Yes, this is possibly the cheesiest graphic I've ever used on this blog ... and that's saying something. I wish I had a video to share, but I had to practice on the headphones last night. So you get the cheesy graphic instead. Hitting the Speed Wall At my piano lesson Monday afternoon, I lamented my inability to play "Bare Necessities" and "Jingle Bells" at a lightning-fast tempo. I've been particularly frustrated about "Bare Necessities." I mean, I can play it pretty well at 100, but if I get any faster than that, the whole thing (meaning the "B" section, which is the ragtime section, as well as the final section/outro) falls apart. I had made some slight progress last week when I tried touching the keys more lightly; it is, of course, easier to play fast when you're not going all the way down on the keys. But I was still making sloppy errors -- missing notes, accidentally grabbing an inner note when playing an octave , etc. I wa
According to my practice log, I've spent about 10 hours on "Jingle Bells Rag." Most have that time has focused on the outro. Still, I learned it pretty quickly (for me), and memorizing it wasn't too hard (mainly because there are just a few chords, and a lot of repetition). The Challenges The biggest challenge will be with the tempo--it needs to be a lot faster than what I'm currently playing! Some sections, such as the crossed-hands section, will be easy to get up to speed (mostly). Other sections will take more work. The hardest section, by far, is the outro. It comes right after the high-register "jingle bell" section and begins with climbing arpeggios. The arpeggios aren't too bad, but there's the one little spot where the left hand is playing C7 to F (at 2:47 in the video) that has dogged me ever since I first started learning this piece! I've come a long way with it, but it's going to be a while before I can play that section as fas