39. Étude, "Thumb Slide" (for solo piano)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 เม.ย. 2024
- This étude grew out of a warmup I’ve done for many years to practice for several years whose purpose was to relax the hands into thumb slides in both directions and in both hands. It is also a type of rotation étude. It has the added difficulty of weaving the hands together at several points, which requires a novel technical approach with careful planning and execution.
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Excellent etude!!
Woohoo! That was fun!
i love all of these etudes you've been doing!!!!!!!!1
Thank you! Which are your favorites so far, and what do you like about them?
Thumb slides are a true technical test, specially for small hands.
True lol
Wow impressive👍💯❤️
Thank you, I’m enjoying your videos as well! Keep it up!
Such a great étude, Joel. Looking forward to hearing more of your work - new subscriber here!
Awesome, thank you! The goal of Project Leap is to upload a new composition or video every day for the next four years, so there’s a lot more to come!
@@DoctorJoelThomas That is a crazily ambitious timeline! Best of luck, what a project! I aim for one composition a MONTH, and even that can be hard to stick to. (I blame my three young kids...)
@@GregHarradineComposer It is turning out to be very challenging, mainly in terms of producing the videos, not composing. I have a significant backlog of compositions, about two hours worth, and I compose three or four new pieces each day. I’m trying to build a buffer with some shorter works to try to get ahead, so I can have some long form videos and compositions, but every time I get ahead a little editing manages to slow me down again. I have some very cool stuff coming soon though.
@@DoctorJoelThomas Good idea to have a decent buffer of compositions. I know what you mean about video editing - that can easily take as long, if not longer, than actually composing the pieces!
Very nice idea, and a wonderful execution! Certainly my type of music.
I wish it were a little more developed. Firstly, in terms of register. The highest note is an A5, and that's in octaves with an A4, so really doesn't sound that high. To me, one of the climaxes is begging to reach up to a high note. It's like if I woke up and didn't stretch my arms. Doesn't sit quite right.
Secondly, I wanted a bit more in terms of tonality. You're in C, then move to Am > B flat > Bm then back to C. And this is mirrored very nicely in 1:02 - 1:13. But, all this stepwise harmonic movement (along with the obvious stepwise nature of the thumb-slide technique), again makes the piece feel quite cooped up, to me. Maybe this piece could spread its wings in the contrasting section by using harmony based on the circle of 5ths rather than chromatic motion all the way through.
I also wasn't terribly convinced by the ending, but that's mostly just personal taste. Not a big fan of "run out of steam" endings; I like a chord, or something else that's more affirmative.
Also, I would get rid of the triplet "3"s after the first bar or two. They clutter up the score too much, e.g., b. 12.
0:43 is my favourite bit, closely followed by 1:13 natural minor harmony. And the recap at 1:24 made me shiver! Really wonderful stuff! Definitely got a new subscriber.
Thanks for your input! I don’t really disagree with you on much- I’m my worst critic, lol! I have to release my ideas at some point though, and I’ve put myself on an extremely rigorous schedule- a new composition every day. I’m glad some of the piece was enjoyable for you. The technique was difficult to find something to work with, for sure. I’ll keep developing the technique in future compositions, I’m sure, maybe you’ll enjoy it more in those.
I like your möbius canons. I obsessed about writing them, fughettas, and fugues many years ago when I first read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. What do you think of that book?
@@DoctorJoelThomas Absolutely, I didn't see you were on an epic compositional marathon until I looked at the other videos on your channel. Wishing you the best of luck. I've been working on a set of miniatures too, but you've already published nearly as many as I intend to write in total! :D There's no way I could write one a day. I'll happily spend an evening just adding dynamics, articulation, directions etc. to a piece which has all the notes already written.
Thanks for having a look. To be honest, I wrote them because I was sick and tired of everyone online describing Bach's crab canon as a mobius canon, so I decided I'd write some mathematically accurate mobius canons! :D But I've never been able to write a proper fugue. They tend to collapse in on themselves before too long; each bar sounds nice on its own, but when I play the whole thing, it sounds like a dense mess.
I've never read GEB, but I do know of those three figures, and think I've got the gist of the book through social osmosis. Bach is my favourite composer of course, and I had a picture book of Escher's works as a kid and was absolutely captivated. I've had a passing interested in the logic, recursion, paradoxes, etc. as much as the next nerd, but not as much of an interest as the other two. So I'm interested in the source material, but I don't really know how the author could connect those ideas and have something to say about consciousness... don't get me wrong, I like a bit of philosophy, but it does sound a bit too mystical for me!
Maybe I'm jumping the gun, having never read it. What do you think?