And so to Für Elise

My piano lesson this week was difficult; I had an early pitch in the Derby Dales which meant an 8.5 hour roundtrip in the car before getting home in time to get the kids to bed. All this meant that by the time I started my lesson I was already near half asleep!

Awful aural

We practised the usual items; a few broken chords, play through and record the exam pieces so we could anaylise and improve them, and we worked through some aural exam pieces.

Usually my aural work is fine; I’m no master of it yet but I can tell the difference between 2/4 and 3/4 and I can happily describe changes in dynamics, rhythm, and sound. However whether it was because I was tired or it was just one of this days I simply could not articulate these changes in any sensible manner! Overall it was a rather frustrating experience.

Next lesson is going to be a mock exam to see just how well it all goes. So this week I’m looking at everything again (including sight reading which is still quite bad but improving) to see how I get on come Tuesday.

Two new pieces!

To make sure I’m not getting bored with the exam pieces my teacher has given me two quite different pieces to look at this week; Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, 2nd Movement and Beethoven’s Für Elise.

Für Elise is one of those pieces that everyone knows and for that reason alone I’ve avoided looking at before now. I’m probably just the same as everyone else who has played on a piano before; I could already play a small part of the theme, and even that I played badly. However it’s helped me work through the theme reasonably quickly and with (mostly) appropriate dynamics and pedalling. I’m currently working through the second development and concentrating on the trying to find comfortable fingering for the runs in there which is proving tricky.

What has not yet been discussed is the question of tempo. Some pieces really only work at one particular speed. Others work (differently) at a variety of speeds, and I think this is one such example… However, if it is not played musically it will be likely to sound boring…ABRSM forums

Getting the piece to a speed that I’d recognise from recorded versions will take time, especially if I want to add more emotion to it. Looking briefly through forums I found one link to Valentina Lisitsa playing it as Encore #4.

Her performance is beautiful; the expression she gives what is clearly a simple piece for her is amazing and it’s now my target for how I’d like to be able to play this piece… one day.