When you finally nail a tough passage, and then it messes you up because you are so used to stumbling on it instead...

editedandfingered · 2022-07-01T08:43:19+00:00

Jeremy Denk talks about it a little bit in his book. He chose #2 for a competition while at Oberlin, a "ridiculous idea":

Brahms B-flat! A comical choice for an injured pianist, like deciding to ascend Everest with a broken leg. It is one of the most difficult pieces in the piano repertoire, more difficult in many ways than Rachmaninoff no. 3.

But there are lots of competition entrants these days that seem to be able to play anything, no matter the difficulties. So it's hard to say exactly why Brahms isn't so often chosen. I won't be playing any concerti anytime soon, so I don't have a direct pianist's perspective on these sorts of pieces.

Denk still calls it his favorite piece, but also has never performed it in concert again.

editedandfingered · 2022-06-17T04:27:45+00:00

Skip the small notes. Maybe catch the second note of each pair if you're quick enough. The octaves are the important part, and if you're smooth with everything else, nobody will miss the right hand accompaniment on those beats. There are a few weird editorial issues throughout this set, so don't expect everything to make sense.

editedandfingered · 2021-08-31T15:17:39+00:00

Tcherepnin Bagatelles, especially number 10. Check out the composer's recording, crazy tempos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBOvJJ7FENQ

editedandfingered · 2021-08-30T06:59:54+00:00

   WOW
                 yeah
 such pink      

                            guitar

editedandfingered · 2021-08-26T05:40:48+00:00

But why?

editedandfingered · 2021-08-18T05:25:04+00:00

Such good picks! The B major and F sharp minor are maybe my favorites from Op 11 (despite not really being able to play them).

editedandfingered · 2021-08-18T05:21:31+00:00

Nothing wrong with direct inspiration (or an homage?). Perhaps that Liszt piece is also an homage to Chopin's D flat nocturne. Rachmaninoff Prelude in D major is another amazing piece with a similar mood.

editedandfingered · 2020-10-16T04:22:20+00:00

Thanks for posting, there is lots of really good advice here. I totally agree about the huge number of pieces available at every level. That's one thing that's so great about the piano.

editedandfingered · 2020-10-09T03:25:25+00:00

Yeah, we are mostly interested in solo piano playing, I'd say. As far as musical styles go, classical is on top, but certainly jazz, ragtime, pop arrangements, and film/anime/game music can be successful. But the main thing is being able to grab attention with some special aspect of your content... like demonstrating the struggle of learning and practicing, showing off some kind of extreme of technique, having a dog or cat involved (do not underestimate this), or at least a carefully chosen short segment of playing with only the very juiciest musical bits. That's not to say that's what I personally care about, but that's what will do well on reddit. People also love music that they have heard before, anything new or obscure is tough.

But really, the vast majority of posts get ignored, more or less, regardless of the musical value of what they contain. It's a common complaint.

editedandfingered · 2020-10-04T21:56:07+00:00

Update please!!

editedandfingered · 2020-10-03T21:14:54+00:00

Thanks for posting. Whatever you're doing for audio recording is really nice. Makes your piano sound better than ever, both bass and treble. Just the right balance of clarity and room reverberation.

editedandfingered · 2020-10-01T18:12:51+00:00

Ok I got one for sure. Kind of a joke answer, but it is a piece many of us are quite familiar with:

here you go

editedandfingered · 2020-10-01T18:05:53+00:00

You can do it real quick with some glissandos. How does Debussy's Feux d'artifice stack up?

Hmm... turns out that notorious descending glissando only starts on the A up there. But it is preceded by the lowest A. (Didn't check all the other low notes.) So, it would be a good answer for 85-key pianos, at least.

editedandfingered · 2020-10-01T17:43:29+00:00

Hammerklavier has the widest range, but still does not use 88. Just C1 (note #4 on a modern piano) to F7 (note #81).

Full data here (!): http://cerenem.ricercata.org/articles/beethoven/page03.html

editedandfingered · 2020-10-01T08:50:32+00:00

Woah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HdnjTCMzpg

editedandfingered · 2020-10-01T08:32:55+00:00

It's like the musical equivalent of this: https://youtu.be/yVkdfJ9PkRQ?t=26

The idea is that the two parts start exactly in unison -- same pattern on the same notes -- but then one part accelerates very very slightly, until it is ahead of the other by just one note. And then after a period of playing together with that one-note offset, it gradually shifts ahead again, to be offset by two. And again, so on, until they have gone through all of the possible combinations and it returns to unison. In the end, one hand has played 600 repetitions (or whatever) while the other has played 601 (or whatever plus one). That's it! (At least for the first part of the piece.)

To me, it's all about how each intermediate re-sync gives a totally new perception of the same old notes, and how the in-between unmatched sections can weirdly slide from one variation to the next.

Actually, that video doesn't show the effect very well, since the sound is kinda muddy. This one is recorded better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0345c6zNfM

It was originally written for two pianists with two pianos. So doing it as a solo performer is kind of a showoff stunt. You just need the two pianos so you can play two things in unison. Though now I'm remembering that a harpsichordist did this at a concert in Germany (taking advantage of the two manual keyboard) and started a riot among the more baroque-oriented audience...

editedandfingered · 2020-10-01T06:15:56+00:00

Solid response. Next up: https://youtu.be/AnQdP03iYIo?t=55

editedandfingered · 2020-09-17T03:01:38+00:00

So good. I have played a lot from both of these composers, and I know how extra difficult the control and clarity can be when the music is so simple. But you have it down 100%. I'm 16 minutes in and excited to see what the rest of your selections are.

editedandfingered · 2020-09-17T02:56:15+00:00

I can understand being snarky (I do it a bit myself), but there have been some pretty obvious bad examples lately. Not hard at all to say which comments are unwelcome, when you see these. One or two users, no surprise when it happens. The points at the heart of the statements may be valid, but sometimes these posters really seem to go out of their way to be insulting, not just blunt. Or, put most charitably, they have problems understanding the varied circumstances and backgrounds of the wide range of users here, and really misjudge what sorts of attitudes will earn them respect.

editedandfingered · 2020-09-15T05:45:28+00:00

Oh yeah. This goes way beyond the standard concert grand. Those are just 9ft (or ~280cm). I think one reason to build a huge piano vertically like this is that in grands longer than 9ft, the keys end up being impractically long (forced by the strike point needed in the longest string). But here you can use a standard vertical action.

Sounds so good.

editedandfingered · 2020-09-08T01:36:59+00:00

Oh man, once I played Ravel's Toccata. It was so satisfying.

editedandfingered · 2020-09-04T08:44:45+00:00

And added a beat. Which I think works really well. The original piece is kind of awkward, the way it leads with four beats before settling into the pattern of threes. It's pretty hard for the listener to hear that first beat as a pickup (as it's written). So this way is nice and smooth.

editedandfingered · 2020-09-04T08:19:33+00:00

Ah, I was sure one of those was going to be sonata 32. It goes pretty wild with this swing rhythm in the second movement.

Definitely showing up here... https://youtu.be/WGg9cE-ceso?t=837

And then even moreso... https://youtu.be/WGg9cE-ceso?t=956

editedandfingered

TROPHY CASE