Learning Solace, Section A

I started working on Section A of "Solace" last night, and I worked on it a little more this morning. It's not fully memorized yet (as you can tell from the video), but I'm close. Last night I learned the first page and the first few bars of the second (which is just repetition from the first), and this morning I worked on the ending/cadence part.

This has long been one of my favorite Scott Joplin pieces. It's so different from most of his other ragtime music: slow, melancholy, thoughtful. And it gives me the weirdest sense of nostalgia--not for the early 1900s, but for ... I can't even explain it. It just fills me with longing for something I can't name.

Challenges

This isn't a difficult piece to play. Harmonically, it's pretty simple--triads, dominant sevenths, a minor seventh, and a few diminished sevenths. The cadences are pretty basic. All of that makes it easier to memorize.

There are a couple of challenges, though. The fingering, for one, is a little tricky; a good part of my practice session last night was spent figuring that out. My biggest challenges (I think) will be with the phrasing; some of these lilting phrases include jumps in the left hand that could cause a break in the sound. The pedal helps here.

The rhythms are another challenge, but I'm finding that if I just write the rhythms in (1-e-&-a, 2-e-&-a), they're not hard at all.

And Now, Without Further Ado ...

Here is my first real attempt at playing through the A section, roughly 30 minutes into learning it. It's not perfect, but I do improve the second time around!

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Picking Up the Pieces

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