Keep calm and...

...study Rachmaninoff!

That's my new motto, from a bit more than a week ago.

I am not sure if should I mention once again what is the challenge that I set myself? I don't want to be annoying, repeating the thing as it can be boring to my potential readers. However, I have to picture here the beginning of the story if maybe there is someone new joining this journey of mine through my posts.

In short: I will try to learn one composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Prelude in G Minor (op.23, no.5) by the end of the year. more info here :D This is an update post on the topic.

I started practising it last Saturday. That day I read the text, and maybe I even managed to reach the end of the composition (just superficially) once. But mostly I focused on the first two pages. Very slowly, decrypting chord by chord, which octave I am supposed to play it, what position, which fingers would be the best for a certain chord etc. Apart from the familiar parts that are repeated a few times ( like the motif from the beginning), there was one passage on the first page where the left hand has a melodic movement, played in the interval of octaves. I had to get familiar with that one, missed several times the right direction and notes, as at the same time the right hand is completely different. It has to play chords of a smaller range and in various inversions. A few of them with the repeated octave, and what is the interesting fact as the left and right hand have to mark with an accent a few notes, but not at the same time. That was the first challenging part. That is the section that starts where I am pointing with the tip of a pencil. Nasty little black dots making trouble 😂

I spent some time learning it and moved forward. The second page is still a bit weaker than the first and I play it considerably slower, to be able to reach all the chords and jumps. It is not that difficult, the structure is clear but I sometimes mix up one F Major chord thinking it is a D Minor in inversion. I am not sure why my fingers place themselves for that wrong chord. Anyway. A bit further, almost at the end of the page, there is a part with a few chords that I had to pay more attention to. {Photo below, those chords in both hands}. The first one is a diminished 7th chord (F#-A-C-Eb) in different inversions for both hands. That one was not a big deal, but the next to it after the jump B-D gave me more work. Augmented from Eb (Eb-G-B). Here my mind was refusing to play the B natural in the combination with Eb... until I get used to the harmony, playing the chord a few times in the arpeggio version. Btw, in the video, I play it wrong! The last one was easy, a simple G minor chord - of course in different inversions for both hands, as why Rach would write any of these chords in an easy way? The paper is a bit wrinkled... maybe I was getting slightly aggressive with it lol.

The third page is the beautiful part where we play arpeggiated chords in the left hand with a sublime melody brought in chords in the right hand. A part that can give goosebumps, if played well. So, there I had to work separately on those passages, and still, one week later I am at half of that third page. I need to find the best positions and train my reflexes to make my hand switch positions in the smoothest possible way. I am still far away from achieving that.

I was recording some of my studying sessions during the week. I had to stop playing this piece on Friday, as you may know, I hit my left elbow and... I forced myself to take a break. Today is Monday, I had my gig yesterday in the morning and was able to play soft pieces, but felt my left arm heavy. In the afternoon I attempted to play the Prelude very softly and slowly, but it was a weird feeling. I stopped. The recordings in the video were made during the week and we can see some differences in tempi, one day at home and another day in school. I have errors and missed chords and I stop and slow down when I need to think. I play very slowly, like the turtle mode hahaha. But exactly that is what I wanted to show, that studying is not the same as performing. Studying can be very annoying to those around me! So far, nobody complained!

Once again, this is not a performance. This is just the process of STUDYING!! Please, don't judge or compare it with any other already learned performance! This is just my update on how my first week of facing the challenge went. With all the mistakes and slowing downs hahaha.
But I am happy, as I can play slowly and with mistakes, two and a half pages (the piece has six pages). I hope I will be back to practising soon and complete the third page and move forward, at least one page more during the second week.