The Other Promise - Snapshot #1
Hi I didn't play piano properly for like this entire month lol and have come with a new piece yeet
A very rough read-through of the first third-ish of The Other Promise... spent some time working on the portion from 1:11 to 2:02 so it's not completely sightread but the rest is at most from playing a couple of times crudely. I should maybe record a crude play-through of the rest of the piece just so I can see where I started from hm hm
I was initially worried about the LH in that section from 1:11 because there are frequent octaves that require some jumping, but so far not too much grief?? There's a ninth (D E E) that requires stretching and I'm not sure I can nail it at tempo but it is possible so I'll work at it.
The section at 1:11 is definitely pretty challenging mentally- people often laud pianists for our ability to "split our brains" and this section really puts that to the test lol. RH is actually exactly the same as the section before, just one octave up, while LH pattern doesn't mirror RH so if I'm not careful, I end up making mistakes because I default to mirroring my hands oops
The chords at 2:19 look bad in the score but I'm very pleased that I can physically play them all!! It's not always super comfortable but it's not a dealbreaker in terms of pain/stretching, so it's okay. And the tempo is pretty slow so overall the phrase is lenient, as far as octaves usually go for me.
My biggest worry in this clip is 2:31 lol.... the RH arpeggio is fine (despite my general Achilles' heel with arpeggios) but the LH goes from sextuplet to 32nd notes and there's a weird crossover so that'll take some work.. I think it's feasible but not super confident yet.
Overall this arrangement has a lot of arpeggios sprinkled in that aren't outright terrifying but are enough to make me wary lol but I do think that working on this piece will help my arpeggios improve a little bit. And there's also a sick descending octave phrase at the end that's very dramatic, which is absolutely one reason why I picked this one up... LOVE THE DRAMATICS!! I don't think this piece is necessarily easy, but I also think it's actually quite manageable, which is why I picked it up. Yes, there are arpeggios and octaves but I want to challenge myself to clear these hurdles and add more experience to those particular skills. I also think this is a good reality check after Ashes of Dreams- AoD wasn't exactly a cakewalk, but in terms of complexity, it isn't very difficult in my opinion?? I think it'll be good to tackle a more conventional arrangement to keep myself grounded.
And of course, this piece in general is very close to my heart!! I'm still working on cleaning up AoD, but wanted something new to start to have some motivation for practicing again. Hoping I can stay committed to this one and also eventually get a good recording of AoD..