They do generally progress in difficulty, however there are a few(2 of them) that are really technically easy.
The technically less demanding ones are variations 5 and 9 in my opinion. Variation 5 has the two voices "talking" to each other. Variation 9 is harder because it requires more dexterity and voicing is important. Some variations may be harder or easier for you. A challenge is to play all of the variations from beginning to end without any "long" rests. Working on the hard variations will be more benefitial then only doing the easy ones. Again for every person it's different. Anyways, this is just my opinion.Best Wishes to all.
Which ones are they?I didn't think that they variations progress in difficulty. I find variation 11 pretty easy to do when I don't play some of the variations before that. In fact, that's the first one I try to tackle.@Baroque - They are really lovely to play especially var 3, 7 and 11 (Those ones I found very easy to do where as the others are harder, strangely enough) It's the speed that's hard for me to handle.
Best Wishes and good luck with progress.
Thank you Debussy, this is very encouraging. I think I will give the first variation a try, despite my teacher's thoughts If I really am too slow or cannot do it justice at full speed, I will wait a few more months.As for the theme, I listened to Schiff and Hidy, and it sounded non-legato to me, but I shouldn't trust my ear!I'm sure I'll ask for your thoughts when I get into trouble with variation 1!Best,
It's an interesting approach to play legato. Different techniques have to be learned to play correctly, whether it's legato, non-legato, portato, etc. You can take as much time as you need to begin pieces. These pieces are real pieces and a lot of technical material, like the etudes. You shouldn't be expected to play these fast in a couple of tries. Slow practice leads to fast and sure performance. I'm sure that you will be able to execute these pieces and I'll gladly help out if you have any questions.
Thank you very much Debussy, this is very useful. I played the theme with my teacher today, and she thought I should play it legato rather than "detached" as I had intentionally done... Also, she thought the variations would probably be too hard for me to play up to speed at this point... So I will probably keep them sleeping for another 6 months, and then refer back to your advice...Thanks again.Cheers,Baroque
I know I'm getting a bit off topic, but does Ah, vous dirai-je maman sound just like Twinkle, Twinle, Little Star?
Ah, vous dirai-je maman! is the original, twinkle twinkle little star comes second. Grade 6-7? that's better than my guess - I thought it was ranging from 3-6 but most around 4-5. Doesn't matter.
Greetings.Yes articulation and dynamics needs to be there along with the correct notes. Sometimes at a fast tempo one might forget to articulate. Alot of slow practice with articulation is helpfull.Best Wishes to all.
I am currently learning this piece (almost finished) and I must say it's not that easy... You can probably pretty fast learn the right notes, but doing all the phrasing, dynamic, etc. is really difficult. To play even the theme so beautifully as it should be IS hard. You play one note too loud or too silent and it is immediately audible. You release a key too soon or too late and the whole mood is gone. There are not so many notes as in other works (speaking generally) and this is why somebody listening to you hear EVERY mistake.I thought like you that it was an easy piece (I played some Chopin nocturnes, Liszt Liebestraume, Rachmaninoff Prelude) and I asked my teacher if I could play these Variations. She said I don't know what I'm up to and that it'll be a challenge. It was...