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Milestone


I've hit a milestone. It's not a particularly measurable milestone, but I know that I've hit it.

Ever since I started taking lessons again, I've had this sense of, "Ugh, I'm so out of piano-playing shape. My fingers are weak. My timing is off. My technique is bad. I can't remember the minor scales. Ugh, ugh, ugh."

Of course, there wasn't that much ugh. There is always piano love and piano happiness and piano joy. But I was definitely out of piano shape, physically and mentally.

I'm getting back into shape.

I've been playing a lot of Hanon, some of it quite slow, always focusing on keeping my thumb relaxed and forcing my fourth and fifth fingers (particularly on the left hand) to work. This has been a challenge, but I can tell that my fourth and fifth fingers are starting to feel more independent, starting to carry more of their own weight. This is huge.

The Chopin is starting to sound good. I don't know if I'm playing it as well as I played it in 2005 with Deborah, but I'm getting there. I'm playing it more intentionally than I did before. I've done an analysis of the whole thing, so I know exactly where I am at all times, and there is something to be said for that. (What, I don't know.) I've also been working hard at playing "levels of softness," and it's helped my Chopin-playing.

The Bach prelude sounds good as well. I still need to do some work with rhythms to get it perfectly even, but I have the notes down cold. And even the fugue is coming along. I can play through the entire thing, start to finish, at a super-slow pace. I could probably hum each of the three parts by heart .... okay, maybe not totally, but almost.

And the Schubert ... ahh. I hit a milestone this weekend when I finally got the fingering down for everything and can play the entire piece slowly. So now I'm ready to do the real work! I love that final page, the Coda ... I have it down pretty well, at tempo, and it is soooo much fun to play--so loud and powerful and tempestuous! Like me! Ha ha!

Oh, and scales! I can play the majors perfectly at 76! And the minors at a little slower than that! All contrary-motion, of course. Neither are "fast" yet, but I can play them, and they feel comfortable. I'm no longer uncertain about where my fingers should go. I just know. I guess practicing every single scale, every single day, will do that to you.

These days, I'm just feeling a greater sense of power at the piano, something that has come from the many hours of practice (including finger exercises ... so many finger exercises), and from detailed, focused study of where the music is going from measure to measure. I have put in the work, and will continue to put in the work ... and I'm starting to see results.

It's all strange because it seems I'm never able to get any focused, long-term practice in. It's all just 10 minutes of scales here, some finger exercises there, twenty minutes of work on a measure of the Bach a little later, maybe ten minutes to play through the Schubert Coda a couple of times. That's it. But every little bit really does count.

Piano life is good.
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