Stand Your Ground #2

Here’s the first.. third or so of the piece, now that I’ve spent a week working on it. This is the section I’ve learned before most, so the notes came back to me easily and it was more a matter of really fine-tuning the maneuvers and also musicality. Still rough, but I think it’s a good progress marker, all things considered. Also recorded later sections that I haven’t practiced yet, but I wanted them on camera so I can look back later.

Detailed Analysis

The beginning starts out a little wobbly in terms of tempo control and I need to work on really syncing my two hands. The part is “easy” so I haven’t really spent any time on it, yet, but this is relatively close to performance tempo so I’m not that concerned.

0:14 is where the real fun begins, and this is where I spent a whole day’s practice session (and more). It was hard the first time around back in 2018, and it’s still hard now, but I’m happy to say it’s marginally easier now. Can’t believe that phrase is only 6 seconds long at tempo lol.. Anyway, the RH arpeggios are a little awkward in terms of fingering and crossovers and there is one extra stretch at the top of the second one, but I’m glad it looks relatively smooth overall on camera. I also don’t need to track my eyes to my RH much at all anymore, which lets me focus more on tracking my LH because those octaves are not easy to nail yet.. And the downward flourish at 0:18 is not clean enough yet, but I’m happy I have the note accuracy and can physically maneuver my hands somewhat smoothly.

(These phrases fly by SO fast at tempo, good grief) The phrase at 0:19 is pretty simple, I think the accents can come out a bit more, but I’m happy with the overall volume level here.

0:24 is also where I spent a good chunk of practice time. I’ve learned this section before somewhat properly, but at the same time, I never put in the work for anything past 0:37. I typically practice with both hands unless something really needs practice, and here I definitely had to break down the RH first so I’m more comfortable with all the twists and turns. Luckily the LH is really simple so it wasn’t too bad to add the LH in, but I can feel myself accenting the LH unintentionally when I’m stressed over moments in the RH, so that’s something to work on. I took care to bring out the top D at 0:26, and I’m glad it shows here a bit. The micro-phrase at 0:32 is actually quite manageable now, and the jump up to 0:35 is alright (no note changes required!!). I am still working on the 4 5 intervals for voicing and also just playing them at the same time?? They’re my two weakest fingers and it’s one white key and one black key, so there are a lot of things that trip me up. I don’t know why I slowed down at 0:37, I am perfectly capable of playing that transition at tempo lol. I need to improve my voicing on the top notes from here on; the supporting notes are also too loud. Definitely need to work on the overall volume levels here.

Everything from 0:51 hasn’t been practiced properly but it came back to me enough where I wanted to record it anyway. I did work on the LH here at 0:51 with the ascending bass line; I changed to using 3 5 for the lower notes since it gives me a little more “spring” power to hit those bigger intervals. I’m also pleasantly surprised with my improvement at 0:54 in the LH with that enormous interval and the jumps? It looks unexpectedly fluid on camera. It does also feel better physically, but definitely looks cooler than it feels. Pretty sure I rushed in this section? I’m not comfortable with the section yet and my brain just registers it as “hard” so.. it was probably just out of desperation to get through it. The sixteenth notes at 1:03 leading into the next section also need a ton of work..

1:04 is the same as 0:19, and the decrescendo from ff to mf actually sounds pretty good here? I’m surprised. 1:09 is like 0:24 but in a lower register; I mentioned before that this version is a little easier since the range is smaller, and I was right. I straight up have not practiced this part much at all but the sequence is so predictable I ended up memorizing it immediately. Definitely need to break it down, though, and work on voicing; volume control is pretty horrific here in the RH.

Page turn at 1:30 because I haven’t memorized this far yet anddd this is the section with the sixteenth notes that I really wanted to learn this piece for. I honestly have not practiced a note of this section properly and you can hear my LH clearly out of sync for the first half before it locks in more with the RH, but I expected that. There are so many things to work on here, but especially LH volume control, sync between RH and LH, voicing in the RH (I noticed a lot of octave chords tend to have the middle note stick out instead of the octave itself), and basically being light and nimble. The downwards LH sequence is also.. going to be a challenge.. that tiny jump up at 1:46 will be something to look out for.

Current Thoughts

It’s been a week since I first read through this again, and the progress is not bad, but could be better. I am pretty happy specifically with the progress made on the phrase at 0:14 as well as 0:24, but for the latter, I really need to work on legato-ing everything as much as I can. There are definitely physical limitations but I think I can at least reduce the clunky parts a bit with some pedaling and more careful maneuvering.

I spent the first couple of days just reading through the whole piece a few times to get a feel for it as a whole, and this is something I usually do with pieces to prevent any surprises. While there are some challenging bits to tackle in this recording, I think the worst is yet to come. The part where I cut off is where those nonstop sixteenth note arpeggios kick in for the LH.. looking forward to the challenge, though.

Overall, I’m actually surprised at how decent this sounds already (for the parts that I have properly practiced, anyway). I was gauging this to be a two month project, but I might get through it a little faster. No pressure to myself, though, of course. I still don’t think this sounds that much better than what I had in Nov. 2018, but.. I do think I feel less daunted overall so there’s that, at least. (FINGERS CROSSED FOR THOSE LH ARPEGGIOS THOUGH)