Playing Piano

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My Music: Learning to play the piano

(Note: The musical samples, including the page startup, are not my own playing,
although the startup piece, Gymnopédie No. 1 by Erik Satie, is in my repertoire)

Having always wanted to get an understanding of music theory, I finally started with piano lessons in Feb. 2001, at the All Newton Music School , this despite concerns about hand/finger coordination and being rhythmically challenged, as well as needing to learn to read music properly. A superb teacher, Pat Smith, has guided me through the early stumbles to the point where I'm playing one- to two-pagers by real composers. I found that being able to play even a simple Bach piece is a great delight.

Then, after 2-1/2 years of lessons and learning, I made another significant transition into choosing some challenging pieces that speak to me musically and making summer projects out of learning to play them: the three Gymnopédies of Erik Satie one summer, and "Régard du Père" from Olivier Messiaen's "Vingt Régards sur l'Enfant Jésus" the next.

What's helped a great deal is having not only the motivation that maturity can bring, but also the time that retirement offers. In addition, I seem to be able to internalize the pieces that I'm learning without any arduous memorizing, namely, by recognizing patterns, both in the music and also the geometry of finger placement on the keys. Because of this "geometric" approach, the same work in a different key would appear to me like a different piece, albeit with similarities to the original. Since my careers in physics and machine vision have been based on my pattern recognition talents, it's not surprising that I might learn music this way. .

Learning to play is at times rewarding, frustrating and humbling. There are the fingers that seem to have a mind of their own as to where and when they want to move. Of mistakes, my favorite seems to be not noticing when the lower staff is written in the treble clef, so that the left hand is effectively transposing by a third; With an ear tuned by hearing lots of contemporary music, I don't always notice that as an error. Then there are the "coffee breaks" while searching for the next note or phrase to play. On the other hand, finally having a piece come together and sound well is really rewarding.

Performances:There is the matter of student recitals or workshops, where one plays a piece for an audience, whether it is fellow music students or others. While one may get apprehensive about performing, there's nothing like the pressure of preparing a piece for performance for really getting to know it well. My own experience at workshops has been mixed, but it's a help to remember that my motive is to learn rather than to perform.

Anxiety about performing a piece seems to be universal, as I hear from the other workshop participants. The main problem is that there's only the one chance to play it right, and a lot of "opportunities for error". As we practice toward performance, the teacher has each of us play for the next student, to get used to an audience. Sometimes she'll also provide distraction during the playing. One of her guiding principles is to play through an error, which is predicated on knowing the piece well enough to continue without backing up.

As a relative beginner, how do I prepare for a workshop? Besides working on troublesome sections repatedly, it's important to play pieces all the way through without stopping or backing up. In my own case, I seem to find slightly different visual cues from the home keyboard and the one at the school; to reduce this impact, I try practicing without glasses or without turning on the lights. When I a play a piece a lot, finger memory seems to take over, which makes recovery harder when the fingers go off the track. To recover the actual notes again, I play the piece very slowly to remind myself what the individual notes are and what their relationship is.

Below are some of the pieces on which I've spent time and effort so far. The sheet-music and music (,mp3 converted from MIDI) examples are from Internet sites that offer free sheet music and music files; i.e., they're not my own playing. Refer to the sites for any download requirements:

Musica Viva Classical-scores.com

Sheet Music Online The Classical MIDI Connection

Pieces that I've learned, or am working on, with the most recent first:

Fall Semester 2005:
J. S. Bach - Präambulum, BWV 934, in c minor (from "Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach"): Trying to perfect it so that it can become the June workshop piece.

Aram Khatchaturian - "Adventures of Ivan": "Ivan is very busy" (No. 5)

Robert Schumann - "Album für die Jugend", Op. 68: "Nachklänge aus dem Theater".

