In my journey through the Learn New Repertoire Faster Challenge at Piano with Rebecca B, I’ve reached Day 17 of Jonny May’s stride arrangement of Ode to Joy. Today’s assignment was to continue reviewing Batch 4 (measures 64–71) and begin Batch 6 (measures 96–123).
Day 16, Evening Practice
Yesterday after work I spent about 20 minutes refamiliarizing myself with Batch 4, the Very Red Section.
Refamiliarizing? More like familiarizing. I didn’t remember any of it.
I double-checked the schedule to make sure that yes, I had in fact learned this section last week. The fingerings were there, along with a couple of handwritten notes in the score. I vaguely remembered analyzing the upward-climbing pattern in the first four measures, but I didn’t remember actually playing it.
So I picked through the passage a couple of times, missing notes and feeling my way through it almost blindly. Then I stopped for a sip of water, sat back down, and played it again. And suddenly my hands knew where to go.
It wasn’t perfect, but my fingers were landing on the right keys before my brain could interfere. I was playing very slowly, and it was fascinating to watch my hands do their job without my consciously directing them.
Here’s the video where I talk through that strange and very cool experience:
Batch 4 still needs work, but it was encouraging to see that my hands had retained more than I realized, even if my conscious mind hadn’t.
Day 17, Morning Practice
After reviewing the Very Red Batch 4 for about 5–10 minutes, I dove into Batch 6, the final batch of the piece. Like the others, it consists of three passages:
- Passage 1: Measures 96–103 (restatement of A section)
- Passage 2: Measures 104–111 (tag of the A section)
- Passage 3: Measures 112–123 (outro)
Passage 1 is an almost exact repeat of measures 8–15, which is convenient since Batch 1 re-enters the rotation today. And Passage 3 is almost an exact repeat of measures 0–7, which is convenient for the same reason.
Passage 2, however, is new. While it has elements from the earlier sections, it's definitely different. So that is what got most of my attention this morning.
The material isn't technically difficult, but the harmony changes and the syncopation make it mentally demanding. The repeated returns to the same bass note in each measure take some getting used to, and there's a pesky Em7 → A7 → A7 → D progression that my brain keeps trying to "correct" into Em7 → A7 → D because, hello, ii–V–I.
The other tricky part is a bass G followed by a D7 chord. My brain believes that G and D7 do not mix, so I either jump down to D too early or invent some strange hybrid chord that is D7- and G-adjacent, and completely wrong.
I talk through all of that in this video. Note that when I first introduce the G–D7 mismatch, I accidentally call D7 "D-flat."
Oops!
Where I Am Now
I expect Passage 2 to feel solid by the end of my three days with it. Once my brain accepts that yes, this is a little different, it will adjust.
The new material in Passage 3 is brief and repeats twice in a row, so while it will need some work, I don't expect it to put up too much of a fight.
What excites me most is the next phase of this piece. I’m getting close to the point where the notes are no longer the main obstacle, which means I can start shifting from learning the piece to actually playing it. Not adding improvisation or changing the arrangement, but internalizing it deeply enough that I can play from understanding and instinct instead of constantly thinking about fingerings and chord shapes. And that's when it starts to get really fun!
Comments