Ode to Joy Day 18: I'm Making Music!

In my journey through the Learn New Repertoire Faster Challenge at Piano with Rebecca B, I’ve reached Day 18 of Jonny May’s stride arrangement of Ode to Joy. Today’s assignment is threefold: continue reviewing Batch 4 (measures 64–71), continue learning Batch 6 (measures 96–123), and continue reviewing Batch 1 (measures 0–23).

Day 18

This morning I focused primarily on Passage 1 of Batch 6, which is almost identical to Passage 3 of Batch 1, so I got to revisit Batch 1 at the same time. This eight-measure passage is the opening A phrase, repeated, and after seven days away from it, I was hoping I’d sit down and magically be able to play it.

No such luck.

I had to play it through six times (three times, a short break, then three more), followed by a five-minute Batch 4 review before coming back to it.

It didn't exactly sound bad, but there were a few stubborn half-measures, and I took a few minutes to drill each of those.

At the end of my short practice, though, I was playing it, and at a tempo faster than a slow crawl! My fingers knew what to do, and my brain felt like it had time to think about what my hands were doing, where they were going, what chords we were playing, and where we were in the harmonic progression.

Oh, goodness. I just used "we" to refer to myself, my brain, and my hands.

Ah well, I guess piano really is a group effort.

Where I Am Now

Despite an unpromising start this morning, I'm very happy with where these eight measures stand right now! Instead of feeling disappointed that it took a while to get them back, I'm encouraged by how quickly they finally settled in and how good they sound after seven days away. In fact, they've begun to sound like music!

In the video below, I talk through some of the challenges and play those eight measures, along with part of the intro (which is also most of the outro) ... and it sounds like music too!

Today is the first day that I've really felt like I was making music and not just striking keys and making sounds. The rest of it still feels like work, but I think the boundary between the two is starting to fade.

Comments

Eureka! Secondary Dominant!

I am such a nerd, and I love being a nerd! Today I was working on Section 5 of You Are My Sunshine, specifically on getting this section up to performance level. In other words, I was practicing being a performer , not an arranger . But then, of course, I came up with another idea. I had just played the delicate sixths and descending rag rolls of "when skies are gray" (I chord) and then moved to the parallel octaves of "you never know, dear" (leading to IV). The shift sounded abrupt to me. Harsh. It needed something. It needed musical WD-40. Something to ease the hinge between textures. And then I stumbled upon it! Right before moving to IV, I can slip in a V7/IV — a secondary dominant! So I tried it, and it sounded so good that I actually yelled "Secondary dominant!" out loud in my house like I was Archimedes discovering water displacement in the bathtub. It's such a small thing. One little chord. But it smooths that transition, leaning the harmony ...

The Rusty Lock and Key

I'm in a room. There's a door in front of me. On the other side of that door is a whole world of adventure and imagination and joy and delight, but for the moment, I'm locked in this gray little room. The door itself has a lock that is all rusted. I've tried to open it in the past, but I've never gotten very far. Sometimes I try to scrape the rust off the lock. I also have a rusty old key that I occasionally try to polish. Each time, after I've made a little progress, I'll put it into the keyhole in hopes of opening the door. It turns a half a millimeter or so, but the brief excitement at my progress dies quickly when I realize, once again, the lock isn't opening. I set the old key aside, and from there I can forget about the door, the lock, and the world outside, for months—years, even. But then something happens—I hear birdsong, or I catch a glimpse of color—and I pick up the key and start picking away at the stubborn rust. That dark little room is my ...

Ode to Joy Day 3: Patterns, Shapes, and Short Breaks

As I work through Rebecca Bogart's Learn New Repertoire Faster challenge , I'll be posting more extended updates here on my blog. Days 1–3 Day 1 was analysis, listening, and generally scoping out the territory of the music . The road trip to Florida last week turned out to be Day 1, even if I didn't label it that way at the time. Day 2 was fingering and the start of my first "batch": measures 0-7 (intro), 8-15 (Section A), and 16-23 (Section A'). Day 3 (today) was about recognizing patterns and continuing work on Batch 1. Batch 1: Intro, A, A' The intro isn't difficult, and it will likely be one of the two easiest sections in this piece. Still, the syncopation is a little tricky, so I took some extra time with it. I've already memorized it, as the chord progression is pretty straightforward and the melody is just a single line (no harmony notes). There is one big augmented chord at the end that required some focused work. Sections A and A' ar...

Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

Search This Blog