Welcome to My MP3 Hell

Time to torture you with more piano stuff.

I believe it was in 2004 that I learned Chopin's 6th prelude, in B minor. I was pretty excited, because it was an entire classical piece, and I knew the whole thing, and I felt like I had MADE it. But I knew I didn't play it too well. I still work on it all the time.

Now I'm working on Chopin's waltz in A minor, Opus 34, No. 2. This is one of my two favorite Chopin waltzes. The other is the C sharp minor waltz (64, 02). My teacher surprised me a while back by suggesting I try it. I've been working on it for WEEKS.

It's interesting, because it's not technically all that tough, but it's still a bitch. It's slow, and the timing is weird but doable. But there are still hard things about it. For example, I have to do a bunch of trills with the left hand and somehow stay on a waltz beat. That's really hard, because it's something your fingers just do not naturally do. Learning to do it is like physical therapy. You just have to practice every day and take it on faith that eventually, your brain will grow the neurons or whatever to make it work. It's finally starting to happen, but I can tell it will be at least two more weeks before I feel good about the trills.

Also, you really have to watch the dynamics. This piece is full of all sorts of great harmonies, but you have to balance the volume of the notes, or it sounds awful. For example, if you're playing three notes at once, you can ruin the whole effect by sounding the middle note too loudly. Meanwhile, your other hand is doing something that also requires concentration, so you have limited CPU space for the harmony.

On top of all that, there are some stretches and jumps that are just barely hard enough to be a pain. And there are some things that require independence of the 3rd and 4th fingers of the right hand, which were flat-out impossible for me two weeks ago.

The funny thing about all this is that the challenges don't keep you from being able to play the piece. But they make your playing sound like a child's playing. As if you have no taste. It's smoothing out now, so I'm starting to be able to improve the timing and make it sound more elegant, but it's WAY off. I was shocked when I heard the recording I made tonight. Now I'm going to inflict it on you.

I was horrified when I heard that, so I recorded the prelude, to see if everything I played sounded like a ten-year-old. Thank God, it was a lot better. It sounds like a different person. It would be better if I fooled around with the microphone placement, but here it is.

I made a mistake in there that sounded awful while I was playing, but when I listened, I barely noticed, so to hell with it.

This is the most frustrating instrument on earth. If you want to play badly, it's no problem. You can bang away and make Elton John tunes sound pretty good. But if you want to play classical, you have to master the nuances, and it's hell.

The prelude really encourages me, because there are things about it that are a thousand times better than they were last year, and I know the same thing will happen to the waltz, and maybe a year from now, they'll both sound good enough to play in front of people. Real people, not you characters. And ten years from now, who knows?