1000 Words [END]

This is a FULL TAKE of 1000 Words, uninterrupted from start to finish. We’ll treat this as a final take so I’ll include both positives and negatives, and look back on the learning process as a whole. This is.. potentially my Final post on this piece but I’m trying really hard to keep practicing and perfecting this, so we’ll see!!

Detailed Analysis

This recording session really proved to me that I’m still at a point where I can either have note accuracy or musicality on camera, but not both.. this one was definitely a note accuracy-favorable take. I think it’s best if you listen to this in full without reading my post first because I’m going to go critical mode and it’s undoubtedly going to ruin the video otherwise LOL. I’m going to focus on the things to improve and also highlight some of the spots I am proud of. (Also, my dad had just half-finished a tuning job with no actual training whatsoever so a couple of keys ring realllyyyyy badly.. pls forgive.)

First off, those opening broken chords are STILL NOT PERFECT; my RH I can understand since it’s an octave and it’s not comfortable to roll downwards (opposite direction of conventional broken chords), but LH?? HELLO?? The sixth and final broken chord just.. sigh………….. it’s a work in progress. Overall for this first section, my LH is still too loud compared to my RH due to lack of control. Despite that, I improved on achieving a quieter volume with decent tone quality. I worked really hard on the chord at 0:58.. so hard to get a fine balance between LH and RH while being quiet enough.. but, I do think the space is respected at least. I always imagine a white room with a high ceiling for this part, not sure why. (The number of times I had to cut a take because I played the wrong intervals at 1:05, man..)

The section from 1:08 should pick up a tiny bit more in tempo for my interpretation, but I ended up playing it more leisurely than usual (probably due to nerves from recording and trying to reduce error). Still didn’t get the supporting notes in the RH at 1:16 to be quiet enough to let the top notes sing but I opt for that over better voicing with an ultimately quieter RH. I’m happy with the progress on the bit at 1:21 where the RH shifts to the lower half of the keyboard. The chords in the RH at 1:32 also.. still.. not consistently clean. I messed up BOTH IN THIS TAKE I’m embarrassed lol.

1:48 begins what I like to think of as the “Part of Your World” section because the opening notes of the melody always remind me of that song. Same deal at 1:57 with the voicing not yet being clean enough in the RH, but it’s not too shabby, I guess.

I still really love the section at 2:14, it’s super lyrical and arguably the section I am most comfortable playing. I’m pretty satisfied with my consistency with this chunk, and the voicing at 2:20 is the spot I have the most confidence in. I also am happy with my improvement for the voicing at 2:30; I’m glad to say that that was me having an off-moment during the take.

2:45 is the simpler version of this theme, but more difficult (for me) because it’s played slower with fewer notes, so there’s less room to hide messy playing. Though, with that said.. I can’t really find anything to pick on that badly. Pretty neat to see my hands jumps around with all those octaves, but it looks more stationary than it feels.

We reach the starry night sky part at 3:29; the biggest challenge here is always making it the quietest part of the piece while maintaining the forward momentum through the syncopation. You can hear me grow louder as I gain speed.. the official recording also has more dynamics in this section but my interpretation is keeping it as quiet as possible to contrast the crescendo from p to ff at 4:15. I’ve also messed up the intervals at 3:37 enough times to have a bad memory of it LOL. Yes, I mixed it up with the intervals at 1:05. I worked on that RH chord at 4:12, too, to make sure it’s consistently quiet, and that all the keys are played at the same time.

Which launches us to the CLIMAX at 4:18- we return to the theme from 2:45 but WITH MORE NOTES and some permutations. (I know I said I like the permutations in an earlier post, but eventually they kept confusing me while I was practicing and I can’t say I appreciate that.) The reason I was iffy about this take was this section, honestly- I rushed through a lot of the spaces for some reason and didn’t allow the space to speak for itself.. but there are also spots that I’m proud of. The phrase at 4:29 is easily the spot I sweat most during LOL but I nailed it here :) Kinda sad that the RH looks relatively easy at 4:35 when it’s probably the jump I have to work hardest for in the entire piece, but it is gratifying to see it look so smooth on camera.

I had a HICCUP at 4:41- I was ABOUT to hit a wrong note, realized I was finally almost done with a decent full take, froze up for a second while seeing my life flash before my eyes, and diverted the crisis.. at the cost of that blip. Not sure if it was worth it lol.

The final section begins at 5:07; definitely not my cleanest stab at it, but at least the voicing came through in the RH. When I sightread, I feared the LH chord at 5:16 due to the weird stretch, but I’m happy to report that my hand learned to stretch for it nicely. It’s still weird for sure, and I couldn’t play it comfortably if it weren’t broken, but I’ll take it. The descending arpeggio was fun to learn, though I muddled it a little bit right at the very end.. and then of course, we reach the final ACCENTED FORTISSIMO OCTAVES fire emoji And 5:32’s chord was the hardest to learn in this section as I mentioned before, but I was able to comfortably nail it consistently so that was nice.

Thoughts on the Learning Process

As I usually do, I burned through the first half of this piece and then got lazy for the part at 4:18 because I had grown used to fewer notes LOL. This recording has taken a little over a month after my initial sightread; I don’t really use the time it takes me to get a clean recording as a metric for anything, but it’s interesting to note for reference.

Outside of a handful of spots highlighted before, this piece was very non-intimidating which was nice.. until I realized that I was lulled into a false sense of security and got my butt kicked by the need for voicing, phrasing, and generally clean playing (notably, all things I am not super great at yet). But, note-wise, definitely the easiest piece I’ve learned in a while, especially from a Squeenix book.

It was easy to learn this piece by section since it’s pretty obvious where one begins and ends, and they were manageable chunks. The challenge was definitely in learning to catch every little tweak in the recurring parts.. even in this take, there are a couple of spots where I failed, though it’s really not obvious if you’re not intimate with the piece. But I know, and it bothers me.. oh, well.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

Looking back at my first post, my main concerns were voicing, spacing, and some octaves. The main opportunity I saw was being able to develop my own interpretation of the piece since I hadn’t branded the recording into my brain like I usually do with other pieces.

I can definitely say that voicing was and continues to be a challenge throughout, but that’s really something that’s universal when playing piano. I do think I made tangible improvement holistically, so I’m happy with that. Spacing was hit or miss; honestly, I did crush some spaces in this recording due to nerves, but I also realized during later practice sessions that I was unconsciously squashing some spaces. Been working on letting those moments Breathe, and I can feel and hear the difference already. And for interpretation.. I don’t think I branched out as much as I would like, but I’m also pretty vanilla when it comes to musicality, so I’m not too surprised at the end result.

Anyway, this piece was certainly something different from the high tension pieces I tend to play, but it was a welcome change of pace. I learned a lot through this piece, and I feel like I also improved my own awareness of my playing, especially for volume control of each finger and the synchronization between my hands. At the very least, I can say I did improve on the trouble spots I identified in progress updates, but I don’t think I unlocked my Full Potential in this step.. baby steps.

I give this take a 78/100, with my best off-camera playthrough at a solid 90/100 (which is always my personal goal); I do hope I can capture a better recording sometime since I’ve been working on it, but I’m just 2 points short of my 80/100 goal, so I’ll take it for now. I sat on this recording for almost a week before posting due to that one blip and some phrases that I miserably botched, but figured I may as well post what I got.

The chord progressions are initially what made me want to learn this piece, and the piece did not disappoint. Pleased with the small but tangible growth boost that I got through this piece!