*strange facial expression*

“The Last Spring,” in Grieg’s own arrangement, is apparently ABRSM Level 8. I think.

*odd facial expression*

I shouldn’t be at ABRSM 8 after an 18 year hiatus from the piano. I certainly shouldn’t have had the first page memorized after one night.

I could have had this piece down in one week if I hadn’t had to work a fulltime job. Or less.

Honestly, I’m not an ABRSM 8. I can’t play anything else right now. But it’s still extremely weird and heartening at the same time.

Update: Apparently, it’s ABRSM 6/7. That makes a bit more sense since 7 is roughly where I was when I stopped, but it’s still a bit strange.

“The Last Spring,” by Edvard Grieg (6)

Fine! At long last!

I only had to cut down one eleventh reach and kept another somewhat catty-cornered almost-tenth with an inconvenient Bnat in there, so I’m pleased. Now it’s just a matter of doing it a million times to engrave it on my convolutions. I think I’m content to say that I can reach a tenth depending on the bits in the middle, and leave it at that for now. We’ll see how that evolves. I find myself having to tell myself, “Reach! Stretch your hand and work for it!” (I’m very glad that I have large hands, though. I haven’t the slightest idea how Montero manages what she does; her hands are quite small, but she can do things I can’t dream of in a million years.)

It’s a great piece — nice and cantabile, enough of a challenge to keep me from getting bored (although I did have to shave off a few corners), pretty enough to keep me happy (and any audience should I ever decide to allow anyone else to hear me), but simple and andante enough to allow me to settle into it at my own pace. Had I not been distracted with mere working for a living, I would have had this piece down in less than two weeks, which makes me very pleased considering it’s the first thing I ever attempted after an 18-year hiatus.

I’m also happy that the octave work doesn’t intimidate me, whereas when I was younger, it would have done so. I may have lost some of my precision, but I gained something very valuable simply by dint of aging. That’s a stunning revelation to me. I’m very glad that my favorite type of music is more tolerant of the middle-aged and elderly now. I wish rock were more so, although it’s not as bad as it could be, at least for men. Women are still hooked off the stage at 40, unfortunately. If Martha Argerich has worthwhile things to say, it’s inconceivable that Ann Wilson and Deborah Harry wouldn’t.

I’ve printed a few nice things from IMSLP in the meantime and may work on John Field’s Nocturne #5 after this. I had played that when I was very young and remember it being, like “The Last Spring,” pretty enough to impress people, cantabile enough to make my happy playing it, andante enough to not present insurmountable challenges, and without the knuckle-cracking reaches that surprised me in the Grieg piece. (I may go on a Chopin strike in fact, simply to prove a point and to distance myself from my youth. They say that progress lies in the direction you haven’t gone before.)

Then, it’s music theory tomorrow, so I can start recognizing what I’m listening to instead of poking around randomly on the keyboard trying to find a modulation that I know is there but that I can’t find for the life of me.

Eventually, I’d like to begin working on some Styx (the more heavily DeYoung-influenced stuff) and early Journey, but the Journey may prove difficult since it’s so strongly vocal. The piano really is the wrong instrument to carry an entire song by Journey, although it can support it very nicely (Rolie and Cain both did and have been doing it for decades). But in terms of carrying the entirety of anything by Journey, a small chamber group or string quartet really is the ideal means once one moves away from the standard modern-band-plus-voice. It should prove interesting.

Music Notating Software for the Apple iPad — my new holy grail

I can make perl do what I need it to do, but I’m not a coder geek by any means, and if I downloaded the new SDK for the Apple iPad, I’d be lucky not to shoot myself in the foot with it.

But wouldn’t it be beyond wonderful if some musician with a coder streak were to write an application that made it possible to notate music on the iPad? Double tap on the icon, and you get a blank sheet of staff paper. Drag and drop symbols to place notes, rests, etc. Sweep two fingers over a family of notes while touching the “bar these notes” icon. Same for ties and slurs. Sweep one finger over the entire staff to place measure lines. Sweep two fingers to place a fine. Sweep two fingers while holding another over the “repeat” icon to place a repeat. Same for “da capo” and “dal segno.” The app could even prompt you to tap where you want to put the sign after placing a dal segno at the end of a piece. Icons for “set time signature” and “set key signature” can prompt you “for entire piece?” and “for how many measures?” Tap any such sign while also touching to “adjust this sign” to bring up its settings and change them.

