I don't see a lot of activity on The Soundboard, so I thought I'd break protocol and ask a piano question here.

It has been years since I had any mental/emotional bsndwidth to spend much time playing the piano. Some of it was the pandemic, but I was already feeling that way before it hit. I've been pouring the energy I used to spend on the piano into career things--first the MFA, then adjusting to the new job, then writing the novels at a faster pace as part of chasing tenure.

Well, I've got tenure, so that opened up a little bandwidth, but I have painted myself into a more-than-a-book-a-year corner by signing a couple of contracts that I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into chasing. I just didn't expect both of them to come through in the same week.

So...I don't have a lot of extra creative energy these days, but I have a little. I've been fooling around with the easier Chopin nocturnes, the easier Scriabin preludes, and the easier preludes and fugues in WTC 1. (Are you sensing a theme?) I've revived Ravel's Sonatine, which I'd halfway worked up several years ago. I read through a couple of pieces from Schumann's Klavierstücke.

I've got a lot of sheet music, but I'm feeling a lack of anything written after 1935 or by women. I have some Amy Beach, but am not wild about it. I have some Clara Schumann that I like better, but it's on the difficult side. Given the difficulty level of what I'm working on, does anybody have any suggestions for things I might try? What are you all playing?

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
Well, I've got tenure

First, we need to celebrate this!!



Then we can go to....

Thanks, wtg.

I think I posted that when it happened last summer, but if I didn't...hey! I got tenure.

So you did! How could I forget that...

But more happydancing anyway because I don't have any suggestions for what to play.

Happy dancing is good!

Congrats on reaching the point that lets your musical creativity flow.

quote:

Anybody playing any piano these days?

I probably can't help you though, but I don't play music by dead people.

Kidding!! (well, I mean I think it's true though... )

Since the pandemic started, and also because I'm still in the process of trying to get tenure, there have been times when I am just exhausted and don't have the bandwidth to "learn" new music. When I'm like that, and have zero mental energy, or also when I feel my stress levels starting to rise, I start playing things that are waaaay below my playing level and that are super calming and slow, things I can easily sightread or get up to playability in like two days. Last semester that was all I did at the piano for several months. But it keeps me at the piano. I play almost every day.

The other thing I do is use the Music for Millions books for sightreading (oh, those people are all dead, so I guess I do play music by dead people!) You might try this, if you already have the red book, get the yellow book (it's a little higher level). I love playing through it because I find pieces I would never encounter otherwise, and some of them are downright charming.

This semester, things are calmer and I'm back to challenging myself. Which, for now is jazz! Well, jazz arrangements, I'm not working on improvising (for now). I have a book of songs (You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To, Autumn leaves etc., As Time Goes By) in nice, "intermediate" level solo arrangements. I put airquotes around intermediate because these pieces are really hard for me, even though I can tell they're a lower level than some of the other things I play. Any way, this is super fun!!

Separate from that, for women composers, I really like Rachel Currea or Michelle McLaughlin....





For "neo-classical," I love Alexis Ffrench (yes with two Ffs).

I'm playing this now, it's pretty easy (save a spot here or there) but just totally charming



Ok, one more. This is my aspirational piece. I suspect it will be too hard for me so I haven't bought the score yet. This is a piano solo cover of a Billie Eilish song and it's soooo cool. Plus you can tell your students that you know who Billie Eilish is!

Sorry for rambling on.... but what I meant to say was, Mary Anna, if you can find something that fits right in the sweet spot of being on the easy side, but also compelling, it will keep you at the piano.

That has always been my one, persistent, never-give-up-on-it, piano goal. Is to play. As close to every day as possible. By doing that, then when I do have the mental space, I can take off running with more challenging music.

This was especially important to me because I started piano as an adult (age 30, well or maybe 29?). When I started grad school, I thought that I could easily be derailed by it and find myself graduated however many years later, and having not touched the piano the whole time. If that happened, I knew it would be so hard to get back into it, so the trick was to never stop.

And some how, I've been able to do just that.

