entirely seriously!

Which always lands you enviable results!


I'm enjoying my piece (12 , no 1). The pedal has been challenging, however. It's not helping that my piano needs tuning and the pedal just emphasizes that. I still haven't made up my mind how I want to do it yet, but I guess I'll wait til I have a firm grip on the piece.

Okay folks here I am back from the battle!

what battle is that then Rossy? I hear someone say in their minds voice.

well it was actually a place called battle, which is near hastings where the battle of 1066 happened with the invading types, over here on Jolly old Englands proverbial green and pleasant land.

which is why its called Battle of course, and very green and pleasant it is too down that way, I can reccomend it as a good place to visit.

warmer than wales and not gray like wales.

Right if anyone needs help with windows movie maker, or making a video to then put up on youtube, then just ask me and I will walk you through the whole process , especially if you are nice to me and also if you make me laugh with stupid stories about things that shouldnt really be funny, but actually are.

I thought I would check in. 38 3 is going well. It is basically repeating the same theme three times with variations. I still really enjoy playing this piece. It is in hand except the 3 against 4 measures, which still sound rather haphazard. I am sure my teacher will have something to say about that at my lesson tomorrow.

I have fallen out of love with 47 7. It repeats twice and is quite discordant at times, at least at the speed I am playing right now. So don't shoot me if I ask to change my 2nd choice to 38 8 Kannon. It is more ambitious, so I want to talk to my teacher tomorrow about taking it on.

She presented all of the lyrical pieces as a master's degree project before beginning her doctorate. Hence, she is very familiar with all of them. I will let her decide which piece would be better for me. Since 2nd choices are available to others to choose, hopefully my making a change will not cause any problems.

I will report tomorrow if she thinks I can polish 38 8 in four months. Otherwise I will just stick with 47 7.

I played through your piece last night, and it really has some impressionistic nuances to it! I would treat it like a Debussy Prelude (and maybe the title Illusion was to insinuate that style?). Go for a more ethereal sound rather than a romantic sound with this one.

Thank you, Morodiene. What are some of the impressionistic nuances? I've never played Debussy, but someone played Voiles very impressively in the current Beginners And Beyond Recital, so I could use that to give me an idea.

Ethereal, I can wrap my mind around that.

To me it means less of an idea of melody and harmony, and more just an overall picture of something. Think about how Impressionist paintings can be made up of several dots or slashes of paint but when you step back and look at the overall picture you see what it is. Impressionism in art I believe had not to do with trying to depict something accurately like a portait or still life, but was concerned with implying the feeling of whatever the subject matter was.

Translated to piano music, you would want to determine for yourself what feelings this is alluding to. Obviously, there are notes you will want to bring out, little melodies if you will, but it's not the kind of melody you'd find in Chopin or Mendelssohn SWW . It's more of an allusion to a feeling or atmosphere. Sorry if this sounds very obscure.

I played through it a second time and I imagined it was an Impressionist take on a Viennese waltz - not a grand one, but perhaps one done in a parlor with someone playing the piano. Even though it's in 6/8 and doesn't always have the "boom-chick-chick" accompaniment (more often it's just "boom-chick"), it really helped give me some ideas.

For example, when doing a waltz, beat 2 is always slightly elongated. In this time signature, you'd be looking at elongating beats 2 and 5. I don't know if this sounds crazy or if it helps at all, but that's what I got out of it.

That is very helpful, Morodiene, thank you.

Oh, what the heck. I'll take Halling, Op. 38 no. 4.


I'll see if my eye allows me to see the music well enough.

Welcome Piano*Dad!
Nice to see you in this neck of the woods