*drools slightly*

These people can sell the app on iTunes. Aside from the prospect of Steve Perry releasing new iTunes-only material, this might be the only thing in the universe that will get me to sign up for iTunes. IMSLP could accept uploaded music files in this notation.

You could certainly do this on any tablet computer, but the thin, lightweight iPad lends itself to being propped up on a music stand so much more easily. Between that and being able to get to IMSLP anywhere for a $30/mo data fee (with no contract and no cancellation penalty!), musicians need never actually print out sheet music again, nor figure out how to get that inch-thick Schirmer album to stay open nor turn pages.

Regarding page-turning, there is an app on the iPhone that can (rather spookily) tell you the title of a piece of music you are hearing. Hold the iPhone up to the speaker, and it will run off and retrieve the title of the song from the audio information. I don’t know how trustworthy it is, and I imagine it will just digitize the audio information coming in and then compare it to the digital information contained in the iTunes library; I don’t know how reliable it is with retrieving the data for a song played live or by a cover band. I imagine not terribly. But if you played a piece for your iPad and then associated a sheet music file with it and set the page breaks, you need never turn another page again. Heaven.

“The Last Spring,” by Edvard Grieg (5)

This man had hands like a spider monkey. I can reach a solid tenth without too much effort, and he’s going beyond my comfort zone.

Toward the end of the third bar from the last, there are a few reaches that I am simply going to have to step down. I need to keep in mind the various places where I’ve made shortcuts in this piece, just to keep track of them and ensure that I don’t forget they’re there. (And to ensure that I revisit the piece on occasion to see if I can stop using the workaround.)

I’ve removed two quarter notes that I can remember (which should be easy to reinsert when I’m comfortable with the thing since removing them was a matter of simplifying memorization and grammatical “chunking”), I’ve stepped down one wide inverted BM the roll for which was presenting difficulty (see previous Grieg post), and now I’m simply going to have to drop down another one. Things like this are why I tend to dislike key signatures the home positions for which are slightly askew, like B and Bb. A tenth on all white or all black notes is no major challenge and easy enough to do or get used to. A tenth on B or Bb? Not so much.

I’ve also fakebooked the A theme from “Dove sei?” from Haendel’s “Giulio Cesare in Egitto” and plan to poke at it more. Fakebooking isn’t much different from the basso continuo notated at the bottom really, so it’s just a matter of tapping a few keys and writing things down on paper. I should photocopy the version I have from IMSLP and make notes on it in green or red.

“The Last Spring,” by Edvard Grieg (4)

Well, measure 4 and 8 are evening out a bit. Still not where I’d like them, but they are coming more fluently.

One later measure (50-something, I think) is presenting much more difficulty, though. It involves a wide BM chord — wide enough that rolling it is the only option to getting everything, even for me. (I’ve never been so grateful for having a fairly comfortable tenth reach before I began this piece.) The problem is that if I am off pedaling by a millisecond, I lose the B at the bottom. Completely. *sigh* I’d like there to be a “trick” to it, but I suspect that, like measures 4 and 8, it’s just a matter of doing it a thousand times until it settles in. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the chord, “stuttering” is not at all helpful, but it’s a hard habit to break.

I’m also still surprised at how long it’s taken me to add a few more bars compared to a week ago. When the middle and upper departments of the brain kick in, it seems to slow things down paradoxically. There are more parts of my head coming online again (and certainly more than there were when I was younger and studying actively), and all of them are requiring getting a firm grip on the new material now. It isn’t just a matter of detecting patterns in the hand movements anymore; there are pattern detection algorithms several layers up all of which need to get a handle on things as well. It’s like having to know something inside and out five times over … or however many departments there are in my head. (I wonder if there is even a ceiling to that number?)

“The Last Spring,” by Edvard Grieg (3)

A short update since it’s the middle of the work week and hence practice time is at a premium:

Have only added two bars so far, but they are working out well. I’m extremely heartened at the way the octave work that would have intimidated me as a kid is coming much, much more easily and entirely without intimidation. I have finally shaken off my fear of octaves, and it only took thirty years.

