moonlight sonata advice

[talp]

d=1 any tips?

[lelle]

Nice work!

The first thing I would tell you is watch out for the tempo! You start in one moderate tempo that is pretty nice, then suddenly you slow down a lot and play everything quite slowly. Then suddenly you speed up a lot on some groups of notes, there are weird hesitations, etc. This piece can be played with some rubato but it has to be quite subtle I think.

If you are unaware of these weird tempo shifts you are doing, try playing the piece with a metronome, with one beat on each group of three 8th notes. I don't think it's good to practise with the metronome a lot, but give it a couple of tries to get a feel for the rhythm of the 8th note triplets at least.

[sucom]

Hi
I just watched your video on youtube and have some instant thoughts.  First of all, why are you randomly changing the tempo throughout?  At first I thought it was because you were struggling to play some parts fluently and while this may be the case at times, you were also changing the tempo during some of the easier sections, making me wonder if you were slowing down deliberately.  The tempo, then, should be more consistent.

There were some wrong notes that you may be unaware of, so check them out.

The dotted notes, mostly found in the right hand but occasionally in the left, should glide more.  Take the weight off the shorter note, allowing it to glide into the next note. Make the shorter note just a touch, a whisper, and let it slide smoothly into the next note on the beat.

When you were climbing up and down with your right hand on the diminished chords, you altered your hand position for the top note, almost banging your finger down on the highest note.  My advice: Don't do that!  Always strive for a good, singing tone in the melody. Turn smoothly on those top notes.

Consider where the melody is going.  Your playing reminded me of how a child learns to read, his finger pointing at individual words without making sense of the whole sentence.  Think where each phrase is going and then try to make sense of the whole sentence, moving with a natural flow, in the same way that you would read a sentence aloud.

That's a little to be going on with 

[talp]

thank you sucom and lelle for the detailed comments. i am aware of the inconsistent tempo, some of it is deliberate, it also gives me time to read ahead the rest of the music., i'll recheck for wrong notes and try not to bang my finger on the high note

again thank you(:

[stevenpn]

I commend you on playing it in two (at least initially), as Beethoven instructed.  This movement is usually played like a dirge, with a deathly slow tempo.  It's nearly impossible to make it feel like alla breve (2/2) at such slow tempos as those usually used.  Dynamics are far harder to execute convincingly at exceeding slow tempos, as well. In fast tempos, echo effects have far more impact, as the dynamics of an initial phrase statement will be fresher in the listeners' minds.  Real pianissimos are possible only in faster tempos, as decay is less of a consideration, i.e., you can't really play very softly in a melodic passage at a slow tempo, as the decay of notes will lead to loss of line in cantabile singing melodies. 

I agree with the others that it is extremely important to play with a steady, consistent tempo throughout this piece, as that conveys a kind of haunting stillness, an ethereal calm, a sense of the bleakness of night illuminated only by intermittent rays of moonlight.  Shifting the tempo as you tend to do compromises that impersonal stillness, evoking the world of daylight where human beings reign.  By holding the tempo steady with an almost machine-like consistency, you evoke the night in all its haunting, uncompromising, unaffected stillness and grandeur.  Shifting the tempo back and forth cheapens the performance.  Leave it in its unaffected purity by maintaining the same tempo throughout.

Thanks.