Well, not exactly misspent. I managed four piano diplomas plus a honours degree in chemistry before I was 21, and my PhD followed from that. But whilst I enjoyed some success musically at that stage and gave a number of reasonably successful recitals, it is interesting that after all this time I can’t really remember
how I played – although I must have played well enough to get through the diplomas I suppose.
I was reminded of this over the last few weeks when I’ve been working on the pieces for either recording or else for my next fundraising recital which I hope to put on in a couple of month’s time. To put it bluntly, I’m sloppy…
Which of course takes me take to something that I wrote quite early on in this blog which has turned out to be totally true, as I no doubt expected at the time –
“This piano is of such a high quality and is so responsive and reactive to the fingers that it accentuates everything that I do wrong.”
And it does with a vengeance. I’m finding that whilst I could afford what might be called a certain laxity in execution when I was young, I certainly can’t do that now – it would just sound horrible. So I really need to focus on getting the notes right as much as possible, and that is a problem given my eyesight such as it is because my ability to move around the keyboard is somewhat limited now. However, there is no doubt that I am improving in that regard, and last week my eye got another YACBOH (check previous posts for the definition of this mysterious term) and my vision of the keyboard is getting better. As well as this my memory is beginning to function again and I’m beginning to find my feel for the music is improving all the time and the sounds that I am producing are quite musical – at least compared to what I was producing before.
Wayne is coming down to tune and voice the piano early next week and if our ears are in any reasonable shape after listening to every note on the piano hammered into submission
ad nauseum as is quite often the case, we may be able to get some test recording done.
The repertoire is beginning to take shape – at last count I had well over fifty pieces that were good enough for me to consider either recording or performing – and my aim is to have at least one CD recorded by the end of March. I’m hoping that is not too ambitious, but we shall see.