After this recital performance-I turned frustration into a bit of humor...

[philiphotchkiss]

Last Monday I performed the J.S. Bach Aria BWV 988 in Recital, from the Goldberg Variations. It wasn't a train wreck, but it didn't go quite as I had hoped.

Just proves that anything can happen once your on stage - and it seems it's never the problems spots you've had difficulty with in practice or rehearsal.

I'm sure many of you will relate to this video which shows the performance with a variety of humorous thought bubbles along the way:)

I would love to hear how you deal with memory breaks - practice to ensure they don't happen, etc. What's baffling to me is the break occurs in measure 24, and then re-occurs when I play the repeat in the same measure! I can't recall ever having a memory slip in this measure during practice or rehearsal so I find myself asking, how do I better prepare for such an event?

I'd really appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,

Phil


_________________________
Philip Hotchkiss

[gazdesnake]

Well next week I am going to start learning that Aria.
And I hope that if I have to play it in public I can play as well as you did, especialy in terms of feeling and smoothness that you were able to give to every single note (even in the parts you made mistakes).
About 6 mouths ago I was asked to play Satie's 1º Gymnopedie to a small audience (about 20-30 people).
I started playing and because I already knew the piece realy realy well and because the piece is realy easy and slow I just relaxed and tried to enjoy the music without caring to mush about the notes.
The result ?... For some reason when I was almost ending the piece I made a mistake which for me ruined the entire piece... Probably 80% of the audiece didnt realize my mistake, but when we are playing the piano (at least for me) even if the dinamic is a bit difrent from what we want thats already anoying but missing or playing the rong notes is just torture.
For me its still a mistery how profecional pianists can play for audiences of 1000 people several pieces in a row without mistakes and without a nervous breakdown.
Soo thats my story ... that realy didnt help you in any way ...  
Hoo ...and thanks to Glen Gould you can say you were bieng "artistic" on purpose, because even thought you didnt play the right notes some times it still sounded prety well.

[birba]

Well, I enjoyed that, too.  In fact, you had me on the floor, I was laughing so much.  Not the way you played, because it was very good (still to slow for me, though), but the comments.  It's so typical of the running commentary and inner dialogue we can carry on with ourselves in moments like these.  In this particular piece, you should have practised lots without ONE embellishment.  Just the bare bare melody and harmony.  Then, you should have dressed it up, improvising with the embellishments.  Doing different things - without stopping, though.  Then, again, practise the bare skeletal melody.  Then dress it up again, maybe using the embellishments you had learned at the beginning., etc. etc.  But memory blanks occur when you least expect them.  Never where you  suspect they might show up.  I remember, years ago, I improvised the last page of the first movement of the Ravel Sonatine.  Not easy...