Chasse-neige (Snowdrift)

Liszt is strange sometimes. He had problems with being considered serious. He wrote so much for the crowd that he must have felt a bit odd. Maybe he felt he was not quite being himself most of the time. Was he a serious composer or just an octave-merchant? Well, you know, Beethoven wrote octaves...but not like that!

Perhaps this is one reason he liked to paraphrase (transcribe) other people's music.

Yet Liszt also wrote more serious-sounding music, such as his earnest and for-posterity Sonata in B minor. Serious composers wrote sonatas, remember!

On the one hand, to me this work sounds like a more cerebral version of the Mephisto Waltz no. 1, with added religious subject matter (also improved with things stolen from Alkan's Quatre Âges sonata). On the other hand, the Faust story (Liszt picked the Lenau version, but he would obviously have known the Goethe one too), no matter how sensational the episode, has serious philosophical undertones - and with Liszt, as a cultured and intelligent man, no matter how much of the music is directed at the gallery, I think there is always some serious purpose not far away from the surface.

Anyway, there is a nice piece at the end of his Transcendental Studies, called Chasse-neige.

These studies are often difficult, and often quite big and "Lisztian". Yet writing studies is a scholarly occupation, like writing sonatas, so Liszt is being serious again as well.

Bearing this in mind, I think it's interesting that he ends with a more introverted piece. It's true, it does get loud, but also it has some of the quietest, lightest writing of the twelve studies.

What I wanted to tell you was this.

Liszt seems to me to go in a serious direction at the end of the Transcendental Studies. This serious snow-music reminds me of something else - the lonely figure at the end of Schubert's Winterreise, left out of the village like the old organ-grinder, in the end perhaps being erased by the white snowy landscape.

I find it amusing to note that while Schubert does it his way, Liszt's idea has us not so much erased by frozen blank finality - more like completely buried in the avalanche!

It was rather a dramatic snow-storm, after all.

But we shouldn't judge Liszt by our own standards, or anyone else's. Times were different then.

All the same, I rather like this piece.

It's really transcendental, too. To play it at its best would not sound particularly obviously difficult. But someone good enough to do that would be quite shockingly good!

I don't think I've ever heard it played exactly as I imagine it...but Mr. Arrau is good.

Pianoforte

I don't know if people realise how much skill it takes to play, not just the wrong notes, but the right wrong notes - and to play them at the right time.

No, my dears, I'm not talking about my piano-playing...

Corporation

Good heavens.

I really don't know what to say about this. I'm glad not all the notes are together, though. (There is a "rubato" in the main theme, but I'm not sure why it's in a samba rhythm - it's a minuet!)

Keys

Piano keys were once made of ivory. Because it is a natural material, it feels nice to the touch. Of course there are good reasons for not using it now (ask the elephants, oh you can't). Actually there were always good reasons but it is only recently that people agreed they were good reasons.

Unfortunately today we have plastic piano keys that are rather shiny. Any sweaty pianist will sometimes find it gets rather slippy on there. I mean, I have played on these pianos, and it's OK. Not at all the same, but there's no major problem for me. What I was wondering though is why a better, less shiny, synthetic surface has not been created for modern pianos. I guess people consulted about their choice of plastic key coverings, but why then are they not better?

I claimed above that natural materials feel good compared to synthetic ones. Obviously that's not always true. What about nettles or Poison Oak? They're natural! I hope no-one will start using them on piano keys...

I wonder what the choices were when Steinway moved into plastic?

Where I have been, and what I did while I was there

Well, have you spotted that I haven't been writing this month? Me too. I don't like to leave you alone in the bleak internet without my protection but there is a reason for my absence. I have been being an accompanist! The reasons for this are: it's near my house, I get money, I get the benefit of other people's lessons and masterclasses, also it gives me something to think about.

The other reason for my absence is to do with piano practice, and is something I'm not revealing at the moment....

Interesting people I have met and been in lessons with include Pascal Némirovski (piano), Thomas Brandis (violin), and Tomotada Soh (violin, formerly Szigeti's assistant). I heard a few interesting things there. Also I find it's good just to be in the room with a master of some instrument or subject - I learn even without learning! I can't promise it's the same for everyone though (unfortunately!)