Selection for the January Workshop: Two of the Ivan pieces: "Ivan is ill" (No. 3) and "Ivan goes to a Party" (No. 4).
Workshop - January 2006:
The two "Adventures of Ivan" pieces: "Ivan is ill" and "Ivan goes to a Party" went well. I was glad that all the time spent on "Party" was worth the effort.
Fall Semester 2005:
The theme for the semester is the same as the last, to work simultaneously on pieces from three different musical periods (Baroque: Bach; Romantic: Schumann; Contemporary: Khatchaturian)

J. S. Bach - Präambulum, BWV 999, in c minor and Präludium, BWV 934, in c minor (from "Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach"): Working out the fingering for BWV 934 was quite a challenge, but something that I seem to be good at.

Aram Khatchaturian - "Adventures of Ivan": "Ivan goes to a Party" (No. 4) Sure enough - even after the summer's work, there were some parts which gave me rhythmic problems. It felt good to work on and overcome them.

Robert Schumann - "Album für die Jugend", Op. 68: "Kleine Romanze" and "Schnitterliedchen".

Selection for the January Workshop: Two of the Ivan pieces: "Ivan is ill" (No. 3) and "Ivan goes to a Party" (No. 4).
Summer 2005:
In contrast to the two previous summers, no major projects. Instead, I consolidated pieces that I had played and that I wanted to keep as part of my repertoire.

In addition, I decided to return to playing an "Adventures of Ivan" piece that, for some reason, had been considered as done, even though I felt that I never really played it properly. At the time, I was glad to get rid of "Ivan goes to a Party" (No. 4) because I was struggling, but now realized that it wasn't very mature to avoid it.
Workshop - June 2005:
Nothing to report. After preparing two "Adventures of Ivan" pieces: "Ivan can't go out today" and "Ivan is ill", I had an unscheduled tooth extraction the day of the workshop and canceled. All that preparation meant shelving "Ivan is very busy" for another time.
Spring Semester 2005:
The theme for the semester is to work simultaneously on pieces from three different musical periods (Baroque: Bach; Romantic: Schumann; Contemporary: Khatchaturian) J. S. Bach - Präambulum, BWV 927, in F (from "Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach"): Back to Bach with one of his little preludes.

Aram Khatchaturian - "Adventures of Ivan": "Ivan is very busy" (No. 5) The next of the Ivan pieces, after I finished with "Ivan goes to a Party" (No. 4) and "Ivan is ill" (No. 3). That will leave three more.

Robert Schumann - "Album für die Jugend", Op. 68: "Kleine Romanze". Another selection from Op. 68, after I finished with "Knecht Ruprecht", "Wilder Reiter", and "Erster Verlust". It's a good exercise and a bit of a challenge; musically it wears well, perhaps by being in a minor key.

Selection for June Workshop: We decided on two of the Ivan pieces: "Ivan can't go out today" (No. 2) and "Ivan is ill" (No. 3).
Workshop - Jan. 2005:
Having prepared and looked forward to playing Messiaen's "Régard du Père", I unfortunately did not play it as well as I can. With my hands finding sudden difficulty in placing fingers on the right keys for complex chords, the first half sounded more like Schoenberg than Messiaen to me. As the teacher had predicted, the audience would not necessarily notice errors in modern music, so I was able to play on. By the second half I had regained my comfort level and played much better, including the climactic D# chord that I consider the key to that half, and a well-controlled diminuendo to finish.

The overall effort to learn the piece was more than worth it as wonderful and difficult music that I now know how to play. The lesson from the workshop may be that I might not yet be ready to play such difficult chords comfortably for an audience, even a friendly and sympathetic one. After that evening, it did take about three days before I played the piece again.
Fall Semester 2004:
Olivier Messiaen - "Régard du Père" (from "Vingt Régards sur l'Enfant Jésus"): This has come together enough to sound musical, so I actually look forward with some pride to presenting it at a workshop. Along the way, I realized that my pattern recognition method of "memorizing" is actually an advantage because the harmonies are so far from those that one would expect in pre-20th-century works.

Aram Khatchaturian - "Ivan goes to a Party" (from "Adventures of Ivan"): The next one of the Ivan pieces.

