Here’s my progress video from last Saturday- I had one from the weekend before that as well, but I’d made so little progress (literally like 16 bars) that I figured I’d just post this one instead. Making progress a lot faster than I expected, which is nice!

Detailed Analysis

I ended up recording the first chunk a bit slower than I could actually play it at the time because I had a bad case of the jitters on camera… This first opening phrase is probably the easiest phrase in the whole piece, due to how it’s the least dense. The synchronized phrase at 0:12 is so clean here, wow, then the LH triplets at 0:14 are so FIRE lol. I had a brief lapse in judgment at 0:17, then we have the buildup phrase. The LH jump from the octave up to the extended broken chords at 0:27 turned out smoother than I expected during the learning process, which was very cool. The arpeggio at 0:29 is a little tricky because I have a crossover in each hand (hands too small to reach them otherwise), and the RH doesn’t have enough time to cleanly hit the F octave immediately after, so I’ve been only playing the top note of the octave for half a beat or so as my RH gets recalibrated. I don’t think it’s too noticeable, so it’s an omission I’m willing to make.

Then we are in the first of the octave-heavy phrases; the LH octaves at 0:33 are supposed to be eighth notes, but I’m still working on my LH octave dexterity and didn’t want to build bad habits, so I slowed down every time those appear. It’s hard!! I’ve been putting in some time every day to play them slowly, but man my RH dominance is so obvious. My LH (and arm, AND SHOULDER??) gets so tired after like… two reps LOL. I’ve built up a little bit of endurance, but still such a long way to go. Definitely one of the major constraining factors right now for overall tempo. On the plus side, Umma had just taught me a trick for playing those RH broken octaves easier! I had previously been struggling on the edges of the keys since that’s where I have to strike for blocked octaves, but she showed me that I can play these broken ones in the middle of the keys. It’s so much easier!! I think my RH descending arpeggio at 0:44 is pretty dope. Then the build up phrase again, with the only difference being a simpler LH at 0:52, omitting the octave and just going straight to the large intervals (WHICH I HAVE BEEN NAILING SOMEHOW?? WOOHOO!!). The insanely fast sixteenth note triplets in the LH at 0:55 are SO HARD LOL and it’s kinda awkward for my hand so for now I’m just… letting it do its thing… I usually hit the mark, but this time I didn’t. RH one isn’t as bad, and it sets me up to maybe hit the octaves right away afterwards, though I’m still considering the omission.

We again have the octave-heavy phrase, this time with slightly different intervals happening, as well as a LH going one octave lower for that first octave. I was able to play the fourths between the octaves at 1:08 at this slower speed in the RH, but at faster tempos, I’ve been starting to omit the middle C… it cramps my hand too much and I have to be as relaxed as I can because we have consecutive RH octaves immediately after this at 1:11.

That jump from Db to F octaves at the tail end of 0:14 is the BANE of my existence. I’ve managed to get it pretty clean now, but for some reason, THE EXACT SAME JUMP is 10x harder to play properly at 1:20. It turned out the reverse in this recording, though. From 1:24, I hadn’t practiced as much, and it shows. I slow down a lot whenever I need to because, again, I don’t want to build bad habits.

After the confusing transition from 1:24, we enter the ethereal section at 1:30! This whole section is really pretty, though it sounds pretty clunky in this take lol. I especially love the little phrase at 1:47 with all the spicy chords… then from 1:54 it was REALLY new stuff that I honestly had not practiced properly, so I slowed way down. There are also a lot of octaves in the RH with filler eighth notes which is challenging even at a louder dynamic, but infinitely harder at p. And the LH is two fifths chained together, which, as we all know from my attempt at “Gods Bound by Rules”, is just… difficult for me. But I utilized a 2 1 2 1 fingering which isn’t the best by normal standards, but it works pretty well for me, thankfully. It’s also all black keys which reduces a lot of stress over accidentally hitting neighboring keys. The descending LH arpeggio at 2:02 is a little odd because I have to jump from 1 on Bb to 2 on E natural above, with a pretty large crossover on the way down, but so far it hasn’t been a big issue. Knock on wood. 2:05 escalates the phrase a bit with big sweeping arpeggios that transition smoothly between both hands, then we start building up to the end of this big phrase.

2:20 honestly scared the living daylights out of me at first because it seemed like one of the top five bars that could singlehandedly stop me from learning the whole thing, but after some experimentation with different fingerings, I’ve found something that works pretty well, so I’m really happy! The LH is a really big stretch on paper but with a crossover, it’s a lot more manageable (and very similar to what I had already done in “Gods Bound by Rules”… GBBR… u a real one…). And the RH was manageable up until 2:24, but then I had the galaxy brain idea to simply crossover downwards at 2:25 before a leap up to the next interval and it is SO much more ergonomic and also manageable!!! The jump is a bit tricky, yeah, but it wasn’t too bad. Definitely had worse in “Stand Your Ground”. And then another octave-heavy phrase in the RH with filler eighth notes, and the same arpeggio in the LH. The first two sets of filler RH notes are kind of big stretches for the fingers I’m using, but at tempo, it hasn’t been too bad. There’s actually a rit. at the phrase at 2:37, which is excellent because it’ll give me ample time to reach that big jump in the LH without breaking the phrasing. And then from 2:42, more stuff I hadn’t practiced but wanted to play anyway… and after this take, I switched the fingering in the RH for the octave at 2:51 so that the octave is given to my LH, which has more time to set up for it, and I can focus on the ff dynamic at 2:51 in both hands.

The remainder of the video is me attempting to play this part and then realizing I’m hitting way too many wrong notes and should STOP BUILDING BAD HABITS… but I’m really excited to learn this part and play it faster hehe.

Current Thoughts

Oh my, I had a lot to say LOL. At the time of this take, I’d put in a little under two weeks of practice, so I’m really happy with my progress so far. It is unbelievable how attainable this piece feels… which is dangerous!! Every day I practice, I feel more and more like “wow, I can’t believe how manageable this piece is”. Because it shouldn’t be??? And I definitely am probably going to play only like 60% compared to the official recording, but considering I had been cowering in fear at this piece for YEARS, I’m really, really happy that I’ve been able to get this far at all. And, maybe most importantly, I’m having so much fun practicing this- I look forward to clocking out so I can go downstairs and keep working on this haha.

This video already covered a solid half of the piece, and there hasn’t been anything too crazy yet, aside from those consecutive RH octaves… but the worst is yet to come, because it’s all in the coda, baybee :) (pray for me)