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That has been my "first" Beethoven sonata to complete and It's almost time for me to give it a re-lecture.
If you allow me, I have few suggestions about it.

.......Oh , please do. I look forward to reading them......

First the pedal, never all the way down, keep it shallow

.... this is so important, and once I have it on my piano I really have a hard time on my teachers whose pedals are really 'loose' and it takes me a while to adjust in lessons........

and think about the orchestration to bring out the voices, think the repeated D at the beginning as a double bass short bow strokes... they are not legato,

....yes! It really makes you think about the touch, keeping it consistent was a challenge at first......

in the same way the theme has specific breaths.
the quick figurations, careful, legato going up, slightly detached going down (bar 25)...

....almost ike a sigh after such an achievement - playing the previous phrase - and heading back to play it again., because the first time just wasn't enough and to play it again is to try and recapture that beauty.....

I head a lot of interpretations that do use too much pedal and too much legato in this sonata where is not indicated, especially in the development passagework between the left and right hand... where a highly mozartean detached touch is sublime, but also hard as heck.

.......So right - it looks so simple at first glance , but it takes careful handling and interpretation.
I currently like Barenboim. He plays it quite romantically, perhaps with a bit more pedal and legato that you mention as possibly overdone. Gould is interesting and for me almost too rigorous but I do like his clarity,.....

Have fun, this sonata is a blast. as well the last few bars of the last movement... start getting these into the fingers now, by the time you'll get there you'll thank me.
Seriously that finale fireworks section takes quite a bit to get comfortable under the fingers and is a good idea to start reading it slow from the beginning

...............Thanks for the 'heads up'. I'll read ahead and certainly take my time. As a returning adult, with hindsight, I know I've butchered many a piece as a headstrong teenager. It's hard work to re-visit some of those! Too many in-grown errors to think about!......

because overall, this sonata can be learned pretty quickly.

....Ah well, it will take me a while with what time I can glean out of life, but the process is a joy and it wouldn't be the same without a few challenges...... [/quote]

......Thanks for all your input, and enjoy your Op2 No1......!

It's the Urtext Henle Band 1,with Conrad Hansen fingering. Supposed to be authentic. I bought it in 1974 in London for 7.78 pounds sterling, to replace an edition in two volumes that was in really small print. Back then it was a lot of money and I only bought the first volume. Today I searched for a copy and it's over $100..... I wish I had bought it way back then. The first copy had been a gift to me as a 12 yr old and I should have kept it, but such is life. I found a soft back Konemann vol 3 for $15. Between the two I am only missing a few. I did get a 'student' edition on the internet of the complete works but it is too small to really read easily up on the piano music stand. I have them so I can read along which I do enjoy. As for playing - well I've got more than enough to keep me going for a few lifetimes!

I am progressing along with my pieces, but I have been a bit down of late because it seems that what I see the most is regression, not progress. My scales and arpeggios have been getting sloppier, and last week my teacher had me go back to a controlled slow speed to work them back up, one tick of the metronome per session. I have so many scales and arpeggios for the ABRSM Grade 6 exam (all major, minor harmonic, minor melodic, plus 6 contras, staccato scales, chroms, etc) that I am getting things confused and changing fingering without realising it. In my last lesson, my F series fell apart! So I took the scales all the way back to 50 bpm per quarter, (played in 16ths), and it seems to be working. I just have not been able to "automate" the scales well enough. I have learned that if I play only a couple of sets at a time, such as the F series and the F# series, and then come back later in the day and play another two series, it works better than doing a bunch of scales at the same time. I am less likely to confuse things that way. So my AOTW is learning to not try to do too many scales at the the same time. Once I lose focus, things get sloppy. I cannot afford to ingrain errors on these.

The other AOTW, I have been focussing this week on more efficient use of my practice time. I fall in the "playing through" trap sometimes and do not really advance a piece in a practice session. I end up wasting a lot of time. I am currently working on eight pieces simultaneously, and so I have started a spreadsheet listing the goal of each practice session for each piece for the day. I am trying to look at my practice sessions as problem solving. By having a small goal each time I work on a piece, I can end the session feeling like I accomplished something. It seems to be helping. I cleaned up a difficulty in one piece that has dogged me for weeks simply by focusing a practice session on two measures. So the achievement from this approach is I am finally able to play my Beethoven Minuet and Trio from the Sonata in Bb (one of my exam pieces) smoothly at a preliminary tempo. I am feeling like I am moving forward again!

Happy birthday CasinItaly!

I'm sure it is a festive week for you, heat or no heat.

Happy Birthday, CasinItaly! I hope you and Mr. CasinItaly have a fun festive day planned. Many happy returns! Enjoy your day, and know that we all appreciate all that you do for the forum!

Thanks for the birthday wishes, I had a fabulous day!

Good job taking on a Beethoven sonata, Palmpirate. There are so many beautiful ones and all a challenge worthy of time of effort. I've gone back to #14 to see if I can master it...maybe the third or fourth try will pull it together.

My achievement however may be that I listened to one of my own playing videos from the EPP (finally). Very difficult to listen to my own recordings. There was certainly music there but also many imperfections. I didn't realize how many "stops" I really have (although my teacher has critiqued that) so it was a good experience to point my practice towards removing that.