Robert Schumann - "Knecht Ruprecht" (from "Album für die Jugend", Op. 68): I had played other pieces from Op. 68 without knowing that they were from that particular collection. It's my concession to the teacher for something more in the classical tradition, and a good piece all the same.
Summer 2004:
My major summer project is to learn Messiaen's "Régard du Père" from the "Vingt Régards", with its F# key signature and complex 5-finger chords. The tempo is a manageable 60 for a triplet note. After working though the first half of the piece, I then discovered that there are some six-finger chords in the second, which makes it more of a challenge. Still, it's coming together enough that I believe that I'll be able to present it at some future workshop.

I also want to maintain the three Gymnopédies of Satie, and to make some chord fingering in No. 2 more reliable.

There's the second "Ivan" piece to learn at performance-level, while maintaining the first. Then for some unfinished business from last semester, I need to finish the Gurlitt Slumber Song. Finally, I'm looking to relearn a few enjoyable pieces from before, such as the J. S. Bach Präludium, BWV 939.

Altogether, an ambitious but very rewarding summer. But I'm delighted, after 3-1/2 years, to have reached the stage where I can learn some pieces that I really want to play, works that speak to me.
Workshop (6/10/04):
Completing 3-1/2 years of learning piano, my piece for this workshop was "Ivan sings a song" from Khachaturian's "The Adentures of Ivan" - it went quite well. Practice works - I had more command of this piece than any other before.
Aram Khachaturian - The Adventures of Ivan: "Ivan can't go out today"
Having the first, "Ivan Sings a Song", well in hand as a workshop piece, I'm now going on to the next of the eight.
Cornelius Gurlitt (1820-1901) - Slumber Song, Op. 224
An exercise in melody and accompaniment played in the same hand, with some pedal work too. This is the last piece in the book, so it'll be time to look for something new.
Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller (1806-1874) - L'Harmonie des Anges, Op.100, No. 21
A kind of gentle piece, with classic but interesting harmonies. The tempo marking is allegro moderato with a quarter note at 144; there is also a mp3 file (MIDI from popularmidi.com converted to .mp3) in which the piece is played at breakneck pace. Besides personally not being able to play that fast, I think the music loses a whole lot at that speed - it becomes just another fast exercise without content. After all, angels, having eternity, should not need to scurry about like that. I'd be very curious about the composer's intentions and original tempo.
Stephen (István) Heller (1813-1888) - Berceuse (Study in C), Op. 47, No. 19
A quiet piece, from piano to pianissimo, but with some interesting discords, and lots of repetition based on G in the left hand.
R. Schumann - Sizilianisch, Op.68, No. 11
Another piece from Op. 68 led me to investigate just what this set represented. And so I found out that it was "Album für die Jugend", or "Album for the Young". The piece is a dance, with another first for me, a change in time signature, from 6/8 to 2/4. It took some time to sort out the implications of that change.
Exercise in dominant sevenths and resolution
Besides doing the exercise, it stimulated my wondering why the circle of fifths works - i.e., why one is able to go through all the keys without skipping or repeating any. I realized that it's a matter of simple math: an octave advances by 12 semitones, while a fifth advances by 7. Thus one has to advance by fifths twelve times before landing on the same note that one started with. A circle of fourths also works (5 into 12), because a circle of fourths is just the circle of fifths inreverse order. Noteworthy was that a circle of sevenths would also traverse all the keys (11 into 12), because one backs up by one semitone each time. On the other hand, circles of seconds (2 into 12), thirds (4 into 12) or sixths (9 into 12) would not cycle through all the keys.
Friedrich Kuhlau (1768-1832) - Allegro Vivace (from Sonatina in C)
After the Clementi, another classical kind of piece, but I have the Khachaturian to balance it. I seem to like it better than the last Clementi, and also got done with it faster.
Aram Khachaturian - The Adventures of Ivan: "Ivan sings a song"
A suite of eight pieces, each of which paints a picture and tells a story. I'm starting with the first, "Ivan sings a song", which is in c minor. Presumably this would become an eventual workshop piece.
Workshop (1/13/04):
At the 3-year mark of learning to play piano, my contribution to the workshop was to play all three of the Satie Gymnopédies, of course from memory, about 10 minutes of music. After some significant stumbles in the first, the other two went quite well. My comfort level and facility working through errors is better now, but the workshops are still this strange mixture of pleasure and dread.

