This is a progress video of the first half or so of 1000 Words, I’d say with about three days of practice? I was working on another project for most of last week and was waffling on this piece but I finally sat down and started learning properly. There are still some rough spots but overall, progress is coming along!

Detailed Breakdown

Right off the bat, the broken chords are articulated way differently than they were during my sightread. This section has tons of space and pauses, and the higher register makes notes ring more- like I mentioned before, this piece has a lot of phrases with space and this is one of them. The biggest hurdle for this section is voicing and pressing the keys delicately while also pressing them down all the way.. the second interval at 0:53 in the RH especially is difficult to blend with the LH.

Now that I can actually play somewhat at tempo, you can hear the momentum pick up at 1:02; the RH doublestops from 1:09 still need a lot of work.. I tend to play the voiced notes quieter in an attempt to also play the supporting notes quieter, but that just makes the melody die down in volume when I go from single notes to blocks. The final note in the RH right around 1:13 before jumping down to the lower register is something I pay particular attention to- if I’m not careful, it’s really easy to crush that note and the space around it. I like the phrase immediately following, with the RH playing in the lower register before it goes back to playing the melody. I personally find such phrases a lot of fun to learn because you have to control both hands and seamlessly transfer the momentum between one another, but it’s also pretty challenging sometimes. This whole phrase is very lush, and I especially love the little ending at 1:36 as we transition to the next section at 1:40.

This section introduces a different melody and RH voicing is once again key since the melody is fairly isolated. The phrase from 1:46 is challenging due to the various intervals used in tandem with the melody in the RH.. I have enough trouble just with TWO notes in one hand, anything more is a crowd and also a nightmare. I still need to work on the jump at 1:58; I crushed the top note before jumping down in this recording. It happens again at 2:00 when I jump back up but it’s not as noticeable.. I think it might also be related to my pedaling? I’ll need to tinker around.

2:02 has a small decrescendo after that peak at 2:00, and then the melody goes back to being mild. The LH quarter note at 2:11 is another moment for space that can be crushed, but I don’t have much trouble with this one (it’s not clear here because of the page turn, whoops). The sixteenth notes in the RH immediately after, though.. I never played my Hanon and it shows. And then, again, more opportunities for voicing improvement. I really love this part of the melody, though. (Wow, this recording is only a few days old and I can already see areas where I’ve already fixed things? Pretty gratifying, ngl.) The RH interval at 2:18 is prone to being too loud and not melding with the LH, but I have worked on that since this recording was taken. I LOVE the little phrase at 2:21 where the echo of the melody starts in the LH and flows to the RH. I’m still working on bringing those notes out for voicing (the intervals are awkward for voicing, especially in motion).

2:35 and onwards is shaky at best, as I’d learned this chunk the day of recording so I didn’t have any muscle memory locked in.. I’m pretty sure I’m butchering the syncopation at 2:48 in the RH, what with the polyrhythm, which doesn’t even align with the official recording, so.. I have some studying to do. The jump in the LH at 2:50 is so satisfying to see.. then the melody gets spicy at 2:54 and the LH gets even SPICIER at 2:57 with an ORNAMENTED quarter note against quarter note triplets in the RH.. it’s real fire emoji, honestly.

The melody repeats from 3:05 with a little more bombast, most notably due to the LH with the broken octaves on the downbeat of each bar. The LH is vaguely in a similar pattern as we ascend, but for some reason it took a bit of time to wire my brain to learn the notes. The RH has a lot of octaves but it’s just chilling. My favorite part of this phrase is definitely the broken chord in the RH at 3:29; it’s rolled to the left (“downwards”), and it’s super neat to feel the direction of the music changing.

From 3:32 was not properly practiced- I just played through it a few times for fun and then it sounded good enough where I wanted to include it in the recording so I can compare later. This is the sparkly part that sounds like a starry night sky. I ended up missing a crossover in the RH and so cut the recording there LOL. Whoops.

Current Thoughts

Honestly, this piece hasn’t been “hard” yet, which is lulling me into a false sense of security.. the voicing definitely is going to take a lot of work to perfect. I’m not gonna work on it until it’s flawless because I think it’s more of something that needs to be honed over time outside of this piece, too, but I’ll take this opportunity to work on it. I daresay this piece is making me lazy with how few notes I’m reading compared to usual.. lol.

As of today, I finished learning the starry sky part and just began reading through the final appearance of the melody from 2:35; looking ahead, I do think I’ll actually need to break down the RH a bit since there are more blocked chords than before, and a couple of jumps make me a wee bit nervous.. but still, not breaking a sweat yet (famous last words, maybe?). And then there’s a pretty big ending phrase that’ll be the last chunk for me to learn.

I’m pretty happy with how much progress I made in just a few days here, but I definitely can improve a lot of small spots to create an overall cleaner rendition, mostly the “spaces” I highlighted that are prone to being crushed, whether by poor articulation or muddy pedaling. I’m also starting to memorize quite a bit of the piece unintentionally, so I can at least avoid page turns during crucial phrases for now.

This is the first piece in a longgggggg time where I’m able to physically play every single note as written, which is super gratifying. Admittedly, some things are obviously written for bigger hands but the piece is lenient enough where I can easily work around it. Plus, octaves are feeling a lot more comfortable lately in my RH, which is an awesome feeling, but I can’t help but wonder if I’m just getting complacent because the octaves in this piece aren’t as intense as octaves in other pieces I’ve played or want to play..