Like all my students, right now I am gearing up to play at the End of Year Concert. Everyone gets to play a piece or two, and this year I'm having a go as well.
My favourite style of practicing is in my pyjamas. Yeah, that's a style. So here is me doing that. I'm hopefully going to record myself playing my concert piece every day for a week. It should end up being a record of how a half hour practice can improve a piece from day to day. Let's hope it DOES improve, because I pause to think a lot in this first video...
A lot of famous pianists around the year 1900, including Sergei Rachmaninov, got to hear their own playing back through recordings and player piano rolls they performed on. Some performers said, "WHAT?!? I sound like that?" Not sure what Rachmaninov thought of his own playing; it would be fascinating to find out.
It can be surprising how different your idea of how you play is to the real thing, so I recommend recording yourself to have a listen. Plus, you get to have a record of the pieces you've learnt. You could make a compilation CD!
Etude Tableau No. 2 in A minor - Sergei Rachmaninov
