Piano Lesson–March 03, 2006

This lesson was the makeup lesson (because of my car woes in Jan).

Spent the entire hour playing the Chopin Etude (“Ocean”). I had practiced for an hour earlier in the practice rooms (which had software keys) and had warmed up pretty well and was playing at tempo (=120). I asked Dr. N if I could play on her Steinway in the office (there’s a Steinway grand and Kawai grand side by side in her office–wish my office space resembled that!)…usually the student plays on the Kawai, since the piano at the concert hall is a Steinway, what better way to prepare? Turns out her Steinway is quite new and doesn’t seem broken in yet. I was clearly struggling through the first few passages as the Steinway keys were probably the toughest to press than any I could remember and to worsen things, the depth of the keys seemed to be only 3/4 of what I’m used to. The pedal had the same problem. It was so tight and the depth was maybe half of that of a normal piano. So it was very difficult to vary the gradations.

Dr. N encouraged me to work on rhythmic accuracy in certain passages. Sometimes, I try to deceive the audience by playing a group of notes too quickly or maybe stress the offbeat when I shouldn’t. She recommended that I practice slow with a metronome on. Slow practice will make everything more accurate, she says.

She also gave me a pep talk on the masterclass (2 weeks from now) which I’ll participate in. I told her this etude is scary to play without any warmups whatsoever. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to play a few measures before the masterclass to get a feel for the piano. Maybe two Monday’s from now (next week is Spring Break, so no class) I’ll get a chance to ‘rehearse’ there. Another idea is to play another ’slower’ etude such as the Left Hand etude (G-sharp minor) as the first piece. And the Ocean etude as the last. I may suggest that to Dr. N next week.