So what have I played? Have a look at the list:


Bruch Concerto for Violin and Viola (or Violin and Clarinet)
Stravinsky Violin Concerto (1st movement)
Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 (1st mvt)
Brahms Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor (complete)
Takemitsu Hika (vln)
Wieniawski Variations on an Original Theme (vln)
Messiaen Theme and Variations (vln)
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 (1st mvt)
Grieg Violin Sonata No. 1 (1st mvt)
Szymanowski Violin Concerto No. 2 (1st mvt)
Szymanowski Violin Sonata in D minor (complete)
Weber Romance (trombone, presumably an arrangement for this instrument from maybe a cello piece or something)
Reinecke Ballade (flute)
Godard Valse Op. 116 No. 3 (flute)
Gaubert Sonatine (flute; complete)
Creston Sonata (alto sax)
Grovlez Sarabande and Allegro (alto sax)
Shostakovitch Violin Concerto No. 1 (1st mvt) - twice!
Lutosławski Recitative and Arioso (vln)
Berlioz Harold en Italie (1st mvt; viola)
Poulenc Flute Sonata (1st and 2nd mvts)
Strauss Violin Sonata (1st mvt)
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (1st mvt)
Bloch Trombone Symphony (complete)
Schumann Stück im Volkston Op. 102 No. 5 (I think; trombone, arranged from cello piece)
Bozza Ballade for Trombone and Piano
Bozza Hommage à Bach (trombone) - twice
Pryor Variations on Flower of Scotland (trombone)
Šulek Sonata "Vox Gabrieli" (1st mvt; trombone)
Rossini "Una Voce poco Fa" (from Il Barbiere di Siviglia; soprano)
Debussy Romance (soprano)
Menotti "Ah Michele don't you know" from The Saint of Bleecker Street (sop)
Mahler Hans und Grethe (sop)
David (Ferdinand not Félicien) Trombone Concertino (complete; sight-reading in the exam!)

That's it, finish!

I'm not sure, but it seems like a lot. What do you think?

Another reason I have been doing a lot of this is that other pianists agree to play things and then change their mind the day before the performance. However I do not change my mind.

When I was 14 I used to have a job accompanying for singers (3 nights a week at its maximum) at the local music academy, also where I had my piano lessons with Alex Abercrombie. He was a pupil of Yvonne Loriod and introduced me to the music of Finnissy (the two of them had been at college together). Also it was rather good to have an Alkan enthusiast in the local area!

You know, there is a difference between playing a piece without learning it (sight-reading) and playing it with all the details checked. Yes, you are saying, a big difference! But I can normally play something without knowing it - most music is similar after all. For example the key of C minor appears many times throughout pieces I know; certain topics like "Funeral March" have fellow pieces of the same type that I can remember and so I already have an idea of what it's going to be like. More could probably be said about "How to Sight Read"!

But when I'm doing that it's not the same as having a relaxed control over the material such as I have in a piece I'm familiar with. So that was the main, well, not really problem, with doing the accompanying, but it was at least something not-quite-positive that could be said about it. I hope to be able to know more music better.

But it's nice to meet all those pieces. It's worth practising sight-reading so you can do it too! It will help all those people with music exams and help you learn more pieces yourself!

As Charles Rosen says in "Piano Notes":

In about six months of sight-reading for three hours a day, one could go through most of the keyboard music of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Another few months and one can add Haydn, Debussy, and Ravel. Another hour and a quarter would suffice for all of Schoenberg's piano music (or two hours if you have trouble reading it at first), and an hour and a half will get you through Stravinsky, including the works for piano and orchestra, and ten minutes each for the solo piano works of Anton von Webern and Alban Berg.

So now you see what can be done. Of course, you don't have to do all that, but if you are going to have a job playing the piano in some form, it would be worth it. Also if you enjoy the piano I would imagine it would be interesting.

Having sight-read all those works, then you could decide what was good for you to learn. Otherwise it's back to the Chopin Four Ballades - AGAIN!

If you play the Four Ballades, I want to feel they are "Your Ballades" (pardon), otherwise it gets a bit upsetting for me. Crash crash crash there they go again. Oh and look I'm being sensitive here (where I can't play in tempo)!

And then there are other composers not on the Rosen-List, above. What are they like?

OK, that's all for today, see you soon!

Memorising

Andrew has asked if we need to memorise pieces to play them (see comments to yesterday's post).

Thanks for asking!

