One unexpected benefit of this little practice blog? It’s like having a time machine. Sure, I can hear how much I’ve improved (always encouraging on those days when progress feels invisible). But the real surprise is this: I can stumble across ideas I once played, loved ... and then totally forgot about. Case in point: today. I uploaded yesterday's take on the You Are My Sunshine Rag to YouTube. Then, out of curiosity, I went back to my version from two months ago , just to check that I wasn’t repeating myself. (Before yesterday, I don't think I'd touched the piece since then.) Here's what I found: The rag roll section is much more solid now. The little curlicue ending ... still shaky. The best part: I had completely forgotten that, in August, my right hand arpeggiates up an octave halfway through the chorus. It is delightful, and I can't believe I'd forgotten about it! So I'm going to bring back that little arpeggiation next time! For now, here’s yesterday...
September had a slow start, but I still logged 37.1 hours of practice, averaging about 1.2 hours a day! My top projects were Liszt (7.1 hours), Bare Necessities (6 hours), technique (6 hours), America the Beautiful Rag (3.1 hours), and the PWJ Lead Sheets course (3 hours). I also kicked off Honky Tonk Women and worked on St. Louis Blues/G blues improv. September Highlights In the past month, I managed to: Prepare Liszt for my upcoming Piano With Rebecca performance this Saturday. Master Jonny’s St. Louis Blues Challenge. Keep my maintenance pieces performance-ready. Start reviving Jingle Bells Rag for the holidays. Be seriously inspired by Chuck Leavell’s live performance ! Realize I want to shift focus away from " playing by the dots " and more toward improvising, arranging, composing, and playing by ear. Revive Bare Necessities to near-performance level—check out this video of the first section! (Apologies for the weird angle!) I also hit my percentage goals (see chart) ...