What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Joseph K]

Back in my idle early 20s I used to play the Prelude and Fugue from BWV 998 (in the Segovia edition), though I never got round to the Allegro.

For a slightly different take, I find this very interesting. The guitar is weird but the Fugue benefits enormously from the sustained bass notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1zBxDC6SWE

Thanks for bringing this video to my attention. Sounds very nice.

I've been learning 998 for a while, but only relatively recently the Allegro - which actually, other than the speed, isn't too hard at all. I actually find the opposite case with the Prelude - it's deceptively fairly simple, but once you really get practising it, it becomes apparent that it's definitely not easy!

[Pianoman]

Is that a so called keyboard, or a digital piano? Have you tried using Midi to get more hands? It may be that you are very purist, or that you don't "get in" to technology, but that's something I'm investigating at present. Some of the higher end digital pianos - or even grand pianos - do have the ability to record and/or play from Midi files.

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Oh this is a very decent Yamaha digital piano, so no problem with touch, volume etc and it does have instant record, so he was able to demonstrate 'playing with himself' (ahem) by recording piano 1 then playing that back and playing piano 2 'live' - quite effective actually, but much more fun as a duo, even though the gulf between the 'real' acoustic instrument and the 'fake' one is very apparent (especially in the bass).

[Dave2002]

Oh this is a very decent Yamaha digital piano, so no problem with touch, volume etc and it does have instant record, so he was able to demonstrate 'playing with himself' (ahem) by recording piano 1 then playing that back and playing piano 2 'live' - quite effective actually, but much more fun as a duo, even though the gulf between the 'real' acoustic instrument and the 'fake' one is very apparent (especially in the bass).

That's good and interesting to hear. My own observations to date, somewhat to my surprise, are that it can actually be harder to play with a "perfect" rendition based directly on a score, rather than in a group where there is flexibility, and members can listen to each other. I had thought it would be helpful to have versions of pieces which several of us have difficulty playing right through when we meet to be able to play independently - some form of absolute reference, but so far my attempts to do this by playing accurate midi files suggest that this isn't the case.

I have been rather surprised by this, and I will persist. This attempt is perhaps not so difficult or critical for some pieces, but for intricate contrapunctal music where each part is closely interlocked with the others the difficulties of getting everything together are considerable. Another problem is that with a very small group there is no overall "leader" - a larger group could expect to have a conductor, who could perhaps manage to regulate progress and make helpful suggestions - even just keeping time, but a small group of amateurs will have to work with a consensus which may be difficult to achieve. Two people playing together can work things out, but four is considerably harder.

[Richard Barrett]

My own observations to date, somewhat to my surprise, are that it can actually be harder to play with a "perfect" rendition based directly on a score, rather than in a group where there is flexibility, and members can listen to each other. I had thought it would be helpful to have versions of pieces which several of us have difficulty playing right through when we meet to be able to play independently - some form of absolute reference, but so far my attempts to do this by playing accurate midi files suggest that this isn't the case.

That's clear, and of course the reason is that while you're listening to the computer, the computer certainly isn't listening to you!

Which brings me neatly to mention that I just finished composing something relevant to that phenomenon, namely a rather extended (30 minute) composition for trombone and electronic sounds entitled membrane, which will have its first performance in London on 1 May by Ben Marks of the Elision ensemble. Anyone who's played music for live performers and "tape" (which of course no longer involves such a thing as a tape) will have encountered the same kind of problem as Dave describes, in the process of trying to play together with a pseudo-performer who is completely inflexible with timing. Solving this problem can take up so much of a player's consciousness that there isn't much left to devote to actually getting involved in playing the music. The solution in this new piece (and in some previous ones like the cello piece life-form) is that some aspect of the "tape" part responds to what the player does, so that he/she can be flexible in timing without getting out of step with the electronic "orchestra", by following the pitch-contour of the live instrument, and/or its dynamics, or switching or crossfading between different sound-textures depending on whether the instrument is playing or not, or sounding only when the player is silent, and so on. This is done in a very simple way by having the computer monitor the pitch and dynamic of the instrument and apply the resulting data to some parameter or other of the playback component of the program, but it's already possible to do this kind of thing in a much more sophisticated way, possibly up to and including the kind of situation that Dave is talking about.

[Joseph K]

Yesterday started reading through this very nice piece by Villa Lobos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAg8VHuXNKU

… which isn't too tricky.

[Richard Tarleton]

… which isn't too tricky.

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I have the music but have never tried it. Though V-L is very player-friendly, with lots of set positions slid up and down the fingerboard which impress the hell out of the uninitiated - the Choro looks more difficult than (say) Preludes no 1 and 5, Studies nos 1 and 11 - which are easy to play badly. All about the rhythm!