It's been hot here but somehow Colorado hot never bothers me as much as hot with humidity. There is some advantage to living in the high desert plain. I do love summer!

I am sweating while practising now.

And Happy Birthday, casinitaly.


I am good despite the heat, because I can now play for longer. I have more little pieces that are already relatively easy for me and the challenge each new piece (in my method books) is providing seems something I can deal with.

I don't think I am improving much in scales though. It will probably take a long time to just play them fast and perfect (only do like a couple of them each day).

Oops, scusate ho perso la giornata Cheryl. Spero che la torta ha un sapore ancora buono!

Happy (belated) birthday, casinitaly!

An encouraging week. Finally I can control my arpeggios at any speed of which I am capable when, before, the faster I went the louder my arpeggios got. I'm also making progress in double notes like in Chopin Op. 10 no 2 and Op. 25 no. 6, and Liszt Transcendental Etudes 1 (the RH counterpoint ascending after the cascading arpeggios) and 2 (for the opening trill-like double notes I would previously use both hands). For the first time, I actually feel like I'm on my way to being able to perform my dream repertoire.

Pretty much everything I've learned is by Chopin and Mozart. The problem is that my hands are not very independent--I can play arpeggios and chords with my left hand, but coordinating them together for more complex figurations is more difficult. I've been practicing a lot of Bach to rectify that. Once I learn the pieces I can easily get them up to speed, but actually learning them is the hard part, because it feels like each measure, due to the interaction of voices, is a figuration that, as a two hand unit, I've never come across before. I think I'm starting to make headway, though, because I'm beginning to see patterns more quickly when sight-reading.

Caro Giacomo, la torts era buonissimo, deliziosa!
Ti ringrazio per gli auguri!

Thanks Cathy!

Belated happy birthday Cheryl!
Struggling to identify an AOTW, but I guess there is always something when you think about it. I'm working on my first ever piece in 5/4 time (a Brubeck nocturne). That time sig is so non-intuitive and so I really don't "feel" it the way I would with more familiar ones. Everything else about the piece is very simple, and so I was frustrated it wasn't coming together more quickly (it's a "40 piece challenge" piece and my expectation is to only spend a week or so on it).
But it is coming together now, and it's beautiful despite its simplicity, and 5/4 time, yay :-)

Cheryl
Belated Happy Birthday to you.
Hope you have a wonderful year filled with music and love.

Happy belated birthday!!

My AOTW is to have finally--finally--gotten my Bach Invention sounding half-way decent with increased tempo and proper articulation on the detached eighth notes. Now that's at home, when I practice. We'll see what happens when I play this at my next lesson.

My AOTW was keeping my MOYD intact on a two day getaway. We went to Cannero Riviera on Lake Maggiore just over the Italian border from Switzerland. It is a wonderful, tiny resort town, and the hotel we stayed in had a nice bar next to the lake front promenade with a nice grand piano. I asked the bartender if I could play, and he said of course. Then I looked behind the piano and found stacks and stacks of music that had been collected into binders. I found my latest Mozart and Chopin pieces, Debussy Arabesque, lots of fun easy listening that I knew, plus Yan Tiersen, Einaudi, and more. I played for 1 and 1/2 hours each morning, and had a ball. I purchased a capaccino and played my heart out. Everyone was sitting outside by the lakeside, so I had the place to myself. Now this is my idea of vacation!!!

Making lot of progress on op10 no 4 and 5.

Just a data point.

Played at an open mic on Tuesday. Had someone flag me down. "Can you do a 2 hour gig of honky-tonk ragtime?" "No, I think I've got an hour, but my teach is over there."

Turns out he was driving to the open-mic event that I was flying to. So he couldn't do it.

He recommended his band leader (who is awesome).

So. Success in that I was even asked. Failure. I didn't say "yes" and just fake or repeat through the second hour. I'm too honest. Maybe I shoulda said "yes", but teach's bandleader is, well, super duper. So their event went great!

Played the open-mic, as did my teach, who excelled on the 10 pieces he did (3 Joplin, 3 Scott, 4 Lamb). I see him do these things and I go WTF. Did my couple pieces--1 iffy, 1 pretty good, 1 unexpected serviceable. Lots of great performers. Fun and stressful.

My chievie is that I do this thing. It's scary. You don't always win. Maybe most of the time you don't win. You come out a little stronger. Maybe?

Thanks Barbaram, Cjay and Farmgirl! The bd celebrations carried over onto the weekend, it was great fun.

Whizbang - that is so neat! Next time you're asked you'll be better prepared to say YES! Being invited is such a compliment to your hard work and results!

SwissMs - it seems it was destiny for you! What a great vacation!

My ATOW is ... not much. I am so uninterested and unmotivated right now it is bizzare. I m sure it will pass, but if it weren't for MOYD I doubt I'd be playing at all. I did a re-take of my recital piece because I wasn't happy with it. I know it could still be better, and I'm only marginally happier, but at this point even marginally makes a difference.

Tell me that other people get the piano blahs once in a while?
This is the first time I've felt like this for more than a couple of days - it has been a over a month now and it is a chore just to get to the bench.
I've been MOYD since Christmas Day 2009, and rarely have felt it a burden, but this past month I even considered dropping MOYD. (gasp!)