Happy beautiful Spring Saturday! I've been out and about and the sunshine has really lifted my spirits after a week that was difficult in several ways. I just love being able to play the piano, because no matter what else is going on I know I can focus on the music and leave it behind for a while. When a doctor asks me how I deal with stress, I say the piano and they usually seem to get it. As for Variation 6, we're very near the end. I've got the tempo I want (in fact I can play it faster than this but don't want to). I'm nearly error free, although the three parallel sections all have very different fingerings and accidental patterns, making it very tough to keep all three in working memory at the same time. I believe tomorrow will be the last day for this one. I also wanted to include the sections that are calling back to earlier sections -- Variation 2. Here are two spots in Var 6:
Back to just the first half. The end of the week is fast approaching and I am running out of extra energy. Instead of working on notes that are still pretty new, I decided to up the tempo a bit (and it is up a fair bit here - almost as fast as I want it). I *also* decided to try some of that stylistic stuff I mentioned a couple of days ago. Vlad does this cool thing where the down runs are staccato while the left hand kind of rumbles along smoothly below. This is my attempt at that. It's a cool effect and I think it will be even cooler at about 10bpm faster.
When you hit play, you're going to think "wow, wasn't he a lot faster than this yesterday?" You'll be right, too -- I was. But yesterday I didn't play the second half too! And today, I did. Learning one-half at a time may be a bad idea so I'm trying it differently this time. We'll see how it goes. There are now more spots to spot-check, and just more notes to keep in working memory at any one time, but for this variation I think it's doable.
Weeeee! Making progress on this one quite quickly! That means I can do fun things like experiment with expression - Vlad plays the down runs at the beginning separated, which produces a nice light feeling. It's not great at this speed, but tomorrow or the next day maybe I'll record it both ways and we can take a poll!
Folks, I'm feeling a renewed spirit to work hard. That's what Spring Break is for, right? You step away from your normal routine, and it doesn't really matter where you go or what you do there. When you come back, the normal routine doesn't feel so routine, and you can do it better than you could the week before. Well I'm ready to work harder than ever!
Oh - and you might hear a dog in the background who wants to come inside. She can wait til I'm done with the song!
Hi! I'm feeling refreshed. I'm home, I'm rested, and I'm back to my usual routine. I'm also back to longer, more productive practice sessions. Today, we're starting Variation 6, which is the second Canon, the Canone alla seconda. Fittingly, the title has a double meaning, for not only is it the second canon of the work but it's also a Canon on the second, meaning that the second entrance of the thematic voice is a second (i.e., one whole step) above the first. One imagines, in the vein of mathematical playfulness Bach embodied, that the relationship of this second canon vis a vis the first (Variation 3) must be similar to the relation of the two themes. I'll see if I can tease that out further as we go. And for sure we have echoes of the first, whose photos I forgot to take today but which I'll share with you tomorrow. Happily, this variation seems to be much easier than the first.