It's not necessary in itself, but it depends what results you want. It's actually quite difficult to play with the music! This is because you then have one more thing to concentrate on. When I play from the music I find it is harder to listen to what I am doing. Looking at the music gives me the impression that I am hearing what it says on the page - because I can hear it in my mind. Then it is easy to let mistakes go by without realising, since my mind thinks it can hear the right notes!

I think memorising is important for freedom, however the other side of the argument says that it inhibits freedom, because you learn a fixed interpretation of the work and are no longer truly interpreting the notations on the page. This was Sviatoslav Richter's view. He memorised in his youth and used the music later in life. Some people seem to think he did this because he couldn't play it without the music, but they are probably jealous. I think he did it because he wanted to! And his interpretations are free in a way that is possible when you don't have to concentrate on what is coming next. It's really quite complicated because once you remove one thing (concentrating on remembering) you introduce another (concentrating on the score).

I hope to be able to have the same kind of freedom as I see the pages in my mind.

There is one reason why I want to memorise: page turners. Some are good but normally only people who should be somewhere else doing their own concert. There are other kinds and they are a bit of a problem. It is very distracting to have to baby-sit a nervous page-turner who is going to make a mistake soon but you don't know when! I have seen this in footage of Richter playing - he ignores them but he has to take action when they get it wrong, oh dear oh dear!

The idea that we have to memorise to give a proper performance is silly. Especially when it makes a lot of people nervous who could otherwise be enjoying music. It wasn't so long ago that the first people started playing without music (remember even the solo piano recital is not that old), and when they did audiences thought they were showing off rather!

Without the freedom to play with music, we would probably never have had performances like Charles Hallé's Beethoven Sonatas cycle (the first time this had ever been done) - I don't know what it sounded like, but I'm sure it was worth being there! Equally, we would never have had any of my own performances of Xenakis's Evryali - I don't know that without the music, though I know some of it (surprisingly!)

I would like to learn Evryali without the music but I'm not sure if it's a good idea; sometimes there are more notes than you have fingers and a choice has to be made, and I feel the choice is more lively when it is live, rather than just learning a sort of cut-down version that one can play accurately every time. Xenakis wanted some kind of struggle or he wouldn't have written a twelve note chord and a note that's off the end of the piano! (Actually that note, top "C sharp" was removed from the score a few years later).

What made me want to learn things is the fact that unless I do it, I can't play anything! I would have to carry around a library with me. So yes, it is to get freedom that I am memorising.

But your question has made me think (people should ask more questions) and I feel it could well be a bad idea to play without music - unless one does it right. And even with the music, I'd like some idea of what is coming next around the page. Just in case the page turner misses a few. And anyway, I would feel well prepared.

Somebody used to practise while reading the Bible. How could he concentrate, you ask? You might well ask the same thing of someone who reads the music while he plays. Yet there may be performance instructions that we haven't remembered, things that we notice again by looking at the score. There will always be a new argument for or against either view, but the main thing is we have to do it somehow. There has to be a performance, and the way we do it is the way we do it. As Mozart said: Use your nose if you have to. As Rachmaninoff said: Sit high or low? Just sit comfortably.

I don't know what my conclusion is, but I know I like to know what I'm playing!

How to Learn a Piece of Music

How to Learn a Piece of Music
(How to Learn a Piano Piece)

Right, I've been learning music for 22 years now and I have come to some conclusions.

This is my current method for learning a new piece.

1. Familiarise
2. Memorise
3. Practise

That's it! Here's how you do it:

1. Familiarise. This means something very simple. First of all, it means going through the piece very slowly and carefully to see what the difficulties are in that work. If it is a complicated piece, then you can go slowly! Don't worry, even if you sound like an idiot while you are learning it, that's fine because you will be able to play it one day. It's different for show-offs who want to sound good from the beginning, because they never really learn their pieces. Yes, they will always sound like an idiot. Fortune favours the brave, as the saying goes, and here it also favours those who can admit they have problems - the problems are the difficult bits in your piece, and they will improve as soon as you admit they are there, understand what the specific difficulties are, and solve them!
You will need a nice clear copy of the music. Play through the piece slowly and carefully, listening to everything. Then you can see what is difficult. There is no such thing as a difficult piece, only difficult places in a piece. (Some pieces have a lot of difficult places!) So there will be a few bars in the whole piece that you find hard (or impossible). Now you know what to practise. You know what you find difficult, so you also probably know what is easy for you. These parts you can learn AFTER you've solved the real problems. Also you need to solve the difficult parts from the start because it will take longer to get used to them, longer than playing things you already can do, for example.
If you find the piece very difficult you might take a long time over this stage. In that case, put it away and come back to it as many times as you like until you feel confident.
There isn't time to discuss technical problems today, but I will say that a very important part of solving the technical side of the piece is getting a good fingering. Again, this can take a long time sometimes. There is a scale in fourths on page two of Chopin's Third Sonata, and that's taken me a year to get the fingering for. I'm sure you will do better than that!