I am still struggling with measures 4 and 8, but I can feel the color of the struggle changing a bit. The difficulty is shifting and changing shape and becoming more malleable and a bit softer. I’m at least seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I suspect that is also simply age. I’m no longer becoming frustrated so easily and have more trust in my ability to work it out eventually.

I still need to work on my pedaling so that I’m not pedaling like a kid (overpedaling, in other words). I say “like a kid,” but a lot of the pedagogical things I learned as a kid I seem to play almost entirely without pedal. Overpedaling on those interminable run-filled sonatinas sounds like mush, though. I think it’s simply easier to overpedal on something as legato and shamelessly sappy as Grieg. There seems to be a book called “The Pianist’s Guide to Pedaling” which might be useful; I suspect I’ll just have to get used to not thinking of the pedal as a safety net to manage large leaps and annoying fingering. If I ever do retain an instructor again, my pedaling will probably be the first thing I’d like to have explored.

Off-topic:

I am also planning to purchase a book on music theory and am quite excited about it. It will be Walter Piston’s “Harmony,” which seems to be the standard text for Western music; Schoenberg’s is not recommended for newbies, and I didn’t anticipate it would be. I agree that most of the best composers probably didn’t think theory all the time, but I’m comparing writing music to learning a language. Certainly, if one is fluent, one doesn’t think in terms of verb endings, plurals, and prepositions. But if one is going to learn a language, one must pass through a time when these things are consciously — and clumsily — done. The goal of course is to reach a point where that fog of conscious effort becomes transparent (fluency), and one speaks thinking only of one’s ultimate message. If one is proposing marriage, one wants to have their ultimate message in mind and not verb endings. Similarly, the greatest composers were and are “fluent” in music and can think of their larger message without stumbling over musical equivalents of prepositions. Alas, we mere mortals must start somewhere.

So this is my attempt to familiarize myself with the general grammatical rules of Western music. I’ve run into small part of it before — a major seventh resolves into the major chord a fifth down from the root, that sort of thing. I’d look forward to finding out more.

“The Last Spring,” by Edvard Grieg (2)

I’ve noticed that the more fluency I pick up in this piece, my mistakes are beginning to change. I’m not missing things I was missing when I first began studying it; I’ve apparently found new things to mess up on a few layers up, which is very interesting to me.

Initially, I would simply miss hitting the right keys, but now I’m sometimes missing hitting the right chords, if that makes any sense. I feel as if my brain has made some sort of jump and begun handing the piece off to a higher “processing department” someplace in my head as it settles well into the lower departments.

However, the new departments also have to take the time to learn things, so they find new ways to make mistakes.

Of course, it all surfaces the same way: mistakes. But the mistakes are coming from different places in my head. I find that interesting. I’m curious as to how many “levels” that may be to this sort of thing. I’m also heartened that this is not the sort of analytical thinking I would have been doing as a kid when I was studying formally. I’m beginning to understand what Renee Fleming meant when she told a roomful of students in a masterclass not to worry about artistic expression so much at their age, and to simply learn technique. It’s a pity more kids aren’t taught to sound out melodies on their instruments, improvise and train their ears in a sort of third-stream way so that they aren’t left doing rote mechanical exercises only for the long decades needed in order to really achieve fluency.

Also, the damper pedal is clicking when I depress it and begins to do so at roughly the same point in the piece each time, which I’m starting to find irksome. I know that I pedal “hard” and tend to release the pedal completely; a “soft” release is not something I’ve ever done. If the piano were a car and the damper a brake pedal, the people in the passenger seats would probably lurch forward every time I lifted my foot off the brake.

I’m not sure if it’s something I should pursue or whether I should just figure out a way to make the damn thing not click. (It’s a new piano, so it’s unsurprising that new noises and tics would show up, I guess.) I’ll probably just put a mirror and book light under the crossbar that supports the pedals and see if there isn’t an easy fix to this, like tucking a folded-up square of tissue between two metal parts or something like that.

“The Last Spring,” by Edvard Grieg (1)

Just jotting down some things to remember for myself as I work through this (after an 18 year hiatus, I’m rather pleased that I’m already 2/3 into this piece after three days with the new piano):

1) Concentrate more on pressure on the index finger in chords to keep from inadvertently rolling everything. It’s amazing how hard it is not to put at least a tiny bit of a roll into a chord. The human hand simply wants to rotate at the wrist in that direction.

