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Topic: UPDATED: NEW TAKE! Been playing for 4 months. Practising Consolation 3.  (Read 3095 times)

Offline pbryld

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NOTE FOR NEW TAKE:
Been practising for another week! I think this sounds a lot better than my first try :)

I cut a mistake out near the end. It doesn't sound good, but trust me, the mistake would be worse!



Okay, so this is my first upload. I do know a little more than what I have recorded, but I started to mess up and didn't feel like continuing for 15 seconds more piano (and my back is hurting).

I don't have any recording gear, so this is done on my iPhone. Sorry!

I'm 17 and have been playing since august. I started practising this piece a month ago or so. I am just uploading this to get opinions on how I am doing so far. It is an acoustic upright piano, but it doesn't sound too good on the iPhone... The piano is standing in my 10m2 room as well, so there are absolutely no acoustics.

There might be some A's missing in the bass sometimes (I probably missed more), but that it because it gets stuck sometimes. Sorry for the messup in the end. I do continue, but it got really bad after that, so i stopped by then. (and cut the worst out)

The thing in the background is the pedal making squeeky sounds, it isn't in very good condition...

Thanks for comments in advance!

General info:
Started playing music in the summer of 2010
Plays on a Bechstein B
Lives in Denmark
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Offline lostinidlewonder

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Not a bad effort given the short amount of time you have been playing and the recording quality sounds fine to me. I would suggest that you start to think about the different touches in the RH, at the moment it all sounds generally at the same level, for example the quicker notes need to be much more gentler and smooth and the long notes need to be sustained. The syncopation encourages that the Rh sound more stretched, not merely fitting in between the notes, I cannot put how to do this this in words effectively though. The emotion in the Rh needs to be understood, at the moment it sounds like procedure however I can see you have some volume control understanding and climaxes are somewhat brought out.

Keep up your efforts!
"The biggest risk in life is to take no risk at all."
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Offline pianist1976

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Impressive, having in account that you only spent 4 months playing piano! It's obvious you are talented and you are getting also a nice tone on the piano.

But you must be careful. This piece is perhaps too difficult for a beginner. I think it's a very common mistake choosing pieces that have a difficult greater that what we can afford at this moment (building the house by the roof instead of the ground). I'd advice you to play other pieces in order to acquire a good background. I recommend you playing pieces of 1st or 2nd grade such as the beautiful Burgmüller etudes Op 100 and such.

Regarding the interpretation of this piece, it's true that this consolation is technically relatively easy if we compare it with the average corpus of Liszt's piano works but, in my opinion, it's still too much difficult for an only 4 months experience.

- You must read the score carefully. You have some important reading mistakes that changes the original harmony.
- You are not handling correctly the polyrhythm: two (melody) agains three (accompainment).
- There are another rhythm errors. I think you are playing 16th notes as 8th, and you are losing the pulse when faster figures appears in the score.
- The piece is, generally, too self-consciousness, with too many doubts.

Believe me, playing easier pieces is not a step back. In my opinion is far better playing somethings "easier" but self confident and well played than playing something more difficult not well. You'll can play very well this and many other pieces but in the future. Be patient, don't waste your talent.

Anyway, I encourage you to continue practicing. There were very good details.

Offline pbryld

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Not a bad effort given the short amount of time you have been playing and the recording quality sounds fine to me. I would suggest that you start to think about the different touches in the RH, at the moment it all sounds generally at the same level, for example the quicker notes need to be much more gentler and smooth and the long notes need to be sustained. The syncopation encourages that the Rh sound more stretched, not merely fitting in between the notes, I cannot put how to do this this in words effectively though. The emotion in the Rh needs to be understood, at the moment it sounds like procedure however I can see you have some volume control understanding and climaxes are somewhat brought out.

Keep up your efforts!

Thank you.

I haven't really thought about fitting in the RH between the bass notes, but if I am, i guess I need to work on that. I think it generally needs to sound more smooth though. The double repetition of the sixteen notes are hard to get to sound right though. Practice, practice, practice i guess.
General info:
Started playing music in the summer of 2010
Plays on a Bechstein B
Lives in Denmark

Offline pbryld

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Impressive, having in account that you only spent 4 months playing piano! It's obvious you are talented and you are getting also a nice tone on the piano.

