My Journey to Rach 3

[luis guendulain]

Hello! I dont know where else to post this, but I wanted to share so badly this project with pianists all over the world. I thought this more as a "blog" but you are so free to share your opinion on this, as well as adding feedback and suggestions to the project.

I'm 27 y'old and I play piano since 12, I never had "conservatory" studies, I learnt with a private teacher for 1 year who taught me the basics of music theory. After that I studied years on my own, and even when I started with classical music, I practiced and played for year "Power Metal" music, which contains lots of difficult and fast keyboard solos. After that I studied for 3 years on a private music school where I learnt modern harmony and composition. This is where I discovered my true passion in music "Composition" and after that I focused on "Film Music". In the school I took piano of course, and I was lucky the piano teacher who also was our "counterpoint" teacher graduated from México's Conservatory, so with him along with a 2nd private teacher who also graduated as a classical and jazz pianist I improved a lot. I played the following repertoire:

Moonlight Sonata Mov 1 Beethoven
Moonlight Sonata Mov 3 Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 1 Mov 1 Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 1 Mov 3 Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 1 Mov 3 Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Mozart
Piano Sonata No 5 in G Mov 1 Mozart
Toccata  Khachaturian
Prelude in C#m Rachmaninoff
Prelude in Em Chopin
Prelude in Bm Chopin
Waltz in Am Posth. Chopin
Le Petit Negre Debussy
The Sick Doll Tchaikovsky
Prelude in C major BWV 924 Bach
Prelude in D minor BWV 926 Bach
Prelude in F major BWV 927 Bach
Prelude in C minor BWV 999 Bach
Prelude in C Major BWV 939 Bach
Prelude in C Major BWV 933 Bach
Prelude in D minor BWV 935 Bach
Prelude in C Minor BWV 934 Bach
Invention 1 in C BWV 772 Bach
Invention 4 in Dm BWV 775 Bach
Sinfonia 2 in Cm BWV 788 Bach
Prelude and Fugue in Cm WTC Book 1
Melody Katchaturian
Etude 1 in C major J.B Cramer.
More Jazz Mario Ruiz Armengol

Repertoire I learnt to develop skills but never put it up to "performance level"
Flight of the Bumblebee Korsakov Rachmaninoff
Fantasie Impromptu Chopin
Waltz Minuette Chopin
Etude Ocean Chopin
Invention 13 in Am BWV 784 Bach
Invention 8 in F BWV 779 Bach
Prelude and Fugue in F#m BWV 859 (Solo el preludio) Bach
La Campanella Liszt
Etude Revolutionary Chopin
Etude Torrent Chopin
Etude 5 in C Moszkowski
Etude 2 in Gm Moszkowski
Etude 8 in Fm JB Cramer.

So what's all of this about you may be wondering if you reached this point, well, let me tell you. Life is unpredictable and maybe tomorrow I wont be able to play piano anymore (whatever the reason may be), and one of my dreams is to play Rach 3, so I decided to stop wasting time and start climbing that mountain, however, I know my limits and sure thing I dont want to fall in the process lol. so this is the repertoire I am going to tackle before starting the Rach 3.

Preludes:
Op. 23/5 in Gm
Op. 23/6 in Eb

Etudes:
Op. 33/1 in Fm
Op. 33 in Gm

After that I will jump to:
Prelude Op. 32/1
Etudes Op. 33/4 Eb and Op. 39/6 Am
Liebesleid

This in total are around 42 pages which is the aprox. number of pages that the Rach 3 first movement contains. Now is important to say, I dont plan to play the previous repertoire at 100% or push myself to the limit with them, since I just want to build technique, improve my mental abilities to retain music, educate myself to learn full works beginning to end and also get more used to Rachmaninoff's writing. Oh, and its important to say, I CANT play pieces I dont really like, that makes the work 10 times harder for me.

So, thank you for reading if you reached this point. I will be updating my process, probably will record videos with my progress.
Again, feel free to share your own journey to this "Monster", no matter if you are amateur or pro. Also, feel free to add any feedback or repertoire I might be missing (I do contamplate some chopin etudes, but I dont want to stay there a lot, so maybe you can share some specific passages I can practice over and over to develope the technique)

Luis G.

[resurrectcodeblack]

I love this piece so much. Every time I listen to it, I hear something new. It is so complex and many layered. I have played about the same level of repertoire up to concert standard that you, but right now, this end goal still seems rather insurmountable (I'm also still only thirteen). I have dabbled in the score numerous times, but it is really monstrously difficult. Should I start learning it ?