2) Go easy on the pedal; don’t pedal like a ten year old. Put as much sustain into the fingers as possible, and then add a tap if the added resonance is required. Let the chords build up in a few places (measures 33/34 in particular).

3) Measures 4 and 8 are presenting difficulty, measure 8 in particular. Both involve significant leaps downward for the left hand, and wide ones where the hand is open further than an octave. The pedal can do some of the heavy lifting in measure 4 (see warning 2), but measure 8 is much more problematic since there is a half-step jump in there that sounds terrible if any part of it is preserved by the pedal. Also, see warning 1; these wide, low chords are difficult not to roll at least a bit. Don’t give into the temptation to hide a sloppy landing with a roll, sustain, or playing the chord louder than needed.

4) Measure 16 has been simplified; remember to add in the other eighth notes when the measure sits well on the hand.

5) Practice holding the fermatas in measures 31 and 32 longer than anyone would reasonable do, just to get used to crossing the point at which they should be held. It will never arrive at that point unless it’s allowed to cross it a few times. Use the recording ability of the thing to listen and develop a judgment for when to release the hold, and keep imagine them being held by a singer.

6) Two words: “Sing. Breathe.” Unless the piano is played like a voice, it’s dead as a doornail.

7) Discovered from going through those old pedagogical warhorses, Clementi’s sonatinas: Your trills still suck.

The Persistence of Memory

It’s very strange how things survive tucked into the recesses of one’s grey matter — and not just how long they last, but how many things last.

Sonatinas that I haven’t played for thirty years are still lodged deep inside the convolutions of my brain, and without purchasing the Clavinova that arrived yesterday after months of saving and anticipation (the CLP 340, with which after one day I can say I’m thrilled) I would never have known this. I might have opened the sheet music collection and looked at the pages, but I wouldn’t have been able to hear them in my head without my hands in front of me.

I refused even to sit down in front of one at the Yamaha dealer when purchasing it last weekend. (I reflexively refused to sit down in front of one for the last twenty years.) I tapped a few keys on the models they had at the dealer both acoustic and digital, and was immediately intimidated at how heavy they felt. They used to feel like nothing to me, I thought, and now they clunked like lead. Was there ever really a time in my life where they felt comfortable to me?

And yet when I sat down and opened the music to refresh myself a bit, fully anticipating that I would be crushed by the span of distance I would have to make up, I was shocked to find as soon as my hands began moving, that it had all survived back there somehow, through decades of inactivity.

I have always been manually oriented, if that’s an acceptable way to define this sort of thing. I’m a great lover and natural thinker in terms of nonlinear, spatial structure. I think in colorful tinkertoys, and if my hands are engaged, my mind is engaged. Like dancer/choreographer Gillian Lynne, who had to move to think, I must use my hands to think. My entire family is like this, with a mother who loved dance and was a top-flight youth violinist, and a father and oldest brother who could fix and tinker with anything the lid to which they could pry off. In that light, I shouldn’t be surprised that the information survived in my head as long as it did; it was simply a matter of not accessing it in the correct manner for my brain. Music is just another handcraft for me. Hammers, saws, knitting needles, whittling knives, and musical instruments all seem to be stuck in the same place in my brain.

I’m not saying that I’m anywhere near the level of proficiency I had when I was actively studying. (Then again, my sight-reading was never much to write home about. I never felt comfortable playing something that I hadn’t heard before.) But I’m cheered by how much has been retained, and much more excited about moving forward now that I’ve discovered that I don’t have quite the chasm out of which to dig myself that I thought I might.

I’M GOING TO DIE.

GABRIELA MONTERO IS GOING TO BE PLAYING AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL ON AUGUST 3rd.

(At least if her post on her Facebook page is any indication.)

And yes, I called. They aren’t selling tickets to that performance yet. The fellow on the phone didn’t even know it was happening. His reply to me was, “Sometimes the public finds out about these things before we do.” Although to be fair, I was on the phone to the HB about 47 milliseconds after reading Montero’s Facebook page and August is a ways away yet.