2. Memorise. This is best if you can do it away from the piano, because playing what you are memorising can be a bit distracting. Also if you are using my method, then you haven't actually learned how to play the piece yet, so that could cause some problems if you are trying to play it! Some people don't see the music in their head, they just follow their muscles and the sound as they play. If they say they can't imagine the printed page then I have to believe them, particularly if they don't make any mistakes. But I know that if I can see the page in my mind then I won't make a mistake because I know what to play. So that seems good to me.
How to memorise could also be discussed at length. I would say it is about patterns, and where patterns change. Also the direction of the "story" (that could mean harmony, change in texture, etc.) is a way of remembering where you are in the work as a whole. I put a ring around anything I remember wrongly, as well as things that don't fit patterns (a chord that is different the second time round, and so on). Then you will see the ring in your mind, too. You will remember!

3. Practise. This means practise. Get used to things. Learn where your hands go. Understand the music better. Practise bits so you can play them at a faster tempo. That way, not much can go wrong at the right speed! If you are stretched to your limits in performance there could be a stress there. Try to escape this by admitting what is difficult and taking time to work it out.

Well I'm sure there is a lot more I could say, but that's all for today! I will discuss specific pieces next time. Let me know if you have one you'd like me to talk about!

Precise

Often, when I hear a pianist playing, on the radio or somewhere, I notice that they are trying very hard to make the notes absolutely even. Not exactly like a robot, but certainly not like something natural - because natural things, while they can be similar, always are a little bit different from each other. Don't they say no two snowflakes are the same?

I think this kind of playing is the result of a bit of a misunderstanding. You see, when people learn the piano they get the idea that to play evenly is a good thing. Certainly, to play unevenly can be a bad thing. But what I think is really wanted is the ability to play evenly. That means that it is good to be able to control the sound you are making. Since the hardest thing is to play absolutely evenly, everyone tries to do that. But then the problem is that when you get to play some actual music, it doesn't sound good that way. It sounds clean - but that's not good enough!

You see, music flows and moves in a natural way. The sea washes up the beach and on to the rocks but the tide isn't the same height each time. Wouldn't it be a bit weird if it were? Would it make sense if actors pro nounced ev e ry word abso lute ly even ly?

It's the same with music.

A New Discovery

I'm learning the Schumann Fantasy. That is to say, the Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, by Robert Schumann (circa 1836). I have been practising away very nicely. Do you know what happens when you practise? Ideas appear. That's what I'm going to tell you about today.

Anyway, here is the first page of the score (copyright Henle 2003). You can also see my notations on it, so if they are of any help, please absorb!


The Schumann Fantasy is a grand, great work. I heard it described recently as "possibly the greatest work of the nineteenth century". Schumann liked it originally but he wasn't so sure a few years later.

I am learning this piece because it suits me. I see eye to eye with it - and it passes the repertoire test. This is a test I just invented to ascertain whether a piece is worth learning. It goes like this: "Would you be happy to perform this work every day for the rest of your life?". That's it. And I would, so that's why it is going to be one of my pieces.

Look at the left hand part. E.g. the first bar! That's all left hand. Those semiquavers needed a bit of practise (about two days to get going), and there's a lot of this left hand activity in the piece, so it will come in handy later (frequently!). It's strange that the first page of a new piece often takes much longer to learn than any other page. Probably because lots of the material is introduced at the opening and subsequent pages more than likely are formed of the same material, so having learned it slowly at first, what one learned carries over into the rest of the piece and saves time later.

