For years I have learned piano pieces, got them to a hopefully decent level and performed recitals of said pieces. My problem was that getting 45-60 minutes of pretty difficult music up to snuff all at the same time was a little beyond me, so I generally wasn’t pleased with the results. I generally don’t have good recordings of me playing anything, or really any recordings. My idea is to still learn pieces and likely give (shorter) recitals, but along the way, I will write a piano blog where I embed a (reasonably) high-quality youtube video and write a bit about the piece. I am thinking that the project will merge a few of my interests, including performing music, writing, video recording, audio recording and video editing.
To kind of get out of the gate I needed a shorter piece and chose Bach’s invention no 13. A couple months ago I started taking rather regular piano lessons for the first time in oh, fifteen or so years. I wanted to try a new teacher and see if I could get some help getting pieces up to snuff to aid in my piano blog project. To date I have mostly played the left hand of first appearance of the fugue from Beethoven’s op 110 sonata. For the first time ever, I have actually memorized the left hand of a fugue and can play the left hand alone. That may not sound like much, but it is to me. Op 110 is one of my favorite pieces ever and it would have been a fine project-launching piece, but alas, it is a bit long and it might be awhile before even the fugue to the end is ready for performance. My teacher also suggested that there were aspects of my piano performance that needed some improvement and perhaps there was an easier fugue that I could work with to improve the aspects. I suggested the seemingly most popular classical piece in the world invention no 13.
Not moonlight sonata, Beethoven’s ninth, eine kleine nachtmusik or who knows what, but invention no 13. I guess the world likes short pieces, pieces performed quickly and yes pieces performed by Glenn Gould. Now it might be that the Classical Sampler is not arranged by popularity, but I find it interesting that pretty well regardless of criteria, invention no 13 tops the list. Also interesting that Johann Sebastian Bach is the top artist. Funny, I haven’t heard him play much of late.
I was introduced to invention no 13 some few years ago in high school. My down the street neighbor I think played it and I found it interested. It seemed hard and maybe a touch dark, maybe just because of the minor key. Over the years I have got the piece back but probably never really to a great level, certainly I had never actually memorized the left hand by itself. I think there is something kind of beautiful about the simplicity of the inventions, that there are only two voices and that Bach limited the pieces to two pages. I am currently listening to the St. Matthew Passion and find it remarkable that it was written by the composer of the inventions.
This time through I realized just how hard it is to play the invention note perfect without cracks. Funny that I used to think A Minor would make a piece easier because of no sharps or flats in the key signature. Now I think it rather hard because of all the white notes. This invention has many white notes. And yes, it does require a left hand with pretty decent technique.
I had a few goals for my video
- have a pretty good performance
- use two cameras
- have pretty good audio
- have pretty good video
- have audio and video synced
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_iNlEs7GD0
I thought it went pretty well but wasn’t real pleased with the lighting, especially from the Panasonic. I must say that the Canon HF G10 is a rather amazing camera. So, here is another version with I think better lighting. I tried adjusting the colors and things got totally bleached out, so I guess I can continue to iterate 🙂
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzEc9P7KsHw
I should say that I had a piano lesson on Wednesday and my teacher pretty well has me starting from scratch. These videos are kind of the before, and I would like to put up the after in a month or two as I change fingerings, touch and the like.
Some areas of improvement include
- better lighting and colors
- a camera that moves (looking for volunteers 🙂 )
- an overhead camera
- getting closer to 144, which is a ways off from the current 96ish