#lilliburlero Day 20-something #gettingthere

The methodology is: Play It Again, and Again, and Again, et seq.  The bits that seemed difficult get just a tiny bit easier each time.  Now it's moving to a new stage, which (I think) means it's moving into the process memory, where it seems to be acquiring plasticity as to tempo, note length, velocity and feel.  To put it another way, when you stop having to think about what note's coming next, you're free to work on it as music. 

It's nearly there, meaning nearly in a state to record it for YouTube.  Another three or four hours? Which, means all over a little more than 30 hours altogether.  In other words, one hour per bar.  Which is worth noting for future reference.

#Lilliburlero Day 19?

I should have it all memorized this weekend.  Had a really good practice yesterday getting from bar 17 to 28, and now there's only 25-28 still a bit fuzzy.  I've found that I need to play it through RH a couple of times  because playing 2H seems to mash-up memory of RH a bit.  And also sometimes do a few octaves of 2H Hanons to get the fingers working together, (Hanons are good for THAT, at least).  

As I memorize Lilliburlero I've been thinking about Rusbridger's Play It Again, and the problems caused by his excellent sight reading which led to difficulties of memorization.  This feels like a fundamental difference in approach between people who love serious/"classical" music, and those who love playing around with jazz/folk and anything else.  For the former, often great sight reading is combined with a reverence for the music as passed down on paper from the composer.  For the latter, the sheet music is a point of departure: follow the melody if you want, but the rest is there to be played with.  

#lilliburlero I'm going to call it Day 15

Pretty well got the first 8 bars, (which of course repeat, so that's the first 16) but still rather slow.  Moved on tonight to bars 17-20, which are great fun: whilst RH is doing it's little wander at C4 and down to G, LH is going note-for-note from C2 to G, and then back down to F. Lovely. Fairly easy, too.  

I made a little foray in to the remaining 12 bars. Another couple of hours should get the whole tune into memory, and then it's just a case of Play It Again, and Again, and Again... until I get it to the BBC speed of (I think) ♩ = 126.  

And then.  I'll have climbed the first foothill to its peak.  Just another week or two away.  And then.  I can go into any piano shop, any University refectory or hotel lobby (which have a piano, of course, and many do), anywhere in the world, and play Lilliburlero, which, surely, almost everyone in the world will have heard on the wireless.  And then, I'm a piano player, albeit with a repertoire of only one tune.  

Meanwhile, the tune's driving Herself potty, she can't stop humming it. I've not solicited the views of the neighbours.  

#lilliburlero Day 13? 14?

Today was one of those practices where two hours goes by and it's felt like 40 minutes.  Getting on quite well with 2H on the first 8 bars.  It occurred today that the learning process is in four stages:

• Decoding (from the sheet music); then
• Memorisation: playing it over and over again until you know the sequence of notes (RH, LH), and then their relationship (2H);  at this stage the notes will not be the right length, and on a nippy wee thing like Lilliburlero, it's going to be slow, so that bring us to,
• Speeding up, getting the time right, as well as the notes' lengths; finally,
• Musicality - making it sound good, making it your own bit of music.  

Or DMSM for short.  

For Lilliburlero, I'm on course to reach that final M, both hands, about a week from today... 

sumer is icumen in

#Lilliburlero Day 10

Tonight rubbed out all the fingerings for the RH because tonight I got the RH all the way through, play-it-again, play-it-again.  Still a bit unsteady around bars 24-27, but another practice should iron that out.  Had a bit of fun at the end of practicing, did the RH part a couple of octaves down the keyboard, with LH, and then with RH, but a couple of octaves up the way.

This isn't better than sex, btw, but playing a piece all the way through, relatively smoothly, even just RH, gives a very nice endorphin rush of some kind.  Very nice.  Not something which can be commodified in any way.

#lilliburlero Days 7-9

I got another version from music-scores.com, arranged by Anne Christopherson,  the version in Country Dances had something  not-quite right around bar 12, (it wasn't quite like the "BBC version").  The Christopherson has no chords in LH, which should make it easier, but the fingering on RH has been a puzzle I've spent the weekend working on, eventually getting it last night.  

Which begs the question, is puzzling out fingering a good exercise for the beginner?  It felt helpful.  Coincidentally, there was a good discussion about this on Today, yesterday (8.20), between  "Dr Alexandra Lamont, a senior lecturer in Music Psychology at Keele university, and Tasmin Little, an international concert violinist", and one of them, presumably Ms Little, described three stages of attachment to a musical instrument: 

• Physical (for her, the way the strings felt as she held the violin);
• Intellectual, as you decode the music from the page to the ear;
• Emotional, the effect that playing the music has on you.  

I'd agree with all three - you could refer to the taxonomy as PIE for short. 

Also interesting was an interview with Hugh Laurie in the Guardian yesterday, where he says, (near the end): "the sensual pleasure of playing a chord or some sort of groove, and the drummer joins in, a bass player joins in and just for that moment, that is the most exquisite pleasure there is."  Which is where I want to be in some shape or form several years from now.  

Anyway, back to now, I've got the first part of RH on Lilliburlero, and nearly there with the rest.  Don't know yet how long two hands is going to take.  But let's say I should be ready for a performance in the form of a YouTube recording in... two weeks from now?  *gulps*

#lilliburlero Day 6

Keys sticking, and it was seriously interfering with practice.  I had a shufty on YouTube.  I took out a couple of the offending keys, and also non-offending keys, and compared the felts as per what this bloke says.  But they didn't look any different...  So, not thinking really, I just pushed the keys from their ends, towards the body of the piano...  Eue-bloody-reka!  Absurdly simple, intuitive, effective.  Voila.

And then I got back to a sticking-key-free practice.  First few bars two hands.  This is great fun - I'm playing it well, and it sounds lovely with two hands, it's just v-e-r-y s-l-o-w.  Unlike southern parts of the UK, SW Scotland's very wet and forecast to continue so.  Which, encouraging us to stay indoors, means I might get right through it two hands this weekend, and can start to speed up in the week.

#lilliburlero Day 4

All the way through with RH today.  Bit hesitant in parts, but not missing any notes, and zipping along.  Another hour or two should have it nice and smooth, and then I can start on LH.

This is fun, and Mozart's coming off very badly in comparison - in terms of enjoying an hour's practice.  The Country Dances book has 160 wee tunes in it.  I got another book of music off of eBay in the post today, Irish Pub Tunes, which has 50 or so tunes.

I'm wondering, maybe I should learn all 200 (or thereabouts) of these.  Then I'll have pretty good technique, and I can maybe start on the accordion.  The long term goal has always been to play in a pub for beer and supper and the hell of it. Jigs, reels and Irish ballads are what goes down in pubs.

There's nothing to stop me going down the ABRSM Piano Grade road, too, in the future.  But I'm going to go all folky, just now awhile.