Rhapsody in Blue

In my lessons, I keep coming back to Rhapsody in Blue.  I have the Warner Bros. Music edition- New World Music.  I bought it about 1967 and the list price was $4.00 back in the day.  Though the entire work is challenging, page 5 is where a multitude of challenges begin.  On page 5, the very first measure contains a set of triplets, which is the and of beat one, and then two sets of 16ths and two sixteenths and an 1/8 note.  I tried for at least the last six months to interpret what I thought the rhythm was supposed to be.

Wrong....you cannot "interpret" the rhythm.  With the help of my piano teacher I have resorted to the metronome, which is an 1/8 note at the speed of 88.  It is amazing how the metronome points out the cold, harsh and stark reality of it all.  The first three lines of page 5 continue presenting their rhythmic challenges.

It seems since looking at this music over the last 46 years, as I bought this music when I was 12, that whenever I opened the music, the challenges of the first three pages, cause me to put the music in the piano bench.

Having a piano bench with a lid that lifts up, allows you to put music in there, that, frankly, you don't believe you can conquer.  So while it hides a lot of things when you are dusting, sometimes the closed lid can be perceived as closing off a dream.  Perhaps you should open the lid up, and see what has frustrated you in the past.  It may be, that if you have some wisdom you can try to learn something again.

My original Baldwin acrosonic piano with a piano bench with a lid, now belongs to a librarian friend of mine.  I don't know if she plays it and tunes it the way my parents and I did, but that piano bench may contain her dreams and she should open the lid and get them out.

On page 6 of the rhapsody, line three, there is a tranquillo section, that is easier.  Once you can get to this place in the music, you can gain some confidence.  Perhaps you don't know the prior two pages as well as you should but here is a place, where you can conclude that you are actually learning this great piano work.  I still think about the dare from Catherine Schroeder in 7th grade that caused me to buy the piece.  I told her that I could play it...again an out and out lie, but it forced me to get it, and put it in a place in my mind, that I was going to learn it ....sooner or later.