Glenn Gould

I couldn’t sleep this morning – I was wide awake at 4:00 and couldn’t get back.  I tried the usual plane crash daydreams but to no avail… so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start my new regime.

I’d been planning to make some changes this week anyway and was falling behind, so really, this was perfect.

For one, I want to really get back into piano so I’m getting to know the keys again – I plan on spending each week being intimate with a different key, starting with C of course and going around the circle in the usual fashion.  I hope to get through Hanon (sans the nasty thumb-under excercises

Glenn Gould

which my brilliant piano teacher advises cause carpel-tunnel and of which I was painstakingly reminded after trying them this weekend) once a week in one key, then I’m picking two (or more in the case of C) interesting but not terribly difficult pieces in each key for each week.  Part of being intimate with the songs and keys is going to be listening to different well-done versions of the songs each week as well.

This week (week of C) I’ve been playing Bach’s “Prelude #1 from The Well Tempered Clavier” and have been listening to M Ward’s version (everything Ward touches is golden) as well as Glenn Gould’s (my former teacher studied under the same master teacher that Glenn Gould did!) – he had Bach down:

Glenn Gould was so hot.

And my other piece for this week is Debussy’s “Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum” from “Children’s Corner,” what a dreamy tune – I just get lost… Alfred Cortot playing here:

My other regime involves health – I’m starting by having no more than 1200 calories a day and taking a variety of vitamins. I’m also slowly moving towards becoming fish vegetarian but I’ve got some work there… though I very rarely eat beef so that’s a good start.

I would like to include some sort of exercise, but it just won’t fit in right now because I want to spend as much time with my daughter as possible and I’m already getting up early to do most of my piano playing before she wakes up and putting my internet publishing business on hold (just hiring out some work right now).

No one plays this like Horowitz.

Generally, in my mind walking up to a stranger and throwing a cliche out there evokes an eyeroll – maybe a raised brow at best – but this always stuck with me, and I just realized why – because fewer words have ever rang so true.  Especially if you’re me.

See, I have this problem of waiting until the ‘right moment’ for too many things.  I always hoarded my Halloween candy to have at that right moment, only to find later that my little sister had eaten it all.  I waited to burn my favorite candles only to find that when I finally got them out to burn them, they had lost most of their scent.

And I waited ten years to start taking piano lessons again from my favorite teacher.  Now granted, I had some good excuses this time – it really would have been difficult to wing it money-wise up until now.  And plus, my daughter was young and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.  So I’m glad I waited in this case… but what I just found out still leaves a voice inside screaming “don’t you know already – TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

What I just found out is that my dear piano teacher who has studied with the finest master pianists, who is a pure joy to be around, and who is irreplaceable, just told me she is moving in a month.  Did I really have to wait ten years to start taking from her again?

So I get it… I’ll take everything I can get from her while I can get it… and live a little more ‘in the moment’ so to speak.

Do I dare to eat a peach?

The old joke couldn’t be more true, though.  Since I started taking piano lessons again last Thursday, I’ve realized that as much as I love to play, despite that love I can still fall into the pitfalls that only self-discipline can cure.

I hear all these beautiful songs and I want to play them so badly, then I sit down and work at them for a while, then get frustrated that they don’t sound like I want them to.  It’s so simple when you say it, but so hard to implement – it just takes practice.

So from here on out I’m making a pledge to practice more, to go over those difficult spots however many times it takes, and to play my Hanon every day.  (Actually, Hanon can be quite meditative and enjoyable once I get into it).

Another area I want to implement discipline is with my diet – I want to start eating better and lose a little weight, too.  I think this will tie in with better playing as well.

Here are what the two songs I’ve just started playing should sound like:

I think the commentor who wrote “like on a cloud” put it best for that last performance by Rubinstein.

Victor Merzhanov played the last one – thanks to a commenter I found out I could play that big chord with the thumb on two black keys instead of making it an arpeggio like the player did and which I was doing.

I was even more excited to find that my previous teacher, Claire Jones, was still teaching and could fit me in!!  She’s just the most wonderful teacher I’ve ever had – she’s got all of the experience being a Julliard graduate and has been a student of a master teacher who taught Glenn Gould – but she also weaves wonderful stories into our lessons, has a natural teaching method, and brings in a great repertoire.

Tomorrow night is my first lesson back – I can’t wait! 

I’ll leave you with Glenn Gould playing Bach:

You see, I have a keen interest in the competition because I have a fantasy of entering it.  And that’s why it was unsettling when I realized that this YouTube competition had happened without me even knowing about it!  So, even though I was a little envious of the folks that were on the ball enough to prepare and enter in time for this, I got past that enough to really enjoy a few of the performances – especially my pick – Calvin Lee:

I think he did a lovely job! Plus, he played a song from both of my favorite composers – Chopin and Debussy!  It warmed the cockles of my heart.