lessons learned in Fort Worth

Playing the piano is to transmit your energy to the audience by the piano an your body as media. Not physical energy but your "humane" energy. This   I learned. Twas a precious experience.

competition repertoire

Next week at the 6th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, I've submitted the following pieces to perform:

Preliminary: 10-12 min
S. Rachmaninoff, Moments Musicaux Op. 16 No. 2 (3')
I. Albeniz, El Albaicin from Iberia Vol. 3 (8')

Semifinal: 16-20 min.
J. S. Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier Vol. 1, No. 3, BWV848 C sharp major, Prelude and Fugue (5')
A. Scriabin, Sonata No. 10, Op. 70 (13')

Final: 25-30 min.
L. v. Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 29, Op. 106, 4th movement (12')
F. Liszt, Reminiscences of Don Juan (16')

Among these six pieces, only two pieces are actually competition-ready ones, i.e. Albeniz and Scriabin, and other four not... nonetheless they are the pieces I cherish and at least I have the "view of the world" in each which are grandiose.
Critical is to what extent I can enjoy my own performance at a great stage set for us.

what jury want?

In performing at (or preparing for, for that matter) a competition stage, we all need to keep in mind what the jury want.
It is easier to identify what they hate in the first place.
They do not want to hear you play too tense.
They do not want to hear someone who obviously attempts to show off his ow her mechanic (not technique).
They do not want to hear something way out of what the composer specified, and that violates basic rules of music, unless you are absolutely confident that you intentionally constructed that piece and that sounds convincing.
They do not like colorless music.

On the contrary, they love to hear your love of the music, your love of the piece, your love of performing in public, your love of the instrument, and the sign that you cherish the moment.

They came to play

The DVD on the last (5th) van cluburn amateur documentary has just arrived and watched it!
It is very clear that participants are extremely talented and they very much dedicated themselves to piano, while many of them have day jobs and other commitments.
It is just wonderful to be able to join them later this month and share common interests and love of music. Surely it would be one of those unforgettable experiences!

IPCOA

Only three weeks to go to the upcoming IPCOA in Fort Worth...
Among the five pieces I've been preparing for this competition, I've not yet reached the public performance level for two short pieces, Bach and Rachmaninoff, and the long one by Beethoven.
Maybe I should focus more on the preliminary pieces...

hardest piano piece i've ever played

Here by hardest I mean mechanical difficulty, not separable with musical difficulty though.
Mechanical difficulty, in my definition here for this blog's sake, is expressed in terms of the time it takes to be able to simply press the keys at a reasonable tempo, and does not mean at the level you are fully comfortable with the playing the piece beautifully in public.
The time it takes to reach that level is decomposed into (i.e. sum of) (1) the time it takes to read the score, and (2) the time it takes to overcome mechanical flaws.
One of the hardest pieces I have ever spent time on is Lavapies from Iberia by Albeniz, whose difficulty is mostly attributed to (1), like other pieces I tried such as 10th gaze by Messiaen.
The other of those, contrasting to Lavapies, is the 1st movement of the piano concerto No.2 by Prokofieff, on which I spent more time on (2).
The piece that I just started considering playing in the next big public performance opportunity is "Reminiscences de Don Juan" by Liszt, which I am going to apply the same strategy and tactics in conquering mechanical difficulties, i.e. rigorous decomposition of the piece into parts, prioritizing them by difficulty setting target # of repetitions, and integrating the parts into whole once I overcome mechanical flaws. By rough estimate, as I played it only a few times so far, is to take at least cumulative 30 hours of practice to give it a shape, and another 30 hours to get it the level I can play it in public, and another 10 hours to bring it to the next stage, i.e. to be competitive in competitions.

blue bossa

is an extremely intractable piece, in a way one of the most diffucult pieces by Kapustin. Though we need to be careful comparing tthe degree of echnical / mechanical difficulties, it's more than prokofieff sonatas (late) and scriabin etudes. The primary source of difficulty lies in the creative movements on top of Kapustin's idiom. Therefore you need not only diligence but also creativity (meaning trying something new) at practice. I have only three weeks to perform that piece in public...

Prokofieff P-con #2

Have just decided to play the 1st mov. of this highly virtuosic concerto early next year, inspired by Yuja Wang, Bronffmann, and others.

A personal view is that this particular movement is most virtuosic and biased to solo of all piano concertos that i know in ligt of its mechanical demand and the proportion of the cadenza, more virtuosic than Rachmaninoff's #1, #2, and #3, Saint=Saens' #2, Prokofieff's #3; Tchaikovsky's, Liszt's #1 & #2, in sharp contrast to Schumann's (my other favorite and i performed earlier this year) and Brahms' #2.