So these left hand semiquavers. Playing away at these (quite slowly, carefully, making sure I hit the keys in the middle, making sure the notes sound, etc.) for several hours, I start to get ideas. One in particular was this. Even though this piece is usually heard with a lot of pedal, as a rather grand wash of sound, it is possible to play sometimes with less pedal. As an experiment it is possible to do anything, of course. And that's partly what I am doing in practice, experimenting - not to find something that appeals to me, but to try and find the sound and expression that belongs to the work. The true voice.

Following the idea of trying less pedal, I started to hear something. For one thing, I started to hear the notes! I could imagine this material sometimes solid-sounding (something like the traditional all-purpose sound), sometimes with more detail peeping through. OK, I was getting somewhere now. The character of the music was starting to appear. It was no longer notes, it was starting to be alive!

As the music grew more vivid, colours appeared out of the black notes and white page. And I heard something. You might hear it too, especially in the following part (first bar of the bottom line):


Play it lightly, and does it remind you of something? How about this:


That is the opening of a piece by Debussy called Jardins sous la pluie ("Gardens in the Rain") from his set called Estampes. Do you think there might be some similarity? I thought so. the Debussy is a lot quieter (it gets louder later, mind you) but apart from that, it's more or less the same thing.

OK, you say, so what? Well, so nothing. It's just an interesting insight into the Schumann.

Or is it more than that?

Originally the Fantasy was conceived as a sort of memorial to Beethoven, the proceeds from the sale of which to go towards the building of a physical memorial in Bonn. Schumann quotes Beethoven, especially in the first movement (the quotation from An die Ferne Geliebte only appearing in its entirety at the end of the movement, by which time it is no longer a quotation, seeming to be something you've always known - see Charles Rosen's book "The Romantic Generation" for more on this). So when Schumann was first thinking of this work, it was as a "Grand Sonata...for Beethoven's Monument".

Hey, look at this. When Schumann first had the inspiration for this piece, he wrote about it in his diary on the 9th of September 1836:

"Schlafen auf d. Wiese im Regen. Dann fürchterl. Giessen u. [illegible] Idee zu Beethoven"

"Sleeping in the meadow in the rain. Then terrible downpour and [illegible] idea for Beethoven"

Rain, hey? How about that. I think I believe his diary.

Lightning Concert!

Oh dear, somebody has pneumonia! Not me, it's another pianist. (Yes, there are other pianists but I know you would never read their blogs or think about them!)

It's probably not very nice for him. Also it means I have to do a concert suddenly.

It's in Cheltenham, a spa town over in the direction of Wales (from here).

I will be playing Feldman's Palais de Mari! It's quite hard to do in public but I've done it before.

I don't really like stealing concerts from ill people but, as I have said before, I am quite happy to do concerts if asked! And anyway, this concert is now quite different from the other one so it's not a substitute, it's just a different one.

I'd better go over to a different type of keyboard and press a few buttons on that one, eh?

Still Here!

Hello, remember me?

I am still here. There is a lot to do and I didn't even switch the computer on for two days!

I am still learning 21 pieces. It will all be over in about a week. I must say, this would be a lot easier if it were one long piece rather than what seems like about half a million small and entirely different works.

What would also help would be for every composer to produce COMPLETELY legible and pianist-friendly copies of their music. It really saves time. I am expecting to copy parts of some of the pieces by hand to improve matters in this respect, though I don't seem to have found time so far.

Keep going!

Soloist

At last I have found it! (click this)

Overlearning

Welcome back!

I have a lot of music to learn for three concerts. It ranges from solo pieces (11, though thankfully ten of those only last one minute) to duos, small chamber works and some others, the maximum line-up being ten players.

This is about three years of repertoire to learn. The first concert is in one week. The next two are three weeks later!

I think the most important thing to do in emergency learning like this (ha ha, as if this situation happens to everybody) is to maximise the number of times you "visit" each piece. This means the number of times you practise it and also the number of times you look through it, learning it without playing.

In one week, or three weeks, it's impossible to develop the level of familiarity you will need to perform music fully comfortably. For example Josef Hofmann recommended to learn a piece and then forget about it, and to do this three times, before performing it in public. Doing this embeds the notes and movements in your very long-term memory. What imprints something on the memory is how often you prompt the brain to remember what it once learned. If the thing is no use, it will be forgotten. If it is important it will be needed again, and when it is the pathways will be traced over again and checked to see if they correspond with what you did last time, as well as modified (learning, remembering, improving). However, three weeks isn't long enough to affect this kind of memory properly. Unless your memory is very good and experienced.

