Would like some comments on points to improve in my pieces

[hastur]

Hello Piano Street!

These are two of the pieces I'm working on currently, I'd love some feedback on points to improve and suggestions on how to accomplish these improvements.

Russian Folk Song, L. v. Beethoven
I know I messed up the dynamics on this one, especially the last four measures.
https://snd.sc/u7BuIR

La Valse d'Amélie, Yann Tiersen
This is just the first part of the piece, I know. The rest of it is no-where near performance ready.
https://snd.sc/uzyjhs

Thank you so much for your valuable time!

[jimbo320]

IMHO,
There's a difference between knowing a piece and feeling it. If you can imagine what I'm saying that's what I hear lacking. You're playing all the notes but try to feel it as if it was your piece. Because it is. You're playing it!
That's what my friends tell me...

[starstruck5]

I thought the Satie inspired Tiersen piece was best of the two. I still hear some obvious impulses in the Beethoven, where the fingers are not obeying your brain quickly enough yet -

This will come with time though.  I understand also that when you are recording yourself it adds stress - again, the more you record yourself and the better you prepare, the less stress you will feel.  I suppose at home we do have the luxury of recording ourselves as many times as we want until we get a performance we like!

[hastur]

I thought the Satie inspired Tiersen piece was best of the two. I still hear some obvious impulses in the Beethoven, where the fingers are not obeying your brain quickly enough yet -

This will come with time though.  I understand also that when you are recording yourself it adds stress - again, the more you record yourself and the better you prepare, the less stress you will feel.  I suppose at home we do have the luxury of recording ourselves as many times as we want until we get a performance we like!

Yes, you are so painfully correct with my Beethoven.. It might be partially because I misread a couple notes when I first memorized it which I much later in the process had to correct. These are the RH F#'s in the second part of the piece. Though, I am quite happy with my last two measures in the RH.

I really need to get a proper practice regimen written down that I can follow.

Whenever I try recording anything, and I do mean anything, it gets at the Very least 10% worse than how I play it otherwise, sometimes upwards 40%. I suppose it is a certain amount of stress that sneaks in there no matter what I do to try circumvent it..

IMHO,
There's a difference between knowing a piece and feeling it. If you can imagine what I'm saying that's what I hear lacking. You're playing all the notes but try to feel it as if it was your piece. Because it is. You're playing it!
That's what my friends tell me...

I think I know what you mean, and I definitely agree that this is very present in my Beethoven. Though with the Tiersen piece I can't quite grasp it. But as I said above, I seem to be getting stressed out whenever I'm recording. But I'll keep this in mind, and try to work on making things more fluid and less sterile, work more with the dynamics of the pieces etc. That is what you were referring to, right?

[jimbo320]

Bingo! That's exactly what I meant!
I'm not trying to come off as a know-it-all but that little piece of advice has helped me and I thought of passing it on...

[hastur]

Bingo! That's exactly what I meant!
I'm not trying to come off as a know-it-all but that little piece of advice has helped me and I thought of passing it on...

Oh, don't worry. If it's any help in understanding why I play pieces the way I do, my learning pattern is usually something like the following:

1. Learn RH, including any articulation, legato, staccato, etc. I also try to divide the piece into parts, so that I don't just play through the piece from start to finish each time. (This to avoid becoming very fluent in the beginning of the piece, and very erratic in the latter parts)
2. Learn LH, the same way I do RH. (Depending on the piece, I try to combine 1. and 2. if possible, as this erases the need for 3.)
3. Bringing RH and LH together, figuring out how they combine.
4. Spot trouble areas in the piece, where I seem to have a mechanical problem executing a passage smoothly and address them.
5. Add the dynamics which has so far been ignored.
6. Polish the piece to make it come together more nicely.

(TL;DR version: I basically learn the notes and articulation before I look at the dynamics instructions of the piece)

I should probably rework this to something more efficient, and again, pointers are very much appreciated.