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I agree with everyone else, Cheryl. Find something fun to play! I find the let down after a major effort, like the Grieg recital, happens to me too! You worked so hard on Watchman's Song, that you are probably ready for something completely different!

Sometimes just new material infuses new energy. There are some really fun Sonatinas! Hopefully something fun will come out of your lesson.

Yah I found being spontaneous to be so satisfying, and I think a break from practice (even very short ones) to be very rewarding and gratifying. My practice later that evening was more than I had expected too, quite focused.

Enjoy the Debussy and Chopin studies.

I'm sorry to hear that Cas, hope you can find your way out of that soon. I hate when I get down in the narrows and don't want to play.

How about a little Joplin? Am sure Whizbang can find you something.
My differences in type of music is what's keeping me going right now. This getting the two hands to work together is really tough. Depressing.

WiseBuff... I thought the Hills were very much like Denver as far as weather. When it's below zero here. Everyone just smiles and says: "Just wait a couple days". Sure enough. In a couple days we see 50f again. That's what I love about the Hills. One morning I woke up here and it was 30f below zero. The next morning I woke up and it was 30f above zero. Hehe!
Can you believe that I can't work yet today? Where I park my truck. There are 3 to 5 foot snow drifts. Have to wait until they get the place plowed. Doh!

Thanks for the encouragement folks.

I have been looking for "easier" sonatine, and so far I am not inspired by anything I've found - everything just looks too fast, too complicated - I don't feel ready to plunge into something that challenging.
And yet I want a longer piece.

There must be a compromise!
I'll talk to my teacher tomorrow.

I started a new rag and it is amusing, but not grabbing me the way I need to be grabbed right now...I guess these lulls in enthusiasm have to happen once in a while.

Cheryl, just a thought, have you played this Sonatina? It is not fast, and is very nice. Someone played at the party I was at Saturday. It runs about 3.5 minutes. I love the Romanza.

Beethoven Sonatina in G Major:

Moderato I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av-nH6-c4xQ

Romanza II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4EY3OOO9xk

Beethoven's F major Sonatina is nice too, but it is faster. I have become a major advocate for Sonatinas as a technique builder. The one I am working on has really transformed my hand. I wish I had focussed on them a year ago!

I hope you find something fun!

Thanks SwissMS, I have played that Sonatina --- I was working on it a couple of years ago and while doing so developed some severe tension problems which took months to get rid of. I abandoned the piece because every time I tried, I could feel the tension coming back. I was going to start with it again this summer, but I keep having a negative reaction to it when I started playing. I hope I can get over that someday, because it really is a sweet piece - but for the moment, it is not on my to-do list.

I think chopin valse op posthumous. 69 no 2 would be good for you. Koulau Rondo op 49 #2 was fun to study. You can play 3rd mvmnt of Mozart sonata in F K 280 but its damn long. You may feel like dumping the piece in the middle after all. Baltok Bulgarian Rythm no 2 is fun too. In fact look at all of them in the series is fun. I happened to do 2.

I liked Bartok very much and looks like have done" From the diary of a Fly" too. I recommend it. You might drive your hubby crazy though. But you will have fun.

Also Beethoven 6 variation Kinsky-Halm WoO 70. Thema is definitely enjoyable. It sounds really good and sounds more advanced than it is.

I have been feeling blah as well. I hate when that happens. I started back after a week off but only to play pieces I know. Maybe my achievement will be to work on a new piece...

FarmGirl - I've started checking out the suggestions.
For the Koulau Rondo op 49 #2 - I think you mean Kuhlau? But I can't find Op 49...?
I'll check everything out tomoroow - right now Mr. casinitaly and I are heading out for our ballroom dancing lesson

Hi all,

I'm not so much a regular writer in this thread, but I want to share my AOTW.

The last half year wasn't a great one for me. Financial stress wasn't very good for concentration and relaxation behind the piano. Funny how the brain works that way.

Now I work for a month at a new learning job, being a cook. But the job isn't sure yet, because the restaurant needs to cut on personal costs. All restaurants in our city have a hard time due to the crisis. But we'll see how long my job lasts.

The first month went not so great either, because I slipped with a pan with boiling hot soup down the stairs. (I know that was stupid, please don't tell me that. But context is everything, so I have to write it). I got the soup all over me. I burned half my face and my right hand to second degree. The worst part was that I couldn't play piano because my hand was taped in.

The right hand is quite recovered now. No pain. So I play the piano again. I work on the moonlight sonata the beginning. I can finally voice my right pinky playing the octave. You know that difficult expression of the melody. Woohoo! I'm so happy.

