Where Love Doesn’t Reach [END]

It’s been a hot minute, but I finally have a piece that’s been finished!! I’m actually pretty happy with how this take came out, so I am extra pleased. And this was on my list forever for things I want to learn, so I can finally check this one off.

Detailed Analysis

I went too hard on that third note in the very beginning, whoops. Also definitely could have cleaned up the RH intervals/voicing at 0:06 further and just the first opening phrase in general, but at least the main melody voicing is somewhat apparent. I’m happy with the voicing with the “inverted” broken octaves in the RH at 0:23 since it is the bottom octave that is the melody. Rest of this section sounds fine- the second half feels like the voicing could be improved, but it flows well enough that I’m okay with it.

Immediately played the second third in the RH unevenly at 0:46 but it’s cool. The part at 1:02 sounds worse in person since I had to give up an octave in the LH (can’t reach) and substitute with a sixth before jumping up to continue the thirds… funny that it sounds okay on video. For the rest of this section, it seems that the higher register doesn’t come out as loudly compared to how I play in person… I’ll have to figure out some way to mitigate. Like at 1:09, for example; I take extra care to bring out the RH but it’s so quiet!!! Sigh… I also had to learn NOT to suddenly grow louder at 1:24. I got into the habit due to the increased velocity and the big chords, but I realized there’s literally no dynamic actually telling me to get any louder so I trained myself out of it.

The part I’m most proud of is the jazzy section from 1:31; I was practicing the section one day and then I had my lightbulb moment of realizing what the voicing was intended to be!! The melody starts in the LH at 1:31 and then carries over into the RH before the RH goes off with the triplets, then melody transfers back to the LH during the triplets like at 1:42. I’m really happy with how the voicing turned out in this section!! I think I could have played with the rubato a bit more, but I also didn’t want to go too crazy with tempo flexibility since it could mess with the flow of the melody.

In hindsight, the uneven RH D octave at 1:58 kills me but it’s okay. It’s odd it happened because my RH octaves are actually not too bad- it’s usually my LH octaves that are uneven for whatever reason. Oh, well. Again, despite my voicing and pulling the top octaves out for the melody, the higher register is definitely lost amongst the party happening in the lower registers, which is a bummer. But at least I’m happy with the decrescendo at 2:15 as we transition into the dreamy section at 2:18.

The rest of the piece utilizes that same ethereal feel. I played around with different types of playing for the first chunk before the melody comes in at 2:50. I ended up playing a lot more rigidly than I usually do in this take, but it sounds fairly even for once. In practice, I usually played a lot more unevenly (but deliberately), and brought out the “moving” notes for the more repetitive bits. Overall for this section, there were a ton of spots where my hands were not synchronized (e.g., 3:04, 3:08, 3:38), and I unfortunately didn’t catch that until I was literally reviewing this take after the fact. But I am happy with the relative evenness and voicing like at 2:58 and 3:11. AND best of all, the very final notes were synchronized rather cleanly around 4:16!! I tended to sometimes play those unevenly during practice, so I was not breathing at this point out of nerves lol.

I shaved nearly an entire minute off from the previous post, which is amazing. It didn’t feel like 80 bpm was that much faster than what I had been practicing in the beginning, but now that I compare them side-by-side, the difference is pretty obvious. And I feel like the overall flow is much improved when comparing to the earlier post, which is nice!

Thoughts on the Learning Process

I think I’ll probably remember learning this piece as half-baked because… it was LOL. I did put in some work for certain sections (like the jazzy portion for figuring out voicing) and there were some other “aha!” moments that I’m proud of, but compared to the learning process for some other pieces, this one wasn’t super eventful. I don’t know if I accepted the L early on since this piece requires a surprising amount of technique to execute the way I want to (technique that I, notably, don’t possess) OR if I’m just still in the middle of my slump so I haven’t been as fired up as before. It mostly feels like I just learned the notes and then kept playing it over and over… instead of breaking parts down and practicing more carefully.

Note-wise, this was fairly easy to learn before I started working on putting it all together. The only section that was truly tricky was the forte bit with the RH jumping around between higher octaves and lower thirds. The biggest challenge for this piece was definitely the musicality aspect like I mentioned before. But given my technique level, I’m actually not too bummed about how the dreamy section turned out.

I never did manage to fully memorize the first half. I memorized from the jazzy section on, but when I tried playing without the score for the first sections, I kept forgetting random notes here and there. It wasn’t worth it to suffer through several more takes just to try and have a memorized take.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

Considering the length of time that’s passed (~1 month) since I first picked this up seriously, I think this is probably one of the least polished full takes I’m publishing (see section on “half-baked” above)… but at the same time, I’ve been stuck in a slump for a while so I’m happy just to have something finished somewhat decently. There are plenty of spots that I could’ve worked harder on, but I’m just chronically unable to muster the interest/focus to do so!! Hopefully this will help me get through this slump… soon…

Despite all the woulda shoulda coulda’s I hold towards this piece, I’ll give myself an 85/100 for this take, which ironically meets my personal goal for takes… lol. (ALSO I ended up taking like 10 different takes for this- usually it’s the earlier takes that turn out better for me, but this time it was the very last one that ended up being the one.)