After participating in my fifth one, now after three years of lessons and learning, I feel like a real member of the group. Others had some great suggestions for next pieces to try.
Clementi - Sonatina in C (First Movement) Op. 36, No. 3
After getting a good handle on the Satie Gymnopedies, it's back to the humbling task of learning a new, more classical piece, to be played at a faster clip. On the other hand, I have some trouble warming up to the Clementi, and that impedes my learning to play it better. It just does not wear as well as Satie. The good news is that I'm now done with it, after putting in some extra effort.

Here's a mp3 file of the first movement (MIDI from classicalmidiconnection.com converted to .mp3).
Erik Satie (1866-1925) - Ogives
More Satie, and also played at a slow tempo. It's modal and somewhat dark, apparently reflecting older church music. Rather than developing it as a musical piece, I'm using it for chord practice and study.
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) - "Régard du Père" (from "Vingt Régards sur l'Enfant Jésus")
Another summer project - this one started when I heard this piece, the first of the Vingt Regards, played on the radio. It was very slow, essentially one chord per second, so how hard could it be? When I mentioned the idea of trying to play it to my son Daniel, he pointed out that, among other things, (1) it had six sharps, being in F#-major, and that (2) it had lots of awkward 5-finger chords.

As I soon found out, some of those 5-finger chords are so nearly impossible to play that Messiaen made one note a grace note so that the other four could be played a little more comfortably. On the positive side, the music is highly patterned: it consists of triplets with the right and left hands playing the same chord extending over an octave (except for the common note) in the bass and deep bass, then the same chord is played two octaves higher by the left hand with the right hand playing an octave one octave higher.

Foolhardy or not, I'm trying to learn it one chord, then one measure, then one page at a time, and am making some progress. But since Messiaen is one of my favorite composers, it'll be worth the effort. And it'll be fun to surprise my piano teacher with "something I've been working on this summer"!

As expected, she was quite surprised. In the meantime, I've put it aside because there's lots of other music to work on. Maybe I'll return to it next summer.
Erik Satie (1866-1925) - Gymnopédies 1, 2, 3
One of the great hits of the last workshop was a piece for piano four-hands, "La Belle Excentrique" by Erik Satie, which I had a (non-playing) hand in. The two performers had played very well before, and enjoy more modern works. I remembered that Satie had written piano four-hands music, and even had a CD of it, so I suggested choosing one of the Satie pieces. Unfortunately it was not "Parade", which included sound effects like a typewriter, revolver shots and a siren, which might have involved the entire class in the performance.

After the workshop, one of the other participants suggested that I could really play some Satie too, in particular, the Gymnopédies. That then became my project for the summer. All three sound similar, but present interesting differences. I've now gotten to the point of being able to play any and all of the three from memory.
No. 1 is the best known and most-frequently played. Essentially it's played twice, first ending with a section in major, then ending with a section in minor. Here's a Midi file of Gymnopédie No. 1 (MIDI from classicalmidiconnection.com converted to .mp3).

No. 3 is a little more interesting for being less well-known and being in a minor key.

No. 2 offers the greatest challenge and is my favorite at this time, wandering around between A-minor (C-major), G-minor (Bb-major) and C-minor (Eb-major), so that chord-fingering becomes a little more difficult. It also has fewer repeated sections than the other two. It would be my choice for the next workshop.

The earlier pieces (the first 2-1/2 years of piano lessons)

A few other pieces on which I work by myself from time to time are
Erik Satie - Vexations
More about Satie and Vexations , including some links.
Milko Kelemen - Der Esel geht am Meer spazieren

Franz Schubert - Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 1
Since the Schubert Impromptus of Op. 90 are some of my favorites, someday I'd love to be able to play this wonderful piece. In the meantime, every so often, I'll try some parts of it, like the beginning section. Just that little bit has given me greater appreciation for the music - it's a wonder to me how the opening chord of 2 octaves in G can sound so special.

Last updated 11/3/07

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