This week’s Kopprasch is the first in this collection with the tempo marking Adagio.  Although the majority of Kopprasch etudes tend to focus on drilling fundamental technical elements at moderate to fast tempos, the slower etudes are great for working on breath control, phrasing, intonation, and yes, even musicality.  While No. 7 appears quite simple, for me it was probably the most challenging etude to prepare up to this point.  I highly recommend practicing it with a tonic drone, as well as in various transpositions, both high and low.  If you really want to work on breath control, start with a metronome marking of quarter=52 or slower.  I think I settled somewhere around quarter=54-60 for this recording.  As for the recording setup, I thought I’d try standing up for this one, since I normally stand for most of my practice sessions.  I also turned the camera and microphone slightly.   All in all, I was pretty happy with the sound, although I set the microphone levels a little too high – there is some minor distortion on a couple of the higher and louder notes.