Taking It to the Next Level
At once, after I rejoined piano, Mrs. Kent put me back on the same pieces that had broken my patience the previous year. They were still too difficult, of course, but in the interim I had somehow acquired greater forbearance and kept at it. It was through her generosity that we had a small selection of classical vinyl LPs from the Basic Library of the World's Greatest Music and The Philharmonic Family Library of Great Music. I was delighted by the Nutcracker Suite (more warm fuzzy Christmas vibes, perhaps), by the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2 in an orchestral arrangement (the Thompson method has a simplified version that at least one of my sisters played), and by two piano concertos, Beethoven's "Emperor" and the second Rachmaninoff. Fascinated by the record player as a machine, I would sometimes crawl face-up on the floor under the turntable mechanism, and watch it from below, back-lit, as it went through the re-cueing process -- at that time the disks were stacked on a spindle and dropped one by one, automatically.
There were also new assignments. C.P.E. Bach's Solfeggietto I learned and performed several times, once on an electric church organ (eww!, I think now). It is a nice, flashy little piece when it is done up to speed, although parts of it don't lie easy in the hands and it typically requires (as I discovered when teaching piano much, much later) a phase of slow, patient, but plumb-even tempo practice. The tape recordings of my practice are slow, and might show considerable patience with the drudgery, but were not even or consistently accurate.
Another new piece was a Thompson Book 3 piano arrangement of the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Like the other pieces it was difficult. It is also, I'd venture to say, rather dull, especially when played slowly and haltingly.
In the recorded practice sessions, Mrs. Kent continually sings the melody along with my right hand, evidently trying to goad my tempo to be a bit more fast and regular, and when the end is reached says things like "Now you can do better than that, David. Play it again." And so we repeat, in the same way with the same uneven result.
Note to parents and teachers: please don't lead practice this way. Also, you might want to avoid that Beethoven arrangement. Later, once I had moved on from it, that music skipped my mind so thoroughly that when I met the symphony again on recordings as a teenager there wasn't the slightest flash of recognition.
Ellmenreich's Spinning Song returned for more thrashing out. It is an amiable, amusing rondo with a jaunty left hand beat. The piece's energy level is neither solemn like the Beethoven, nor very flashy. Like Solfeggietto, a few bits need careful practice to come off well.
Be that all as it may, almost as soon as I was back at the keys and learning the Spinning Song, Mrs. Kent announced to my parents that she had contacted the CBS television affiliate in Kalamazoo and booked me for an appearance. Ellmenreich and I were hitting the airwaves.
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There were also new assignments. C.P.E. Bach's Solfeggietto I learned and performed several times, once on an electric church organ (eww!, I think now). It is a nice, flashy little piece when it is done up to speed, although parts of it don't lie easy in the hands and it typically requires (as I discovered when teaching piano much, much later) a phase of slow, patient, but plumb-even tempo practice. The tape recordings of my practice are slow, and might show considerable patience with the drudgery, but were not even or consistently accurate.
Another new piece was a Thompson Book 3 piano arrangement of the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Like the other pieces it was difficult. It is also, I'd venture to say, rather dull, especially when played slowly and haltingly.
In the recorded practice sessions, Mrs. Kent continually sings the melody along with my right hand, evidently trying to goad my tempo to be a bit more fast and regular, and when the end is reached says things like "Now you can do better than that, David. Play it again." And so we repeat, in the same way with the same uneven result.
Note to parents and teachers: please don't lead practice this way. Also, you might want to avoid that Beethoven arrangement. Later, once I had moved on from it, that music skipped my mind so thoroughly that when I met the symphony again on recordings as a teenager there wasn't the slightest flash of recognition.
Ellmenreich's Spinning Song returned for more thrashing out. It is an amiable, amusing rondo with a jaunty left hand beat. The piece's energy level is neither solemn like the Beethoven, nor very flashy. Like Solfeggietto, a few bits need careful practice to come off well.
Be that all as it may, almost as soon as I was back at the keys and learning the Spinning Song, Mrs. Kent announced to my parents that she had contacted the CBS television affiliate in Kalamazoo and booked me for an appearance. Ellmenreich and I were hitting the airwaves.
Previous: Back to Piano Lessons Next: On the Tube
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