The major difficulties associated with this particular movement is primarily due to the composer's idiosyncracies around harmony using frequent shifts and composites, in addition to its quite broad movement of both hands over the full range of keyboard, often crossed, presenting tremendous challenge to the performer.

The composer himself found his own creation immensely demanding to his surprise, and it is said that the composer found the need to practice four hours a day to master this piece.

As a concerto, however, it is not very demanding in terms of rhythm, collaboration, and tempo, though.

Therefore, if you get command of those mechanical demands especially of the cadenza, you'd be mostly in good shape performing this movement, which nevertheless requires a lot of careful and thoughtful effort.

quickest way to one-level-up performance

I have seen many performances, including my own, which easy, quick ways have potential to dramatically improve.

Usually I am skeptical of anything that says "quick and easy" especially when it comes to piano, because many hours of right practice with right instructions, even if however talented, are indispensable for good performance.

Nevertheless, I came to believe the efficacy of applying several tips because many tend to make pieces much harder than they actually are for no or little musical reason, but for lack of understanding of what are really required (and what are totally detrimental).

Those tips are: take your time, constrain your movements, and prioritize. If we apply these right, our performance will be dramatically beautiful, engaging, and solid in a day.

Won!

To my greatest surprise in years, I won the A2 category, Grand Muse division of the 33th PTNA piano competition!
This was my 3rd attempt of the competition itself, and 1st of the category, which allows participants who majored in piano at college, and not surprisingly, many of the competitors are piano instructors. Therefore, I did not even dream of making the national final, which was held on Aug. 22th, and thought it would be lucky if I make the regional finals. I was 2nd place at the 1st regional final, which meant that I did not make the national final. This made me at the brink of losing this year's competition, but at the same time, it wiped off my tension to focus on playing the piano at the 2nd regional final.
Actally, I have never practiced more seriously (though not for many hours) in the last one week before the national final than ever, and it brought me one notch up, I believe.

My performance is up (without prior notice to performers, though...)on the PTNA channel on YouTube as:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_htE3ahLew
Watching my own performance always makes me ashamed, and this one is no exception. Need more concentration and careful practice...
Anyway, it's clear that I need much more work on this Scriabin's masterpiece, and sincerely hope to give more life to it.

competition final ... tomorrow

will be on the finals tomorrow, play Scariabin's op.70 as did in the qualifying and the regional finals.
it feels like beyond 'perfection is unattainable.' rather, the more i practice, the further i am from what this pieces demands.
what i can do best at this moment, is to accept that my performance will have faults, but never be afraid of them, and devote the whole of myself to let the music live and flow as it wants.

Int'l Amateur Piano Competition - Semifinal

Today the semifinal round of the 2009 Int'l Amateur Piano Competition was held at Koiwa Urban Plaza, Tokyo. Though I did not take part in this year, went to see and listen to the performances of the participants, many of them are either friends of mine or at least I got to know through various events since last year.
Per A division, any piece by J.S. Bach is mandatory, plus a piece of participant's choice is played. It appears that the primary criterion is how your play Bach, which I believe to be quite reasonable given the fact that any of his requires solid fundamentals, the very essence of how you create the sound, your takt, precision, because simply placing the notes as they are given does not appeal at all, and correctly playing J.S. Bach pieces test your mental strengths as well especially in the pressure-cooker situation on the stage of a competition.
There were many performances that I really enjoyed, and from every one of them I learned a lot, which was not possible if I participated in the competition myself. In hindsight, probably my decision not to participate was to the point, I guess. Above all, it was a great motivator.

Spare 5 mins every day for planning practice

As with most, or probably all, or non-professional pianists, it must be a common issue to find time for, and to make most of, i.e. make it most effective and efficient, practice time.
For that purpose, I make it a rule to spare at least five minutes to plan the practice for the day, often write down the most critical points to focus on, and/or issues to overcome, many of which are small details, e.g. try alternative fingerings for bars xx to xx for a particular piece.
When it comes to piano, as with many other pursuits, progress should be very slow. Therefore it is important to make steady progress each day of practice, however small it may be. Making the focal points clear is meant to ensure that small progress.
I also have a checklist consisting of approximately 100 items to check if I play right at any time, ranging from hand forms, breathing, posture to "sound landscape" in my brain. Since there are so many to think about and do right simultaneously, it requires patience and intelligence to make them "natural" to me, oftentimes requiring me to "unlearn" old bad habits, which is more challenging than learning new things.
One of the biggest "old bad habits" that I have come to unlearn just recently is to flex my wrists and forearms, learning at the same time to concentrate my full attention to fingertips placing them closer to the keys.

accept your mediocrity

when it comes to music, there is no such thing as goal, perfection, or anything that is ultimate.
as a non-professional without years of formal training (though i started something close to it last year) and without brilliant talent, what you shoud do first and foremost is to accept that you and your performance (if it could be called one) is nothing more than mediocre.