Thursday, January 15, 2009

Quick hitter - Melodia Africana II...

... is coming along nicely. Having some troubles on the third page, but the pattern is slowly coming to me. Just finished tinkering with it, in fact, and now that I am about to go to bed, maybe the little piano Gremlins will work in my dormant brain overnight to solidify it. (I know you know what I'm talking about...) I've probably put 4 hours into it this week, which is a lot for me. If progress keeps up at this rate, it'll be my recital piece. If not, I'll submit I Due Fiumi (albeit an improved version over what you heard the other day).

As I work on MA2, it occurs to me that these pieces do not seem to be coming together any more quickly than earlier pieces did. It took me about 2 weeks to make it the whole way through Limbo, then another month or so to feel ok about it. That's kinda been the time frame for everything else I've tried. A couple weeks to be able to play the notes, another few weeks to get up to tempo, and another few weeks to make sure I am obeying dynamic and phrasing markings. I thought, naively, and incorrectly, that things would speed up the more I went along. Part of the problem is that the pieces are getting incrementally tougher. There are just so many entry-level pieces in my Best of Einaudi book. But the larger problem is, honestly, my lack of skill / technique / experience. Even when I get a piece as good as I can get it (remember Ombre?), I'm still not entirely happy with it. This is a powerful indicator that I need to improve my fundamentals, and probably return to Alfred's for awhile. At least through Book 2, and probably more.

Dinner conversation from last night... we were talking about Jillian's piano lessons.

Jillian: Daddy, do you think I'll be as good as you after piano lessons?

Me: Better. Really, Jillian, I feel like I'm not even taking baby steps yet. And you are going to me much better than me, probably sooner than you think.

Jason: If you aren't taking baby steps, does that mean you are crawling?

Me: If that. I guess it depends on where you want to go. If my goal is to run a marathon, yeah, what I am doing right now is no more than crawling around my Pack N Play in comparison to that.

Jillian: So you mean, I'm maybe sitting up, not crawling yet?

Me: Sure, that's one way to think about it. Compared with where you'll be some day.

Jason: What about me? Have I rolled over yet?

Jillian: Jason, you haven't even lifted your head up.

- Aw2pp. who knows his developmental milestones

3 comments:

Unknown said...

What funny kids! :)

AnthonyB said...

Well, maybe you could hire John McCain to simply tell you that your piano playing fundamentals are strong!

On a related note, my nephew made an amusing statement this morning. Upon hearing some non-Einaudi music coming out of my parent's stereo he kindly stated, "No. I don't want that. I want to listen to Uncle Tony play the piano."

Sigh. If only I played as good as an actual Einaudi CD. :)

Always Wanted to Play Piano said...

I dunno, AnthonyB, I've heard some of your stuff... if I hadn't already heard the equivalent Einaudi recordings dozens of times, I am not sure I could discern which was which.

What are you working on these days?