Monday, November 10, 2008

#60 Practice time management.

When you're done with your day, make a note of how much time you dedicated to each part of your repertoire. Make sure that you are spending most of your time working on what is weakest. Also make sure that everything else is getting the same amount of attention, proportional to its difficulty. When working with a lot of repertoire at once, you have to learn to juggle it so that none of it falls behind.

20 comments:

  1. Good advice, however - if you decide how much time to allot beforehand - then you've strategized. Maybe you are speaking to more accomplished pianists that naturally 'feel' what they need to do vs. those students that haven't a clue and need the teacher to give them some tips as to which pieces to work on the most and approximately how much time each day is a 'rational' amount to spend. And, figure that into the actual amount available with jobs and school. Maybe it's one complex math problem each day for some students. You hear of some students getting up at three in the morning - and others just putting in practice whenever they can after a full night's sleep. I used to practice best later and later at night - ending with my encores about midnight. Now, if i were to try practicing like that - i'd be exhausted. My best practice sessions now are probably and hour and half practicing straight. rest. another half hour = two hours. three at most. But, i have children, too. They randomly come in and start talking as though i'm doing nothing.

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  2. Currently, I decided to start working Beethoven's Opus 90. Any suggestions on that one?

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  3. I used to love practicing until very late at night too, back when I was studying.

    Planning your practice time is most important, that was going to be my next piano tip. I posted this first because the first step towards getting a problem solved, is actually realizing it's there. A lot of students don't realise how completely out of balance their practice time is, even if they are the type that practice a lot. By checking what they've been doing, they'll see the problem and actually see the need to plan ahead. If you just tell a student to plan without him seeing what he's doing wrong by himself, in my experience it doesn't work as well. I've gotten better results when I give them the chance to think for themselves: "whoah! I haven't been practicing "this" enough. I better do something about it." before talking about practice schedules and such. (This post is aimed at students that are working on a lot of things at once, though. A bit more advanced. At earlier stages, you can be thankful if they're just practicing and playing consistently.)

    Beethoven's op. 90 is actually one of the works I play most. I started it in high school and still play it today, and I've worked it with two or three students as well.

    I love the second movement most of all. Suggestions? I don't know if it's too basic to say this, but with the first movement, before everything else, start learning the second theme (the one with the very wide stretches in the left hand) and the part in the development section with the corale cantabile theme in the left hand while the right hand plays sixteenth notes. For the first thing, the important thing is to keep your hand relaxed while you play it, and letting it move freely, instead of trying to span the tenths all the time with the hand stretched out, specially if you have smallish hands. For the second thing, fingering is everything, so the sixteenths can come out agile, and legato and the main voice can come out against the lowest voice. You'll need to experiment a lot with fingerings. With the second movement, make sure you can play the left hand in your sleep, and the tempo is a bit hard to manage, because it can either start sounding rushed, or it can completely fall down on you.

    That was the hardest thing for me, keeping everything connected. In the first movement because everything is so fragmented and contrasting, you have to find a way to musically tie it all together. In the second movement, you have to find a way to make all the little bridges between sections to lead the listener on, and to keep the pace going, because it repeats so many times that it can start to collapse, like a house of cards.

    Hope that helps! Feel free to ask anything you want about op. 90 Its one of those works I've played a lot and worked with several different teachers.

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  4. Thanks so much for the good advice. Yes. I have another question. About how much time should be allotted between the end of the first movement and the beginning of the second. Sounds like a dumb question since many just 'feel' it- but somehow - and correct me if i'm wrong - the move from minor to major is a very slight move (albeit the time signature obviously changes, too). I'm tempted to treat this like a 'fantasie' rather than a 'sonata' and just give a double on the fermata over the quarter rest and actually picking up the grace notes within the ritarded tempo at the end of the first movement. The ritard is quite long - so i figure by the end of the movement you could just fudge right on into the second. Does that sound good?!

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  5. Good points about the fragmentation of the beginning and ending of the Opus 90. At the very beginning in the first half of the phrase, I noticed that the last two notes have an eighth rest between them. Also, it's played forte. Then, the contrast is piano, smooth and deliberate with the last two notes of the phrase beautifully connected. So, it really is a lot of contrast back and forth. As if there is a hitler personality stomping boots and then a sweet little girl skipping. Sorry for the bad analogy - but it's just what comes to mind.

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  6. Perhaps for more subtilty, the opposing character could be a marilyn monroe type. Anyways, still sweetly.

    It also could be an argument. 'Where were you last night?' 'Oh, calm down honey - i was practicing the piano.' 'Until four in the morning?' 'Yes dear, it just so happens that i was was.' Then, the explainations of what was practiced would come in at measure 8. Half appeasement would happen at the 'in tempo.' Resumation of love. It's sort of like Mozart, now that i look at this. Hmm. Anyways, this is my first take at the Opus 90 and it's all a big story now.

