It's been too long! I can barely believe it has been 6 months since I lasted posted here. That is just appalling. It's not like I have given up playing the piano or anything like that. Far from in fact as I an as keen as ever and have progressed well since I last posted. More on that for another day as this post is about Alan Rusbridger's great new book "Play it again". In the main the book is about Alan's extraordinary quest, being an amateur pianist, to learn the horrendously difficult 1st Ballade of Chopin within a year! Interspersed with much detail relating to this onerous challenge is some other most interesting reading as it just so happens that he is also the editor of one of the UK's most prestigious newspapers. The Guardian! Alan has chosen a pretty momentous year news wise to mount this marathon learning task for himself as it is the year the Guardian and others collaborated with Wikileaks to report the leaked US State Department documents, the phone hacking scandal and the Libyan crisis occurred. This has meant that a session of only 20 minutes was possible early in the morning and often he was not able to fit it in.
The book is such a great read and most informative as along the way as he speaks to many other teacher's and pianist's, both professional and amateur, about their take on the piece and how to practice a work of this level.
Well worth your while to grab this book if your are in to the piano in anyway at all!
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