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Debussy – Voiles: This is one of the pieces for my students’ concert. It feels “concert-ready” to me – I hope my teacher will agree when I see her on Wednesday.

Debussy – Pour le Piano (Prelude & Sarabande): Both these pieces are at a fairly early stage, though I have made useful inroads in the last week or so. I am looking forward to having my teacher’s critical ear on them this week.

Chopin – Ballade in G Minor: I feel I’ve reached an impasse with this, partly because I over-practised it last month and ended up with a return of the tenosynovitis in my right hand. Some time away from it should renew my interest in it. It is not part of my Diploma repertoire.

Bach – Toccata from 6th Partita: It’s very satisfying to be playing Bach again after a long absence from his music. I hope my teacher will agree this piece will make a good opener for my Diploma recital. I love the intricacies of Bach – to me, playing it is like looking at the traceries of a Baroque church. I’ve only learnt two pages of this so far. Murray Perahia’s recording is a constant source of inspiration – he is so good at highlighting all the intricacies and nuances, interior architecture and harmonies, textures and ‘voices’ in the music (this is also true of his Chopin-playing).

Messiaen – Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jesus, no. 4: Hearing Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ recently inspired me to learn some of his piano music – and this piece is on the Diploma repertoire list. It is a strange little lullaby, shot through with premonitions of Jesus’s fate. I have done little more than read through it. Not sure how it will fit into my Diploma programme….

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“It sounds wrong, but it’s right” is something I say to my students quite regularly. And sometimes I say it to myself as well, when a ‘crunchy’ or unexpected harmony catches me out, and I have to go back and check that what I played was in fact correct.

Fairly early on in their lessons with me, my students learn about intervals, “the distance between one note and another” as it says helpfully in the tutor book I use. We play them and listen to them and describe them: a major second, a “pinched” sound, usually elicits a shriek of distaste at its dissonance; a third is pleasant, warm; a fourth, when played in different places on the keyboard, “sounds Chinese” (it sounds “medieval” to me); a fifth is a bare, open sound – it needs the middle note to form a satisfying chord; a sixth is easy on the ear; a seventh “hurts” almost as much as a second, though when converted into a dominant seventh chord, it is enjoyable, especially the sense of relief when the harmony goes “home”.

An unfamiliar, or especially crunchy harmony – and in the simple pieces (pre-grade, and Grades 1 to 2) my students are learning these are often very bare chords, formed of only two notes and are therefore far more noticeable – can bring a student up short, cause them to stop playing, go back and play that section again, thinking they have made a mistake. “It sounds wrong but it’s right” I say patiently, urging them to keep playing. Afterwards, we play “spot the interval”, and it becomes apparent that the problem was not an incorrect note, merely that the ear did not like the sound!

Saskia, who is working on ‘Tarantella’ from the Grade 1 repertoire, a rather charming, plaintive little A minor dance by Pauline Hall (she of the excellent Piano Time series), does not like the chords in the first section, which alternate between a straight A-minor tonic chord and a chord composed of A, D and E. “I can’t play it!” she grumbled at her lesson this afternoon, and then proceeded to play it perfectly, albeit somewhat tentatively. We have been trying to achieve the effect of a strummed guitar in the left hand, with soft chord changes, while the right hand melody dances moodily over the top. Going back to the score, I showed her why she did not like that A-D-E chord, and explained that it was a deliberate device on the part of the composer to create moments of tension, and delayed gratification, before the resolution comes on the next beat. “Music would be very boring if we didn’t have these crunchy harmonies and surprising moments,” I said.

It is this sense of delayed gratification that makes the Chopin Ballade I am working on (and indeed all his other music I play, or listen to), so fascinating, so suspenseful, and so utterly addictive. He forces player and listener to work hard, taking the ear on amazing harmonic journeys, to distant highways and byways, and so when it comes, the resolution, the “reward”, is all the more wonderful and satisfying. Sometimes it may sound ‘wrong’, but in Chopin’s extraordinary hands it is most definitely right.

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A friend of mine, who subscribes to this blog, asked me recently, “What I want to know, Fran, is how the F— do you find the time to write all that stuff?!”. Another friend said, “Why write it if you don’t know if anyone reads it”, evidently completely missing the point of why one writes anything. In anwer to the second question, I write because I enjoy it, and I find that writing about the music I am learning or am interested in, helps to crystallise my thoughts and feelings about it, allowing me time to consider it away from the keyboard.  Also, my visits to my teacher are very precious and valuable, and I would rather work with her than muse about music.

I am often asked how much piano practise I do; when I reply casually, “Oh, about two or three hours a day”, this statement is met with much exclaiming and pulling of eyes: “How do you find the time for that?!”. Sometimes, I am tempted to point out that Liszt allegedly practised for 12 hours a day, and that the average professional pianist puts in at least five or six hours per day, every day. The old adage “practise makes perfect” is definitely borne out by hours of repetitive practise: it’s the only way to improve muscular memory and it breeds a familiarity with the score – its shapes and patterns – that is invaluable. “Thinking time” away from the keyboard can also be classed as practising, as well as reading the score, going through it with a pencil, and listening and reading around the subject.

Regular practise gives structure to my day (and I am the world’s greatest procrastinator when it comes to boring reality tasks!), and a productive practise session can leave me on a “high”, with a self-satisfied sense of a job well done. And, as those who live with me will attest, not being able to practise – for reasons of absence from the piano, illness, tiredness etc – can leave me very grumpy indeed. The sheer physical effort of piano playing is akin to going to the gym: both activities release endorphins, the happy hormones which induce feelings of exhilaration, the so-called “runner’s high”.