[Joseph K]

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I have the music but have never tried it. Though V-L is very player-friendly, with lots of set positions slid up and down the fingerboard which impress the hell out of the uninitiated - the Choro looks more difficult than (say) Preludes no 1 and 5, Studies nos 1 and 11 - which are easy to play badly. All about the rhythm!

More difficult than the first study? Not in my experience - that study is much faster than Choros no.1, and also made my left hand ache...

Here is Choros no. 1 again - I prefer this interpretation to the one I posted above -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRNq2wJ1RRQ

EDIT: I see you said 'looks more difficult', but I still think the first study looks/is more difficult...

[Richard Tarleton]

Tho' Study no 1 more of a right hand exercise? Great for strengthening the 3rd (a) finger...

Study no 11 a real crowd-pleaser

I like the second version of the Choro you've just posted.....

[Joseph K]

Tho' Study no 1 more of a right hand exercise? Great for strengthening the 3rd (a) finger...

Yes.

Study no 11 a real crowd-pleaser

Listening now (Bream).

I like the second version of the Choro you've just posted.....

Kyuhee Park is a fine guitarist.

[johnb]

Not too sure about the second version of Choro No 1 you posted. It seems a very "smoothed out" performance, as it were, without the Brazilian character.

Much of Choro No 1 is technically fairly straight forward but there is a bit in the second section that doesn't fall under the LH fingers that well (at least not my LH fingers). So much so that I wondered whether it is a typo (not at all uncommon in VL editions). Sometimes I used to cheat on those couple of bars.

Sadly, these days my RH is pretty crap so things I used to play reasonably well are .... no longer viable.

[Joseph K]

Not too sure about the second version of Choro No 1 you posted. It seems a very "smoothed out" performance, as it were, without the Brazilian character.

Not sure about this. If anything, her version more resembles bossa nova than David Russell's.

Much of Choro No 1 is technically fairly straight forward but there is a bit in the second section that doesn't fall under the LH fingers that well (at least not my LH fingers). So much so that I wondered whether it is a typo (not at all uncommon in VL editions). Sometimes I used to cheat on those couple of bars.

I haven't got to that bit yet.

Sadly, these days my RH is pretty crap so things I used to play reasonably well are .... no longer viable.

I've spent a number of years trying to play jazz using a plectrum. Thus, my right hand is underdeveloped compared with my left. Needs a lot of work.

[BBMmk2]

Nearly completed the first movement f my current project.

[Joseph K]

Nearly completed the first movement f my current project.

This is finished now, BBM?

I've added yet more Bach to my repertoire. This time, it's the Gigue from the suite in E minor BWV 996. I really adore this movement, it's incredibly joyful and elegant and other than one or two bits, isn't too difficult to play*, and is incredibly rewarding to play. I was just going to assign half an hour to it, but found myself shelving the Choro no. 1 (sorry, Villa Lobos) and practising this Gigue for another half hour.

*The main difficulty is near the beginning of the B section, with descending thirds in the bass counterpointed with an ascending scale run on the top E string.

[BBMmk2]

This is finished now, BBM?

I've added yet more Bach to my repertoire. This time, it's the Gigue from the suite in E minor BWV 996. I really adore this movement, it's incredibly joyful and elegant and other than one or two bits, isn't too difficult to play*, and is incredibly rewarding to play. I was just going to assign half an hour to it, but found myself shelving the Choro no. 1 (sorry, Villa Lobos) and practising this Gigue for another half hour.

*The main difficulty is near the beginning of the B section, with descending thirds in the bass counterpointed with an ascending scale run on the top E string.

Sounds very rewarding, JK! I have now completed the first movement and doing that must do boring part, proof reading! I might change a few parts, actually because it looks a bit stodgy.

[Joseph K]

It's funny how each hand is ostensibly independent, but in actuality they definitely are linked, so that in the realm of technique what is a problem for one creates a problem for the other.

So, for many months I've practiced Sor op. 11 no. 6 using a rest stroke on the picking hand annular finger for the melody. Today, I decided to ditch that and have been rewarded with greater speed and the stretches in the left hand are less of a problem.

I think using a rest stroke in that way doubtless strengthens one's technique, but becomes cumbersome in the pursuit of speed (and that is not like trying to run before I can walk - I have been practising it for a few years now) and while it served a purpose of bringing out the melody, I can still do that with free stroke.

Thanks to Richard Tarleton for alerting me to this piece and making me rethink how I should play it (inadvertently ).