Still, in the short term we can get familiar with music over a few weeks. It should be enough for now (it will certainly be the maximum possible in the time available). Come back in three months and maybe everything will be forgotten. Again, it depends on experience.

So to remember something well you have to go there and go away again many times. That means that practising is important but also not practising! It needs time to settle and needs to be reinforced later. All the time you are away from your instrument your brain is sorting through what you learned. That's why when I accompanied for 35 recitals at the RAM one year I was still hearing the music six months later - even pieces I had only played twice! There hadn't been enough time to process it all so I was doing the equivalent of "waking dreaming" such as can happen with lack of sleep (lack of processing time, just as in my case). Hallucinating, maybe!!

I doubt I will be in that type of situation this month. I will try to relax and let my brain do the work. The mind at rest is more useful!

However, I will have to practise!

PS It is possible to do "emergency learning" as Sviatoslav Richter did, for example learning a work in one week before the performance. This is very concentrated work, and is something of a specialism. In such a case it is very helpful to have only one piece to learn!

Did you know, if something is learned very well then it is hard to forget it. With real practise a lot of time is saved. The main principle is never to let something go by if you a) made a mistake, b) nearly made a mistake or c) felt tense in a particular passage (sign of an uncertainty). I learnt this from Ferruccio Busoni, who wrote something similar in his ten "Study Rules for the Pianist" which I might tell you about sometime.

Josef In Print

Josef Hofmann - the pianist - was born 100 years before me and died in 1957. He came from Poland and went to live in America. There is more detail aside from these scanty facts but I have chosen not to provide it!

From 1901 Hofmann contributed a series of articles to the Ladies' Home Journal, on the subject of piano playing. These are now available as a book (with a compilation of questions and answers on the same subject) called "Piano Playing with Piano Questions Answered". It's useful of course, but also quite funny to see what questions he was asked. Here they have him, the greatest pianist they will probably ever encounter, and what questions do they ask?

I am just beginning to reach an intelligent interpretation of Beethoven's music. Now, in what order should the Sonatats be studied?

Must I play all the Sonatas of Beethoven in order to become a good player, or is a certain number sufficient, and, if so, how many would you advise?

Actually on the whole the questions are well chosen and cover material you will probably have wondered about, if you are a pianist. The answers are of course on a reliable high level and sometimes quite understatedly funny too:

In Chopin's Barcarolle there is a number of trills preceded by grace notes. Are they to be executed according to Philipp Emmanuel Bach's rule, so that the grace notes take their time from the note that follows them?

Philipp Emmanuel Bach's rule is a safe one to follow, but do not confound a rule with a law. If you have reached that plane on which an attempt at the Barcarolle by Chopin is rational, you must feel that your individual taste will not lead you too far astray even if it should prompt you occasionally to depart from the rule.

That is my favourite. If you have reached a plane on which an attempt at this piece is rational!

It must be nice to be on that plane!

Our Fingers

Well, this is the kind of thing I get up to at my house. Yes, thinking of fingerings for piano music.

The example is from the beginning of Beethoven's "Pastoral" Sonata, Op. 28 in D major.

As you can see (as you can see even better if you click the image), the note D features rather heavily in the tenor part (left hand). Also if you can read my writing then you can see that I thought I have got better things to do than bang out the Ds with my thumb all the time.

What I arrived at, seemed to be better. These fingerings are OK, i.e. definitely not wrong. If they are not quite right then I will change something. But I think it is right, or at least I am comfortable with nearly all of it.

Strange to think that there are so many other notes in this piece that I don't need to invent a fingering for, yet I have spent all this time on a repeated note. Oh well, that's my brain I suppose!

If I hadn't thought about it, then I could have played this note with my thumb and managed OK. But something would have felt wrong, and perhaps some of the notes wouldn't have sounded too. I wonder what other people do?

Without details (the right kind of details) there is no picture. No sound picture, I mean. And it may have taken a while to look at these details, but I won't need to do it again. Ever!

That doesn't mean I can't revise it if I want to, but without paying any attention to these details there would be nothing to revise, just a sort of vagueness. And this note D is important in this piece! On and on and on it goes but it is as important as your heartbeat. Which it rather reminds me of...

Art

I have found an online video of Art Tatum playing in 1954! Video, Vi-de-o! It is him!

Now you can see it yourself.

What do you think?