Self-Evaluation

Self Evaluation Allison Vandenbosch




The first thing that I did in learning the piece was to not even play the music. I looked at the piece (first bass clef, then treble clef) and ran through how I believed it would sound in my head. Next, I scanned through the music to find the lowest and highest notes. This helped me to determine where to place my fingers. Next I looked for any tricky parts (fingerings, pedaling, tempo and key changes). Then finally I attempted a run through of the piece (circling and difficult parts I ran into). I played the left hand by itself, and then the right. After I got the hang of the hands by themselves, I put both hands together. Thankfully it wasn’t the train wreck that I thought it would be! After playing with both hands for a little while, and getting the hang of the notes and tricky fingerings; I then went back and looked at dynamics. I played the written dynamics (mp-mf-mp-p) , but it still did not sound like “water lilies” In fact, it sounded like frogs jumping on the water lilies. I added a few more of my own dynamics to the piece to help it sound more peaceful. When I felt content with that, I then added the pedal. I loved this piece from the first time I heard it played in class, and I enjoyed playing it. It has a very peaceful feel, and when I played it for my exam; I felt like I was really “performing” a piece, and not just “playing” it. The first time I looked at the music I saw quarter notes, dotted half, half, and whole notes. I thought “hmm, this looks really easy!” I was wrong, sort of. The piece requires the musician to move quickly and smoothly, and I found that the hardest part to work on. I just played the piece over and over and over again, until I had the notes. Then I just added my emotions to it, and voila! It felt like a song, and not an exercise.