Piano Progress - Month 16 - First Gymnopedie (Erik Satie)

This piece took 4-5 months to learn. I didn’t work on it every day, but I tried to practice at least 4 days a week. It was a long-term project for me and WAY above my level!
There are a couple wrong notes in the recording, but this is probably the best I’ve ever played it, so I’ll take it :grinning:
Month 1 - I learned the left hand chords and practiced the jumps.
Month 2 - spent lots of time reviewing chords and put hands together. My teacher had me improvise the RH over the LH jumps before putting hands together.
Month 3 - Added the una corda pedal. I kept trying to get comfortable with everything and tried adding expression.
Month 4 - at this point, I started to be comfortable enough to really focus on expression. This month was spent trying to tell a story with the music. My teacher asked me to journal what the piece made me feel. Colors, moods, pictures, a story, etc. Then to think about those things while I played it. He had me really focus on the colors of the chords. He said to notice how the colors shift when the chords change. We also worked on more dynamics to really get the feeling across and make it emotional. I think I probably need another couple years of piano before I can do this well, but I learned so much from this exercise, and managed a little bit I think.
Month 5 - waited for my piano to be tuned so I could get a good recording. Spent the time ironing out a few trouble spots and more time on expression.