COMPETITION: Show your skill in this weeks topic: Parallel Octaves

[spencervirt]

Every week Thursday I will post a new competition topic revolving around elements of piano technique.The winner will be chosen based on SPEED and ACCURACY. Both are equally important. I will request that the competitors post an audio recording or video of them playing the week's challenge. In absence of such technology to do so, simply post a picture of your timing device and tell us by the honor system how many mistakes were made. The winner will be chosen the following Wednesday! If anyone is interested in how this is scored exactly, I will outline it for you (in short it is based off of percentages)

For this week- Parallel octaves- every key- up and down- in the shortest amount of time. NO PEDAL. Pedal blurs mistakes.

Starting on low A, going up to high C, and back down.

I will post a recording if I can get my MIDI output to function properly, which is a longshot.

In the meantime, I will post a picture of my timing device. Have fun!

THIS TIME ONLY I will give you next week's challenge early. SCALES. Who can play a perfect B FLAT MAJOR scale, both hands, up and down, in the quickest time? Have fun with that!

[m1469]

I want to do this, but I need more information.  When you say "every key" that tends to tell me that you mean all major and minor scales, but then you go on to say from low A to high C ... which as a scale, doesn't exactly make much sense to me, either (plus the fact that those things "low A" and "high C' sometimes mean different things to different people).

And, how many octaves for the scale?  I assume 4? 

It might be a really long time before I even come close to winning one of these, for example I don't regularly practice octaves as an "exercise" (though I'm playing an octave etude) and after tomorrow, won't be able to play again until next Tuesday.  Soooo ...

[spencervirt]

I simply mean play every single key (physical key) on the piano all the way up and all the way down.

Start on the first key, go to the last, and all the way back as fast as possible.

I'm not saying play the keys, c major, c sharp etc, i'm saying hit every physical key up and down.

[scottmcc]

So you mean a chromatic scale in octaves, with both hands?  I dunno, these kinds of challenges are about as exciting to me as watching someone type.  If you like octaves, how about Liszt Hungarian rhapsody no6 or chopin op 25 no 10? 

[m1469]

Well, I'm super good at typing, sooo ...  :-

[liszt1022]

Yeah, this would be as interesting as watching somebody exercise (practice) vs. watching a race (applied.)
Why not find a short octave-heavy passage of music? Liszt has lots of those.

I'd like to see a competition for fastest/most accurate Webern variations mvt. 2. And for anybody looking at that, the hands must cross the way they're written on the score. Glenn Gould is a cheater and redistributed the notes to the easier hands to play it faster.

[spencervirt]

The point is to have a speed competition. If you're really good, you should be able to do this in (I would think) 8 seconds or so.

[countrymath]

The point is to have a speed competition. If you're really good, you should be able to do this in (I would think) 8 seconds or so.

No way.

[perfect_pitch]

What type of bloody show is that... and where have I been when it was on???

Looks like some sort of bizarre Japanese game-show. Any more bizarre bets?

[countrymath]

What type of bloody show is that... and where have I been when it was on???

Looks like some sort of bizarre Japanese game-show. Any more bizarre bets?

Don't know either

Found on youtube