Keeping your hand in

My wife and I bought a great second-hand Tokai grand piano six years ago. It is the first grand we've owned and is a Steinway copy. Definitely just a copy. But I have often gone days, even weeks without playing it.

A few weeks back I decided to play through one of my favourite Beethoven sonatas, which is the one in E Flat Major, op 7. I learnt the second movement as a student, doing Seventh Grade AMEB. Having played through one sonata, my wife, Joan suggested I play through the other 31...

So I did! A new adventure began, and after completing the 31 Beethoven Sonatas [only sight-reading them], I continued with Chopin's Waltzes [the 14 in the cheap book I took from a pile of second-hand music donated to teachers at Mitchell Conservatorium recently], Tchaikovsky's Seasons, Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition and Mozart's Sonatas.

I think I'm sight-reading a little better now, and I've learnt a lot more than I would by merely listening to CDs, or even studying the scores and listening.