Category: Free Inquiry

It’s week seven already! I think that my piece is coming fairly well. I am a little bit nervous to play hands together, but I think that I just need to trust that I have practiced enough and that everything will come together. That being said, this week, I decided to take a look at a different tutorial of the song that I am learning and comment along as I watch.

I very much enjoyed this version. I found the simplicity of it very pleasing to hear, and I liked the variation in the notes that they added. However, I still like my version the best 🙂 It has also reassured me that the piece that I am learning is actually quite difficult, and it’s okay that I am not getting it right away. I often find that I am very hard on myself when I cannot get something perfect on the first try, which is evidently unrealistic and a tad unhealthy. Listening to a simpler version of the piece makes me feel proud of my efforts and excited to continue learning!

I can’t believe that I am halfway through my Free Inquiry Project! I am very proud of how far I have come; from my first video to this one I have cut the playing time essentially in half. Despite this, this week, I played the right hand melody almost a minute and a half faster than the left hand accompaniment. I am not sure why this may be, as I actually felt as though my left hand was stronger this week. To be honest, I got quite frustrated recording my playing this week. I kept making mistakes, particularly with my right hand, that I had not made before. The more frustrated I got, the more mistakes I made, and so on. I decided to just walk away and take a break for a couple of hours to calm down and re-centre myself, and was finally able to produce a piece that I was proud of.

This will be my last time playing hands separate. From now until the end of term, I will practice the piece hands together. Although I feel a bit daunted by this fact, I am confident in my ability and am excited to see and hear my practicing pay off. One thing that I think is important to remember is that I can continue to practice hands separate if necessary. Although my goal is evidently to play the piece hands together, there will be certain sections that I will find more difficult than others, and will need to practice more often– both hands separately and hands together.

It is week five and things are going great! Both the left and right hand are coming along nicely, and I am feeling more and more confident about beginning to try hands together. I can definitely hear and feel the improvement, and I believe that I am on track to “perfect” the piece by the end of the term. Of course, it will never be perfect, but I believe that by my last submission I will be able to play the piece hands together at the right tempo with little to no mistakes. Fingers crossed!

One tool that I found particularly helpful when I was beginning to learn the piece was the PlayScore 2 app. This was a simple app that I downloaded on my phone at no cost. It allowed me to take a photo of the sheet music, and it would play back the notes exactly as they were written. This was incredibly helpful as, although I knew the melody, every arrangement of a piece is a little bit different. This allowed me to hear exactly what the piece was supposed to sound like before I had even sight read it. It is much easier to sight read a piece when you have heard it before, which is exactly what this app allowed me to do.

I am very pleased with the way my inquiry project is turning out. One of the main reasons that I chose to learn a new song was because I am so busy now, and I never get a chance to just sit and play piano. I used to sit at the piano for hours a day, and now I am lucky to sit down for half an hour a week. This project has forced me to take time out of my day to intentionally do something that I love, and I am so happy that it has.

It is week three already, and I definitely think that I am making progress with this piece. My right hand is coming along very nicely — I am making fewer and fewer mistakes each time I practice. The same goes for my left hand; however, I definitely feel that it is a little bit harder. Although the right hand is far more complex, as it is the melody, I have an easier time with keeping the tempo. As you can see and hear from the videos, I still make mistakes as I am playing, but I am confident that in a week or two I will be able to start playing hands together. Further, the length of the videos for both my right and left hand lessened by about three to four minutes from my last videos, indicating that I am getting better and making fewer mistakes.

I noticed while I was playing that the majority of my mistakes — with both the right and left hand — were near the end of the piece. As I thought about why this might be, I realized that I practice the first part of the piece more often than the end. This is not something that I do purposefully; however, anytime I mess up when practicing, I often go back to the start to try again. Although this doesn’t necessarily sound like a problem, if I am continuously going back to the start of the piece and re-playing the parts I know well until I make a mistake, I am effectively practicing the parts that I mess up. Now that I am aware of this, I will adjust my practicing strategies accordingly. Instead of restarting the entire piece, I will focus more on specific measures of the song that I need to improve.

I have decided that I am not going to post videos updating my progress every single week. Instead, I think that video updates every two weeks will allow for more drastic progress to be seen from video to video. That being said, I am continuing to practice and improve both the right hand melody, and the left hand accompaniment. Both parts are coming along; however, I feel that I am having an easier time improving on the right hand. This is to be expected, as the right hand is playing the melody, which is definitely easier to pick up.

This week, I thought I would provide a little bit of backstory on the song I chose to learn for this project. As I have mentioned, “Rewrite the Stars” is originally from the 2017 movie “The Greatest Showman.” When I first saw this movie in theatres, I was awestruck. From the costumes to the dancing to the singing, I loved every bit of it. However, the performance that Zac Efron and Zendaya put on when they sang this song captivated me for weeks.

In the movie, Zac Efron’s character, Philip Carlyle, and Zendaya’s character, Anne Wheeler, come from very different backgrounds. Philip comes from a well-off family and lives in the upper echelon of society. Anne, in contrast, lives with her brother as typical “circus freaks,” upon who Philip’s family and friends look down. Throughout the movie, their love story unfolds. Upon first glance, it is clear that the two have feelings for each other. However, they both know that the society they live in will never allow them to be together. Their performance of “Rewrite the Stars” is the culmination of all of these feelings. They sing with such emotion, and it is clear that they want to be together, but know that they cannot.

I think that this is the main reason that the song resonated with me so heavily. Emotionally charged songs are so much more fun and interesting to listen to, which translates directly to me playing the piece. I can clearly feel the emotion when I am playing, and I am excited to continue to improve so that I might add extra emphasis and drama in certain places, to truly convey the love and torment that Philip and Anne are feeling throughout the song.

For my Free Inquiry Project, I have decided to learn the song “Rewrite the Stars” from the movie “The Greatest Showman.” I have played piano since I was very young — around three or four years old. I took piano lessons all my life, but had to stop when I went off to boarding school for my high school years. Although I still love to play, I have found it difficult to find the time amidst work, school, and friends. This project is a great opportunity for me to get back to playing, and to find an “academic excuse” to do something that I love.

The first thing that I did when starting my project was sight read the music. I have included pictures of the sheet music ( I used, as well as links to the videos of me sight reading both the right hand melody and the left hand accompaniment.

For my first true attempt at playing the piece in its entirety, I think it went pretty well! I am glad that both videos are around the same length, meaning that I wasn’t playing one part way faster than the other. For now, I will continue practicing hands separately. I will also work on getting the tempo correct, as well as smoother transitions between notes and page turns.

References

Pasek, J. & Paul, J. (2018). Rewrite the Stars [Sheet Music]. The Greatest Showman: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack. Fox Music.