Self-Evaluation

The piece I chose to study and practice was Cornelius Gurlitt’s Wiedersehen on page two hundred and fifty from our textbook, “Piano for the Developing Musician, volume five”. I chose this piece because I thought the arpeggios and shifting would help me develop those skills. The first step I took to learn this piece was determining the meter, tempo, and key signature . The piece is marked as vivace, in six-eight meter, all in the key of C major. I sight-read the piece with my hands separately as slow as it took to play note correctly. Then I worked on the right hand arpeggios by playing the notes as chords and figuring out the shifts for each one. I ended up changing the fingering to “1, 3, and 5” for all of the chords/arpeggios. In the end, it helped the shifts be more successful. After being able to play the shifts as chords, I added in the left hand, focusing on playing all the correct rhythms. The final step was adding in the arpeggios.

Next, I worked on the triads in the right hand at the end of each phrase. First, I figured out the correct fingering for each measure. Unlike the arpeggios, I used the fingerings given in the textbook. I worked on the shifts then I played it at a slower tempo. I added in the left hand after playing the right hand at tempo.

My final step of preparation before playing the piece in its entirety, I went through the piece and worked on each individual phrase separately. Then I played two phrases together. After achieving success with taking the piece phrase by phrase, I worked on the entire work at a slower tempo, and gradually got it faster to a performance tempo.