Nocturne

It's sure gone by fast. But this week marks the end of my first year as a returning piano student. It's a bit embarrassing to admit that -- aside from a couple of short, easy pieces that I learned to keep my instructor happy -- I've spent the entire year working on nothing but the one Beethoven sonata. And, believe it or not, it's still not ready for Carnegie Hall.

But I've learned -- or relearned -- a lot this year. Learned how to learn. How to practice. How to think about what I'm playing in terms of phrases, in terms of themes, in terms of sections within a movement, in terms of the entire sonata. My instructor asks me -- frustratingly, at times, while I'm still desperately struggling with the fingering -- to contemplate the musical effect of what I'm doing, instead of just playing the piano as though I were typing a letter.

It's been an interesting and educational year. I feel guilty at times for not practicing longer each day -- guilt being my personal substitute for dedication -- but my teacher claims that I've worked more diligently on my music than she'd expected.

To mark the start of a new year (actually, it's just a coincidence), I'm beginning work on a second major piece -- major, but shorter and easier (at least technically) than the Beethoven. I've always enjoyed listening to Chopin's nocturnes, at least once I got past my 1812 Overture phase of musical appreciation. The apparent simplicity of their quiet melancholy belies their actual difficulty for the pianist. I told my instructor a couple of weeks ago that I'd like to try tackling one of them. She seemed a little reluctant at first. But she suggested Nocturne No. 15 in F minor, one of the easiest (technically) of the set.

Yes, the tempo's slow, and yes, the score is much easier for even me to sight-read than was that of the complex Beethoven sonata. But the nocturne's difficulty for the novice pianist lies in learning to play the written score so that it expresses the emotional depths that Chopin intended.

And, hey, don't forget that I'm an attorney. As such, I have no emotional depths. Nevertheless, the nocturne's a challenge worth accepting, and I'm eager to give it a go. I doubt if I'll ever get tired of working on the Beethoven, or that I'll ever feel that I no longer need to improve my playing of it. But it'll be good to season my daily practice with a little Chopin for the sake of variety.

And thus begins Year Two.