But you must be careful. This piece is perhaps too difficult for a beginner. I think it's a very common mistake choosing pieces that have a difficult greater that what we can afford at this moment (building the house by the roof instead of the ground). I'd advice you to play other pieces in order to acquire a good background. I recommend you playing pieces of 1st or 2nd grade such as the beautiful Burgmüller etudes Op 100 and such.

Regarding the interpretation of this piece, it's true that this consolation is technically relatively easy if we compare it with the average corpus of Liszt's piano works but, in my opinion, it's still too much difficult for an only 4 months experience.

- You must read the score carefully. You have some important reading mistakes that changes the original harmony.
- You are not handling correctly the polyrhythm: two (melody) agains three (accompainment).
- There are another rhythm errors. I think you are playing 16th notes as 8th, and you are losing the pulse when faster figures appears in the score.
- The piece is, generally, too self-consciousness, with too many doubts.

Believe me, playing easier pieces is not a step back. In my opinion is far better playing somethings "easier" but self confident and well played than playing something more difficult not well. You'll can play very well this and many other pieces but in the future. Be patient, don't waste your talent.

Anyway, I encourage you to continue practicing. There were very good details.

Thanks!

I knew this piece was too difficult to begin with, but I easily get bored with the easier pieces.

My teacher has asked me to practice Anitra's Dance by Grieg for better LH/RH independence. It is going alright.

It would be great if you could tell me what I've misread. Sometimes i put in extras of the low C-sharps, but I thought that was it.

I actually thought i was handling the polyrythm fairly well most of the time. There are very few 16th notes, and I am quite sure i play those quicker than the others. Again, I would like to know which passage this occurs in :)
And yes! I agree. Too many times i doubt for half a second. It just happens whenever I try to record myself. I hope it'll go away over time.
General info:
Started playing music in the summer of 2010
Plays on a Bechstein B
Lives in Denmark

Offline gregspiano

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Considering how long you have been playing, this is incredibly impressive! Do you play any other instruments or have any other music grounding?
I work in solo piano composition and am self taught so I can hugely relate to the getting bored of the basic songs and exercises. I'm also not a great person to go to for technical and professional advice in the way of traditional classical piano, but what I would say is that while most people like to work from the basics, there's a minority that work in a different way. It also depends what you are playing for. If its just for pleasure, why not take on a challenge if you enjoy it more!
Anyway, very impressive start and I wish you all the best with your piano playing no matter how you choose to go about it!

Greg
New CD release and other news available at my website www.gregryan.co.uk

Offline pbryld

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Considering how long you have been playing, this is incredibly impressive! Do you play any other instruments or have any other music grounding?
I work in solo piano composition and am self taught so I can hugely relate to the getting bored of the basic songs and exercises. I'm also not a great person to go to for technical and professional advice in the way of traditional classical piano, but what I would say is that while most people like to work from the basics, there's a minority that work in a different way. It also depends what you are playing for. If its just for pleasure, why not take on a challenge if you enjoy it more!
Anyway, very impressive start and I wish you all the best with your piano playing no matter how you choose to go about it!

Greg

Nope, had never played on anything prior to august. I had the chance to get a piano for free, and I took it. :)

I've never done any real exercises except learning to play an octave with both hands. That really helped though (made me able to play all of Für Elise, which was the first piece i practised), so honestly, I think I should do more exercises, even though I have a habit of choosing pieces that have passages similar to beginners-exercises :p

This is all just for my own pleasure, so I don't need to do everything by the book as you state. Actually, I am quite convinced that picking pieces that are too hard has been good for me.

Anyways, listening to the recording, I think i already play it a lot better. My tempo is now better and I have less hesitation doing all the jumps. I'll post another recording soon, although the part right before the end is still way too hard for me (meaning it has to be done too fast)

Thanks for the comment :-)
General info:
Started playing music in the summer of 2010
Plays on a Bechstein B
Lives in Denmark

Offline pbryld

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I put up a new take in the very first post!

I think I have improved with this piece a lot, even though I still can't play the last part.

Feedback needed! :-)

Thanks in advance.
General info:
Started playing music in the summer of 2010
Plays on a Bechstein B
Lives in Denmark
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