Failure (2 + Interview)

I failed.



It’s definitely a hard experience with failure. The four pieces didn’t go as I expected them too.

I feel like I rushed a little too much.

Instead of taking one week to slowly build up the muscle memory for each hand, I started putting my hands together on around the fourth or fifth day.



As any pianist knows, this is a BIG mistake. A mistake that could really determine the fate of the piece. One week for playing hands separately is recommended and almost required for playing the piece well.

As you can tell, that did not happen with me.

When I was younger, I tried to take one week to play hands separately. And it worked. Some pieces even required two weeks.

But as I grew older, it was getting boring.

Why did I have to waste ten minutes playing the right hand and then ten minutes playing the left hand instead of using ten minutes to play them both at the same time?

That’s when after I felt like the piece was “okay” and not even good or great, I started to put my hands together and never look back.

That was definitely a bad decision, and it sure caught up to me.

It’s hard to go back to playing hands separately once the piece is played with hands together. It’s like taking one step back when you need to take 100 steps forward. So now I guess there’s no turning back. I’m stuck with playing hands together. Forever.

At least I’m ahead of my goal, but it can quickly turn bad if I can’t make the tempo due to less practice on each hand. Hopefully, my end result will stay the same.

I also ended up doing some research on the *second* Sino-Japanese war and the history of the Yellow River Concerto (apparently, they had two wars. I guess the second was more interesting).

I apologize in advance, but last week I gave some alternative facts (now I can finally be the POTUS!).



The Yellow River Concerto was written in 1969, but it was based off on the Yellow River Cantata.

The Cantata was written in 1939, not the Concerto.

The poet Guang Weiran was with troops along the Yellow River when he saw fishermen battling against roaring waves and singing uplifting songs. He decided to write a poem about the war and Xian Xinghai, a composer in the audience when Weiran shared the poem. Apparently, Xian only wrote the Cantata in only two weeks! He made sure to focus the piece on foreign tyranny and the feelings of suppressed people. He symbolized the Yellow River as a symbol of the Chinese people, with the waves representing anger but also resistance against the Japanese.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s wife introduced a musical revolution. The committee that wrote the piece were a group of 5 pianists, which is why the Yellow River Concerto has so many composers. Since everything was searched for foreign thoughts, the composers made sure to incorporate the Chinese national songs “The East is Red” and “The Internationale.”

After Mao’s death, however, people started to reject the concerto to forget the hard times they faced during the time period. It became known in the West when one of the composers in the group moved to the United States and continued to perform the concerto there. Over time, the concerto was revived in Chinese concert halls and today it is found in almost all the repertoire of Chinese solo pianists.

This history will allow me to convey the emotion that Weiran had in mind when writing the piece. The fierceness of the Yellow River and the motivation of the fisherman should be expressed through my playing.

I hope that only a week of luck can happen after a week of failure.

Interview

This past Sunday I interviewed my piano teacher, Cong Fan. She played the Yellow River Concerto with the Ambler Symphony. Most of this blog post was on the emotional backstory of the Concerto, so I decided to ask her about that. She said that learning the piece was not that hard and even some professionals could take two weeks to learn the pieces and two weeks to perfect it. Obviously, I’m not a professional, but she said six weeks was good enough for me to play the piece well.

Since emotion is a big part of the piece, I asked her how she conveyed her emotion. She said that she researched the history of the war and heard the pieces with the lyrics that accompanied the piece at the time. She also watched a movie about the making of the Yellow River Concerto.

Here is the movie she watched (it’s in Chinese): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPfLfXfGXo

The difference between each individual piece is important, claims my piano teacher. She thinks that the 2nd and 3rd movement are more emotional and bring emotional contrast while the 1st and 4th movement have a more technical challenge including fingerings and phrasings.

On the original video, the fisherman are shown singing the song and using the Yellow River as a way of defense. It could have been imagined, but she thought it was better to see what actually happened.

The video she recommended me (and the people of the blog) to listen to is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEv8lQ5XStRKFtRqnu3_aETyIpeoQYOpX

It is the original performance of the concerto with the revised piano and orchestra part in 1970 during the height of the cultural revolution.

Here is a Q and A format for the interview:

Q: Is six weeks a reasonable time for learning the piece?

A: It will definitely be a challenge. For professionals, they can practice the piece for two weeks and then use another weeks to perfect the piece. For "your" level, however, it is possible but it might not be top-tier quality.

Q: What is the hardest part about learning the piece?

A: All the songs are different. The second and third songs bring an emotional contrast, so it is definitely a harder piece to "emotionalize" the piece instead of just plain technique. The 2nd piece is a lyrical piece while the 3rd has many mood contrasts within itself. It is also a technique challenge during the quicker parts of the song. The first and fourth songs are much more lively and because of that, the movement of the fingers and the feet can be hard to control.

Q: How did you research the song?

A: I watched a documentary about the song that showed the backstory behind the development of piece. You can find it here (Link above). If you can research the song, you will understand the reason behind the cantata which is what inspired the final piece. That will allow you to incorporate the actual emotions into the piece.

Q: How did you "emotionalize" the piece?

A: I watched the documentary and a film, and what I also did was watch performances from great pianists during the time period (Link above). It's possible to imagine the scene behind the making of the song, but it is definitely better to see it on video.

Also, a poster of my piano teacher's tour is in the post "Week 2 Progress."

Last week I commented on:

Backseat Beats by Hanson L

Learning a Language in Seven Weeks by Katie M

Creating “Why All the Fuss” by Katherine S

Sources:

Lintu, Mika. "The Yellow River Concerto - a Product of Its Time." GBTimes. GBTimes, 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Maitzen, Rohan. Hello My Name Is Failure. Digital image. Novel Readings. Novel Readings, 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Oops Sign. Digital image. Real Success Network. REAL Success Network, 22 Apr. 2015. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Szep, Paul. George Washington Alternative Facts. Digital image. Scholars and Rogues. Wordpress, 23 Jan. 2017. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

Video of me playing will come this week hopefully!