Weissenborn Wednesday Etude #6

I had a lot of fun working on this etude. There is a ton of potential within this piece to really dig in and work on fluidity of phrasing and decide how you want to make this your own. 

Approaching the opening section I wanted the figure itself to give it all the lift that it would need rather than actively creating a slurred staccato. It would be very easy to make these staccatos too short, so by not trying to do them, I got the effect I wanted without working too hard. 

The B section is my favorite! I wouldn't want my younger students to follow the same approach I did until I knew they had solid rhythm and could play it straight with a metronome and without before making any changes (I'm pretty sure I did that a few times at least in the first few days of practice). I decided that in this section my goal would be the fourth bar of each phrase. I could play with time a little bit as long as I always found my anchor in that measure and didn't deposit or withdraw too much from the bank on any given phrase. 

This etude does provide some interesting teaching moments in the B section as well as you do the slurred dances over the brake. This is another favorite etude of mine (I know, totally dorky thing to say) and I hope whether you are just listening or you are playing, it becomes a favorite of yours as well.

Weissenborn Wednesday Etude #4

Of the many etudes in this collection, #4 is one of my favorites and subsequently one of the most difficult for me to record. Over the years this is one of the etudes that I consistently come back to at seeming random points as a bit of a musical checkup. I never felt that I got this etude quite right while recording, in spite of breaking my goal of 3 attempts and publish (I believe I made 6 attempts at this one in search of the ever elusive perfect recording). I am the first to admit that in the world of easy edits and perfect recordings, it makes me nervous putting something out here like this that is by the nature of the agreement, flawed. I suppose it will only get more difficult, but I believe that my preference for this etude above many others made it especially difficult this week. 

The singing nature of this etude is an incredible opportunity for musical performance and teaching. This is one of the few early etudes in which Weissenborn provides more than just a basic dynamic outline which in some cases can be limiting if you disagree with his dynamics (although in a different setting, I might have chosen to change some of them) allows the student musician to get a feel for creating longer phrase concepts through the use of dynamic interpretation.

The fundamental revelation for me in this etude occurred in the third line, measure 4 of 1:15 in the video. The slur from E down to G is rough. I love reading through this etude, but what I spent a majority of my practice on in preparation for this etude was that individual slur.