I'm still pretty mediocre, but much better than I was many years ago.

And most importantly, I'm still playing!

I am practicing a bunch of short pieces by NY composer Laurie Spiegel. She is much more famous for being a pioneer in computer music (see a film called Sisters with Transistors) but wrote many short rather simple piano pieces. Will be recording them also.

Thanks for the recommendations, RP. I rather like the idea of blundering through some of Spiegel's simpler pieces while you, a professional, are recording some of the bigger ones.

I also like your suggestion to dial back the difficulty, SK. I've got all three of the Classics to Moderns series, plus the Sonatas and Sonatinas one, but my musical preferences tends to exceed my abilities and I haven't played out of the first one in quite a while. I like to sightread and I think it's probably my best thing, but I tend to sightread something, fall in love with it, and then it never gets better. I need to work on things that are more achievable.

Along those lines, it's been a long time since I was serious about exercises and scales, and I've truthfully never been very serious about them. I have Hanon and Czerny, but Hanon was feeling better so I went with that. Yesterday, I worked on the first couple of exercises in Hanon, starting with C, because that's how they're written, then in A, because that's what the Sonatine is in, and then in B, because I hate B and I must take my medicine. If anybody has any exercises suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

quote:

my musical preferences tends to exceed my abilities

I think almost all adult hobby pianists are this way. We have grown-up ears, but our fingers aren't usually at the same level. Here is where it can be good to kind of let go of wanting to play specific pieces, and think more about the process. Enjoying being at the piano. And then focus on playing musically. So pick the red book for Classics to Moderns, and play a piece out of there every day, but strive for musicality, good tempo etc. If you do this, don't start at the very beginning, the pieces get more interesting after the first 10 or so IIRC.

quote:

I need to work on things that are more achievable.

This! I have found that having a mixture of pieces at different difficulty levels makes a huge difference. The easy pieces are musical and fun to play. And I love to wind down by playing through several pieces of music.

But the more difficult pieces feel meaningful and help me remember that 1) I would like to improve and 2) if I do the work, I do actually improve.

So by all means keep working on sightreading, but pick one piece to work on for a few weeks or a month, and set some explicit goals for what "progress" on that piece looks like. Bringing up the tempo, getting through transitions smoothly, things like that. Or even starting at the back and working through the piece backwards (section by section).

If your goal is "to get better" at a piece, or to "polish" it or "perfect" it, that's a pretty vague goal and doesn't tell you what to do when you sit down for 15 minutes to play.

So 1) articulate clear goals with each piece, and then 2) when you practice, make notes for yourself about what to do the next time you work on that piece. Like, "start at measure 18" or something like that.

I always enjoyed Hanon, although I'm not doing it right now. I also like the complete scales book I have (let me know if you want a link), each scale has two pages. On the left side are the scales in various iterations (contrary motion etc.) and on the right side are cadences and various chordal presentations. It's fun to go through the whole two pages (like putting yourself through the paces) and playing the scale and its relative minor for the key of a piece I'm working on is a nice warm up.

Hope some of these comments are helpful!

Yes, information on the scales book would be helpful!

I have so much sheet music (so much!) that I may already have it or something like it, so I'll take a look on my shelves.

SK, I love that Bluebird! Do you have a source for sheet music?

And I’ll go look for Spiegel. I’d like to poke around at the piano again.

quote:

Originally posted by AdagioM:

And I’ll go look for Spiegel. I’d like to poke around at the piano again.

I should have explained...her music is unpublished; I got copies directly from her. There are recordings on YouTube, mostly of her electronic work.

MA, here's the scales book. Amazon tells me I bought this in 2010!

The Complete Book of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios & Cadences

AdagioM, Bluebird is available as an e-score (be careful bc there's apparently an "easy" version and you don't want that one!)

https://www.musicnotes.com/she...td.asp?ppn=MN0193005

You could probably find this arrangement at SheetMusicPlus or SheetMusicDirect as well (in case you have a preference).

Alexis Ffrench has two score books as well, I own one ( this one ) and am thinking of buying the other one ( this one )