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  7. It's very orchestral, at least thinking "strings" for the first phrase (like in the fourth piano concerto, second movement) and woodwinds for the answer is good, although I made up little stories too. Since you mention the very beginning, make sure you play the pick up note differently in both cases. One is a quarter note with a staccato (one of those controversial "wedge" staccatos in the original) and the other one is an eight note with an eight rest; they should have a different interpretation.

    For the space between movements, if I remember correctly, Beethoven ends the first movement with an emtpy measure with a rest in the original. He tends to do that when he doesn't want you to just stop and put your hands down. The silence between movements has a meaning too, it should act as a kind of transition or change inside. When I played the second movement, I also eased into it, tempo-wise.

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  8. Thanks again for the good answers. Yes. The first notes ARE very different in each phrase. I forgot to mention that i did discover that, too - and also that the second isn't even really staccatoed if you get right down to it. If you are playing it 'emphindung?' it would be played at a good clip - but the note would sound through to the next and I'm sure the staccatoes that Verlag puts in the second phrase are absolute 'hooey.' The reason I say that is through deduction of other places in the sonata and also there at the beginning he elongates the timing. If he wanted it purely staccato staccato - he would have again put eighth rests in. But, he didn't. So, to me it just means play lightly but still make it really lovely and connected. ie because of slur on last two notes of second phrase, too.

    Thanks so much for telling me what is in the autograph manuscript at the end. A sort of 'ease' into the next movement (just as i thought - but perhaps at a ritarded tempo).

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  9. This all seems so autobiographical, now, to me. The beginning being like Beethoven's father, yelling at him to practice. Beethoven making excuses and then going and forcing practice. Then, in the next movement he has run away or is running away. If you go right into the Opus 101 (which you could make reason to do - since it is only in three sharps and picks up a theme from the Opus 90 easily) it would be that Beethoven is now thinking about his composition methods and making them into different rhythms. He meets up with his father again - the commanding guy he is - at the death of his mother.? This is after meeting the wonderful Haydn - spoken of in the Langsam of the 101. Beethoven's own explaination of his getting over his father's abuse - by meeting another sort of 'papa' who shows him much freedom of expression. Nothing is forced with Haydn. After all - Haydn was a street kid at 17 or 18 wasn't he and understood Beethoven perfectly well. He introduced him to Mozart (thus cadenza?) and trilling techniques. Also, Haydn was a great innovator. At the end - this sonata actually goes RIGHT INTO the 106! This is a long autobiography! It changes key (down one step) but is still A Tempo!) Just as the previous last measures of the last sonata. This is Beethoven speaking of composing his piano concertos. Well, that's as far as I can go right now. It reads like a book.

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  10. Perhaps I read too much into Beethoven, but don't you wonder in the second movement if this was a song that Haydn introduced to Beethoven - or a song that he had heard somewhere. An old folk song his mother sang. Something or other.

    Another thing about his mother is that she seemed to be a driving force in his life for good. She is opposing the harshness of his father - so Beethoven really has both the impetus to work hard - and the love and understanding from his mother. Perhaps these are the two figures at the beginning of the Opus 90. His father and mother? Just pondering. She would probably have been the one to talk with Beethoven during his periods of frustration when he was very young. She was much older than his father wasn't she? Perhaps Beethoven mourned her since people often think of their parents when they get older, too - especially in the second movement of the Opus 90 - 'nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen' - 'not too quickly and to be performed in a very singing manner' (or recitative manner). The type of love here seems to be quite adequate as a tribute to a mother and also Haydn who was a singer first.

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  11. Perhaps a bit of foreboding too, since a few themes from the requiem Mass of Mozart K626 seem to appear out of nowhere. It's like Beethoven is writing his last will and testament again from Opus 90 on - and giving little hints as to what he is thinking.

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  12. And, then there is the popular English folk song that the second movement of the Opus 90 imitates. The song was entitled 'Thine eyes.' Perhaps this was speaking actually of his 'eternal beloved' had she been met very early in his life and perhaps WAS his brother Karl's wife. Strangely, some think that the younger Karl was Beethoven's own son - and that both brothers wanted to marry the same girl. I really have no clue as to what it all means - but have pondered why Beethoven took so much effort to raise Karl, Jr. himself. I think he almost repeated what his father had done - fearing that Karl would become somewhat of a juvenile delinquent. Was he really his own son. Was the eternal beloved's name never spoken because Karl, Jr. would be greatly confused. Speculation, yes.

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  13. OK. I forgot the story that Arthur Pizarro relates about Prince Moritz Lichnowsky (Prince Karl's brother) asking Beethoven what this Sonata meant. Beethoven responded - about Moritz's question as to whether to go with his head or heart in the music. The prince was going to marry below his station to a young Viennese dancer whom he had fallen in love with.

