That 'One Year Off'

Beethoven, and other musings.

I have like n<20 measures left until I’ve got the skeleton of the first movement memorized of his Appassionata.  I mean, seriously.  There’s a section of a few harmonius chords in E major, whereby in then switches to E minor and you hear the theme again.  There’s a few parts in the spaces before (such a cadence section in Ab minor {seriously WTF Ab minor?!}) that I don’t have the chords for in my head (yet), but the sound I know what it’s supposed to sound like.  Couple of fingering issues, I’ll have to go back through and look and phrasing, slurs, and dynamics (much of the musicality has been lost over the past year).

But now?  Around 70% complete.  5% more for the notes, 15% more for the musicality (I’ve got it in some parts, just…not all of it already), another 5% for the sheer fluidness one attains when familiarity is attained, and another 4% for the joy that comes in knowing all of this.

You might be wondering…

70+5+15+5+4 != 100%

Of course not.  That last 1% (hah, I probably sound like an arrogant douche) will come with time.  It’s there in some parts of the piece already, I’d like to say (though very few), but there’s something to say about the relative ease in which a piece is played…even it parts of it are heinously difficult.

You could be playing the simplest pieces in the world and make it look like you’re struggling with the Nine Hells themselves.

Or, take one of the most difficult, and make it look like child’s play.

There’s a show to be had in all of this.

L’sigh.

I’ve been reading a lot, lately.  Finished up Return of the King (Tolkien!) and almost through Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.

I wish music came to me as it did Kvothe.  That’d be insane.

(Insanely cool.)

Piano.

I had THE BIGGEST smile on my face while going over the first few pages of the Appassionata earlier.

Background: so I’ve been working on this piece for what seems like FOR EVER (started last July, on and off relationship with practicing, etc.)  Anyway, by starting from the back, every time I play through the piece I solidify the entire thing that I know, rather than stopping midway through and going “well shit, that’s all there is huh.”  It’s been eye-opening for me because I memorized things quicker and committed more of it to a solid memory.

Also, understanding the theory underneath helped too.  Just knowing that this Mm7 chord resolves like a Germain augmented sixth and modulates to a different key (sequences too!) and gets us farther along is fun.  Also finding out the places where you can take a little more time, musically, because of the progression.

Anyway.  So I’ve known from about the development onwards for a few months, too.  (About…page six to the end of fifteen?  Holy crap!  I only have five pages left!)  Anyway, I’m playing the first three pages and I’m like…hey, I recognize this!  My fingers knew what to do, even though I wasn’t technically reading *all* of the notes (oh yeah, this is just a diminished in the left; in the right, it starts on that that note, and the trill is a WHOLE STOP above, dur) and then my ears knew what it was supposed to sound like (hey, THIS IS EVEN IN THE SAME KEY AS LATER but…but we didn’t modulate like then?) AND IT WAS JUST THIS TOTALLY AWESOME FEELING.

Seriously, playing the piano with the stupidest grin on my face because I was totally geeking out about the theory and the aural component and everything I had actually learned during my years pursuing my degree.

Yup.

Now I just need to find a way to get people to pay me a MILLION DOLLARS to do this stuff, but only when I want and when the mood strikes me.  You know, just like the movie stars and such like that.

(I still don’t understand why they get paid so much damn money.  Same with athletes.  Like…I understand needing enough in monetary funds to sustain yourself and live a comfortable life, but some of these paychecks are ridiculous.  {Disclamer: I don’t know how many of them acutally keep/spend all of it, but I understand some may decide to donate to charities and the like and stuff.}  End rant.)

ANYWAY.

Back to Beethoven.  :D

So…

WHY DO I ALWAYS PROCRASTINATE WITH THE LEARNINGS OF MUSIC

I’ve got four voice solos to learn by Friday (the piano parts, heh), and I work most of the day tomorrow.  Granted, there’s about three hours Friday late morning that I could use, but I’ve HAD THIS MUSIC FOR A WEEK (and a half).

It’s not terribly difficult, it’s just…gah.  I suppose that’s why I always put it off, heh.