During term time, when my time is limited by my teaching schedule (some 8-10 hours per week), my practising has to be highly organised. I don’t do exercises, in the traditional sense of 20 minutes warm up with scales and arpeggios, though I do create my own exercises out of the pieces I am working on (the Chopin Ballade has some useful arpeggiated passages, while the Gershwin Prelude No 1 is an exercise in syncopation and pulse). With at least three pieces on the go at any given time, I set myself clear targets for each practise session to ensure I cover everything I have set out to do. I set my iPhone to “airplane mode”, which means no one can call, email or text me, and try to ignore the doorbell. Then, armed with a mug of Lapsang Souchong, I begin.

Advice from my teacher about good working habits has been invaluable; also the book The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green taught me useful concentration and confidence-boosting techniques, which I now try to encourage in my students, especially the adults, who seem far more nervous and unsure of their abilities than the children I teach. But by far the biggest encouragement to keep going is actually being able to appreciate how much I have improved in the last eighteen months: I can hear the difference! And my confidence has been sufficiently raised that now when I open new music, I don’t immediately think “Ooh no, I couldn’t possibly…..”. I do admit, though, to being slightly fazed by Evgeny Kissin’s performance of the Chopin Ballade I am learning: I made the mistake of listening to him playing it only a few days into my work on the piece. It left me feeling utterly demoralised, but now, six weeks into the learning process, and roughly halfway through the piece (with all the really stormy, speedy passages still to learn!), I am delighted with the progress I have made, and am actively looking forward to playing it for my teacher next month.

And I’ve stopped listening to Kissin….

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At my recent piano lesson, my teacher suggested I set Chopin’s Etude Opus 10, No. 3 aside for a few months and turn my attention to “one of the bigger works, perhaps a Scherzo or a Ballade?”. Eighteen months ago, not long after I started having lessons again, I would have said “Oh, I’m not sure I am up to it”, and my teacher would have had to bolster my confidence sufficiently for me to actually open the manuscript. This time, I replied, most emphatically, that I would love to learn at least one of the Ballades. In fact, I heard the third and fourth Ballades at the Chopin evening at the Wigmore last Sunday and was struck, not for the first time, at how beautiful and varied they are.

“Learn the first or the third, for sure!” Sylvia said over pre-concert drinks at Tuesday’s concert. The first was in my head already, as I’d been listening to it on my iPod. “I just love the ‘ticking clock’ in the third.”

They are all wonderful, and looking through my just-received Dover edition of the Ballades, Impromptus and Sonatas, it occurred to me, yet again, how lucky we pianists are: to have so much repertoire to choose from. Every taste and ability is catered for. One could spend a lifetime only learning Chopin’s music and still one would not have time to tackle his entire ouevre.

“Too much fodder, not enough time!” is one of my oft-repeated laments, as I consider all the music I want to learn. My obsession with Chopin continues, but I love Schubert too, and Beethoven. Oh, and while we’re about it, I love Mozart, especially his later piano music. And Haydn. Then there’s the Bach Italian Suite I heard on Radio Three the other morning and thought “Ooh, I fancy that too!”. This time last year I was “into” the English Romantics – Delius, Ireland, Bridge. Before that, it was Albeniz, his exotic melodies reminding me of holidays in Andalucia. I am always hearing things on the radio, looking them up and thinking, “I’ll have a look at that next”. This is how I came to learn Chopin’s Etude Opus 25 No. 7, a deeply melancholic work, and my first ever Chopin Etude. By beginning a study of the Etudes, I felt I was striding with giants, for to me, and, I suspect, most serious pianists, the Etudes represent the high Himalayan peaks of the classical piano repertoire. With two now learnt (kinda), it has given me the confidence to tackle some of Chopin’s bigger works. One day I might even learn a Sonata…..

Selecting an appropriate programme for my Performance Diploma could be a nightmare, as I have such varied tastes at present. But that is one of the great pleasures of studying for the Diploma: the opportunity to study repertoire I might have otherwise ignored.

My students are equally spoilt for choice, though they do not realise it yet. At the beginner and early intermediate level, there is a wealth of music, not just “standards” such as easy-peasy Bach, Haydn, Dussek, but reductions of famous works (two of my students played a simplified version of ‘l’Autunno’ from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi for Grade 1 – an imaginative and enjoyable piece), plus huge amounts of newly-written music. One of the most popular pieces I have taught in the last year is John Rowcroft’s ‘African Dance’, a joyful piece in F major, with a relaxed township lilt and echoes of jazz in its harmonies and syncopation. I try to select music that will suit the individual personalities of my students: most of the boys want to do jazzy, fast, loud pieces or theme tunes like ‘Indiana Jones’ or ‘The Great Escape’, but sometimes, doing something like Bartok’s ‘Former Friends’ can be a good lesson in thoughtful, careful playing. Then there is Stravinsky’s Les Cinq Doigts. I have taught the Andantino from this suite to about five students, adults and children, and they are all hooked by it. It is easy under the fingers, requiring no hand jumps nor tricky fingerings, but it sounds “different”, with some interesting “crunchy” harmonies. It’s pretty and quirky, and a great introduction to twentieth-century repertoire.

Going back to the Ballades, I sight-read through the first Ballade yesterday, and skimmed through the other three. It’s definitely the No. 1 for me, with its rather stately opening achieved through the use of a Neapolitan chord, and questioning harmonies at the end of the introduction, not fully resolved until later in the piece. It has one of the most memorable melodies (the second theme, introduced at bar 68), and is a work full of contrasting textures and moods. Played badly, it can sound self-indulgent and egotistical. Played well, it spoils the senses, “pure music” in its finest form, allowing both listener and player to form their own personal narrative as the music unfolds.

So, which would you choose?