Whew, long title! This marks the halfway mark through Chopin's etudes. Let me tell you , it has not been an easy journey. Nothing is more discouraging than seeing a page full of black knowing that you have an hour between one class and the next to work your way through it. Unfortunately, in the battle between reading for class and curbing my addiction to playing piano, piano always wins. This almost always leads to what little motivation I may have had for doing schoolwork being thrown out the window. The worst part is that I know I will never be a virtuosic pianist. So why do I play so often? Because it allows me to express my emotions, practice my critical listening, theory, and recall skills, as well as continually pushing me to become more creative and adventuresome musically.
While etude 1 seems rather complicated, Chopin (or the editor of the edition) chose to make the unimportant chord notes of the arpeggiated pattern look almost like ornamentations, leaving the melody as more prominent, regular sized, notes. Once I figured out the pattern of the arpeggiated broken chords the piece was rather easy to sightread as it did not have as my accidentals as some of Chopin's pieces.
'nuff said about etude 2. It's a beast.
Total time spent sight reading: 1 hour 20 minutes
Total time spent writing: 30 minutes
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