Anyway.  Run tomorrow (probably late), because I couldn’t get off my butt tonight to do it.  I need to keep learning the Appassionata, and then move on to the second and third movements.  The second one’s rather mild (until the middle section), and the final one was some righteous (I can say that, right? - maybe ridiculous is the correct word) left hand shenanigans I’ll have to plan around.

After that, I need to pick a Bach Prelude/Fugue (or maybe a Scarlatti, since…I’ve never played his stuff), either a Liszt/Chopin piece (Nocturnes are gorgeous but take me so much time, and Liszt is Liszt), and then some more ‘recent’ piece if that doesn’t take me to an hour.

If I *really* want to pursue this Master’s in Collaborative Piano, I need to get on the ball.  (Also, play for more people too.)  I’m gathering this music to make a demo tape of sorts (my senior recital was meh, except for maybe the Beethoven - the Chopin Ballade was an utter failure :() and I kinda was joking with the audience between pieces.  I’m not sure how that’d really fly on an audition tape.

In any case, I think there’s a 90% chance that my Erin, Chris, and myself are moving down to Austin this summer.

Yup.  And guess what music school’s nearby?

Yes.  The Butler School of Music at UT Austin.

I have my work cut out for me.

RECAP(itulation):

Short term:

• learn accompaniments
• get other choir pieces better
• start looking for jobs

Long term:

• learn a recital’s worth of music (~60 minutes)
• find a job in Austin
• learn one of the required pieces for a collaborative piano degree
• catch them all

This also doesn’t have anything to do with weight loss yet.  *Yet.*

I ordered that Paleo book everyone seems to have talked about at one point or another.  I need to change my diet.

And there we have it.

Also, I need to sleep.  Hopefully soon.

(There are SO MANY parenthetical asides in this post.)

(Thirteen, including this one.)

(Wait, fourteen.)

And back!

Details (probably very bad details) later.

For now, I just want to say how good it was to be practicing repertoire again.  Worked on (re-)memorizing the last few pages of Beethoven’s Sonata No 23 in F minor (Appasionata) Mvt. I for what must have been a couple of hours (if that many) today.

Note to self: why the hell did you stop learning the piece.  It’s’ freakin’ gorgeous and you were only three pages away.  ><  (The first movement, anyway.)

Also messed around with movie-music sounding improvs, haha.  I…iii….I…iii…repeat, with repetitious “fill.”

Ah, piano.

I seem to be much more keen to play and practice more when no one’s home, and at the oddest hours (I just finish about 75 minutes a little while ago before I wasted more time on Facebook just now).

Anyway.

:D

Graaaaaaaaaaawr.

Yes, this is indeed the second Graaa-* post I’ve made.  Apparently.  I was going to use “grah!”, but I seem to have used it already.  :3

In any case, I haven’t worked out or ran in like…two weeks.  I feel terrible.  BUT, all of my piano obligations are done (until next semester), so the only thing I’ll have to pay attention to since the semester’s over is church.  And maybe some working on Beethoven’s 23rd piano sonata.  Possibly.

In any case, the Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 lens came in Tuesday.  Or Monday.  Earlier this week.  It doesn’t matter.

That said, I’ll be outside more, looking for animals to take pictures of.

Tommorow I plan to run in them morning.  I was up to nearly 5.5 mi last time, but since I haven’t run in so long…I may “try” for 4.2 and see how that goes.

I also thing I started to get burned out on the running.  The nearly hour I spent out there just seemed like…such a long, long time.  4.2 should take around 45-50’,depending on pace, of course, but definitely doable under the 50, if not even closer to 44’.  I’d like to get back into it, even if it’s just going for a 30 minute run.

Also, ordered a new router through Amazon: the Asus RT-N16.  Should be in tomorrow (oh em gee I love Amazon Prime).  I’m getting really tired of this Linksys WCG200 v2.

If you’re looking, btw, for an all-in-one-router, DO NOT BUY THE LINKSYS WCG200 V2.

Granted, this thing’s a few years old now…but still.  You might find it for cheap, but it’s not worth the dropped connections.

And…that’s it?  For now, anyway.