Piano Lesson-February 6, 2006

Skipped last week’s lesson because of my car situation.  So we agreed to hold my makeup lesson next Thursday. 

We started off the lesson with playing the F Major scale and the D minor scale in parallel motion.  I’m not fond of scales unless it’s played very fast (otherwise, it’s not challenging and takes up 5-10 minutes of lesson time).

Then I played the Chopin Etude Op. 25 No. 12 in C minor.  I learned this piece a year and a half ago but it was still very unpolished and riddled with problems, IMO.  Played it at moderate tempo first and we both thought that I was trying too hard when I should pay attention to my breathing and just relax.  I suppose it’s because it’s been awhile since I played this piece for anyone other than myself and that I know that Dr. N is a stickler for rhythmic precision.  She thought I played it with clarity and that I didn’t miss many notes; however, she noted that I should work on bringing the melodic contours of the piece out and being more creative with it instead of just banging the bass melodic notes.  In other words, the first accented note in the bass should be F, second being mf, third FF, fourth mf-F, etc.  The most challenging part of the piece occurs in the middle–the long crescendo–as I like to call it.  Not only is this passage more technically challenge to play with accuracy, but to bring out the melodic contours is tough because of having to differentiate between F and FF, and FF and FFF, etc.  I think I’ll need to make the crescendo more gradual (see Glenn Gould’s Brahms rhapsodies). 

 For the last 20 minutes or so, we worked on the Mozart Sonata in C Major–Third movement (Rondeau).  My playing was very raw as I had just learned the notes and am not entirely comfortable yet.  Dr. N mostly focused on how to play the trills (baroque, classical, and romantic periods have different rules).  I need to remember that if the preceding note is above the principle note, then start from the principle.  If the preceding note is below the principle note, then start from a note higher (half interval) than the principle.  I forgot what the ‘auxiliary’ means.  This is opposite from the Baroque period.