    I hear the Lacrimosa in the second movement where it suddenly (after much lovesickness)turns to D minor - measures 209-217. It's like this foreboding of three things at once. The Prince marrying his beloved, Beethoven mourning his beloved. Recalling his life situations (and interesting doesn't write for piano again for five years? is that true?)

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  14. The Opus 101 says it was composed in 1816 - however i see this as a sort of 'continuation' of the Opus 90 which was composed in 1814.

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  15. He uses the pivot note of E at the end of the Opus 90 to go right into a very similar thirds - and here at the beginning it is as if the piece had already started. He starts on the fifth of A rather than after the first two measures on A itself. It's as if the last fiver measures of the Opus 90 were a cadenza leading into this. That is why i consider the Opus 90 much like a fantasie. quasi-un-fantasie.

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  16. Thank you, Ahmed, for the great advice in the measures 55-65 that have such wide stretches. You mentioned to not attempt to stretch them all the time and so i thought about it - and decided to just jump up to the sixths and play them with a closed hand position (ie 151). It's SO much easier and i feel happy to just buzz through the section without a care in the world.

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  17. Sorry to blog so much - but i am now spending most of my practice time on the Opus 90 since it has proven to be very interesting. In the first movement, I also hear Mozart's Requiem (Lacrimosa)in the phrasing at measures 61-64 or so. It is interesting - we have a phrase today about death and taxes. Beethoven equated death and love.

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  18. About the "lacrimosa passages", I'd just like to point out in the first movement that every descending minor second should be very expressive, they're present in both themes. They are very symbolic in german music, supposedly standing for suffering or tears. They are constantly used by Bach to represent Christ's suffering at the cross.

    I think you are very much on the right track about the "folk song" quality in the second movement's theme. I always thought that "sehr singbar vorgetragen" gave it a kind of humming or whistling quality; as a pure melody that trascends just traditional cantabile playing that is much more operatic. Remember, op. 90 marks a big transition in Beethoven's composition style. Those late sonatas feature in the last movements some very simple melodies that are given a treatment that elevates them, makes them trascend into something beyond the mortal world. That is a big theme in Beethoven's music, the transfiguration of man into something higher.

    When I played them, I also saw a lot of connections with op. 101, Beethoven's tonalities seem to come in pairs in respect to many of his sonatas, quartets and symphonies. Even so, biographically, op. 101 is a completely different thing. It is very very pretty on the surface, but it was composed to console a very dear friend of his whose small daughter had died. It is a consolation, in a sense; that first movement of op. 101 is one of the most moving pieces of music I know, and I find great solace in it in times of personal grief.

    I imagine the second movement as a piece that is eternal, that never stops, that instead of having a complete finish, it just kind of fades out; and when I begin the movement, I try to feel as if I'm joining into something that already started. That's one of the things I mean when I say I "kind of ease into it". At the very end, I do a slight accelerando and molto diminuendo, ending the piece in pianissimo as if it just faded away, as a dream does. The first movement I play in a more orchestral manner. Much more organized and structured; the second is almost like Schumann, to me. (although keeping within style, of course). Those two movements have a deep musical contrast, and symbolize perfectly what is to come in Beethoven's next period.

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  19. I enjoy this blog tremendously and your insights into Beethoven. Thanks for the bit about the descending minor seconds. Yes. The folk song explaination, too. I never really thought about it much - but you're right about this 'new style' incorporating simple tunes made into stratified importance. As though Beethoven is saying - you don't have to be a genius to enjoy simpleness. Mozarts K 545 is like that, too. It's almost as if they are reliving parts of their childhood and relaxing as musicians as they get older. It doesn't matter what they play and if Beethoven's last creation WAS a bagatelle or whatever, that would discreetly end on a very small pianissimo note. Everyone thinks the last thing he wanted to say was the 10th symphony. Although, I'm a bit between the two because I'd have liked to hear this last symphony - no matter how cacophonic. There's something to what you said about the Schumann side of Beethoven, also! Definately poetic and had idealistic tendencies. But, more than Schumann even - Beethoven could define poetry into music. Goethe, did he know Wordsworth's poetry intimately, too? Seems that Wordsworth had some interesting poetry written about that time. If I were to take another class or prepare to study something it would be the relationships of Beethoven with strong poets of his time. Who could compare the 'Tempest' sonata as a musical poetic literal translation of what is going on. I LOVED playing that.

    Also, the Opus 10 #3 always seemed to have script. Beethoven also lived a very interesting life. Suppose if he had had time to write poetry, too - he'd have done pretty well for himself.

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  20. Beethoven DID write poetry:

    http://www.links2love.com/love_letters_4.htm

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