So strange that so little baby step can bring my mood up. As someone who has just bought a new car or something.

That was my aotw.

Cheryl: have fun dancing!

Cheryl,

Some random thoughts on piano funk

Like you I was in a bit of a piano funk as the Summer came to an end. It seemed I'd been working on the same things for months, and that this year in particular I was playing only harder and harder repertoire which was taking longer and longer to master. More hours of practice didn't seem like the answer.

I think my teacher, bless her for it, recognized the symptoms, because just at the right moment she started suggesting things like, hey, why don't you revive something that you played before and really liked so that you can keep it in working order?... (to go with the handful of things that I can play from memory)....

Also she started up with the "throw-away" program that we used to do every week a few years back. You remember...she just assigned an easy, fun piece.....usually from two or three levels below my "real" pieces....and the assignment is just do what you can with it for a week. Don't spend too much time on it, but spend some time every day. And just have fun. I'm pretty much embarassed to name some of these throwaways since they usually have names that kids would like. But I've also actually come to appreciate that perhaps we adults, in our haste to get on to "the good stuff," have really missed an important part of our piano education by skipping lots of music of this type. Part of what we miss is sheer volume. I think the one year I did a lot of these I had something like forty of them, versus what?.. a dozen or less "big pieces"? I'm sure that the folks on our forum that played as children played many, many pieces at the lower levels... probably several years worth.... a hundred pieces? more? In each throw-away I've done so far I can see the pedagogical value, and, while it may be a skill or technique that I'd say "oh, yeah I can handle that", there is nothing like repetition and familiarity to build the kind of self-confidence that is needed at higher levels.

I know it sounds kind of goofy when someone asks what are you working on and I have to honestly reply....oh, part of a Mozart Sonata, an arrangement of a Puccini aria, and Creepy Cat by Bober. LOL But that's what I seem to need at the moment.

My AOTW is that Mozart is just about in hand, Puccini is slow but close, Creepy Cat is done for the week, AND I'm having fun, including the "biggies" and the "lil'un's".

Keep the faith, you will work it out C.

Enjoy the dance, cas!

My aotw is that I have caught myself holding my breath during sections of Stravinsky's Easy Impossible Pieces.

Maybe the thread about hearing breathing in a recording tipped me off. If I remember to breathe, I can sometimes remember to relax and just play (most of) the notes and not flip out.

My bad. It was op 40 no 2. I could not see it well. I checked the YouTube. There is one I can find. Don't listen to it. I think it should be played with sweet playfulness. It's not like lemme show you how fast I can play.

"Sweet playfulness" sounds pretty fun!

Chris - what a terrible accident! Thank goodness it wasn't worse! Congratulations on your progress on Moonlight Sonata, that is great news! I hope that things stay stable with your job. Heaven knows these are difficult times - hang in there!

Malkin - I've done the "stop breathing" trick too. It ends up being pretty uncomfortable, doesn't it. I haven't noticed it too much lately, maybe I've gotten over it? hmmmm

Jim, I think you're right, I need some silly light pieces. I don't think my teacher even knows any though He's pretty "classical all the way" . I'll have to pick them myself, going back through older material.

FarmGirl - ok, I have to confess, I watched the youtube of K's op 40 N2. I can see that the fellow didn't have to play it that quickly. It is quite a sweet piece - and yet again I look at the score and feel panic!!!!

This is the big problem. I don't feel I've got something that is "just a bit harder" than what I've been doing - and I am not finding pieces that are "just a bit longer" at the level I'm at. I was looking at the Clementi Op36 N2 again last night and "maybe" that does't have to be played as quickly as I fear. It is quite pretty.

I'll be sure to report back after my lesson and share what has transpired!

Thanks so much for the suggestions and encouragment
you guys are great!

Cheryl, it's ok to play this piece slow and steady piece. This is one of those pieces people wound up playing crazy fast out of control. Not because they intend to play fast but they lost control. You see the breath marks my teacher put in the score. I must have been told to slow down, take a breath and keep your tempo (hahaha). If you can keep your tempo, show the dynamics and articulate the rhythm, it will sound great and you will have fun. Just think about it. Did you hear the slurs, the phrases, staccato against legato in that guy's playing? I did not.

I remember my teacher told me to take a tiny breath, a fraction of a second, between A4 and A5 (you see the pink v sign between the A octave). Imagine you are dancing. She said "don't bulldoze your way through. Take a little time before you hop". She was my first piano teacher in this country. Lots of good memories. She moved to San Francisco.

Getting all the way to the end of a lonnnnnnng piece with no mistakes, then duffing the last note. *sigh* oh well at least the rest was good, which I was stoked about