Picking Up the Pieces

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

Scott Joplin's "Solace" is not a particularly hard piece to learn, but I have really struggled to memorize it. It's been much harder to memorize than Maple Leaf Rag, which is a technically more difficult piece. Still Shaky ... Especially When the Camera Is On I've now memorized "Solace," but it's still shaky. I made a video of myself playing it by memory, lapses and all, because it will help me remember where I need to work. There are the obvious spots (such as the second half of the B section, which I most recently memorized), but there are also the less-obvious spots that I can play just fine when the camera isn't on, but which rear their ugly memory-lapsing heads when I have an "audience." A mistake-riddled video and a list of mistake spots doesn't make for the most interesting blog post, but this is going to help me to know where I need to focus my next few practices of this beautiful piece. I also want to work on voicing--there

Earlier this year, pianist and Scott Joplin expert Scott Kirby did a lecture/performance here in Augusta. (I wrote about it at the end of this blog post .) He played quite a few whole Joplin rags, as well as snippets of others. He played "Solace" in full, and I loved it. Here is a YouTube video of him playing "Solace" back in 2008. I seem to remember that he played it at a slightly slower tempo when I saw him, but I could be wrong. I just remember that he played it with great sensitivity, and the audience, including me, was very moved by the performance.

 I wrote "Logan's Song" years and years ago. Thirty-two years ago, to be exact. It was during the long, sweltering weeks following Hurricane Andrew in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when we had no power and no water and were all about to lose our minds. The devastation was unimaginable, and the hopelessness was palpable. It was a difficult time. On top of all that, my circle of friends and I had recently experienced unspeakable tragedy: the death of a friend, Cari Lockhart, age 28, and her 20-month-old son, Logan. It's a long story and I won't go into the grisly details here (because they are grisly), but I will say that their deaths were a shock to all of us. And then, just a few days later, around August 19 or 20, Hurricane Andrew washed away much of South Louisiana. I had just graduated college that May. I'd had a difficult year, with a couple of suicide attempts and several stays at ICUs and psychiatric hospitals. It's a miracle I was able to graduate college

Liebesträume arrived yesterday! I am so excited! Last night I sat down and sight-read the whole thing, even the cadenza(?) sections. It's going to be a challenge. Some sections are going to require more work than others. But it's definitely doable. However ... A Change of Plans, and Why I'm going to set Liebesträume aside for a few weeks. Last night as I looked at my percentage goals, I realized one of the downsides of having a lot of piano projects on my plate, and it is this: Even if I meet all of my percentage goals, each project will get so little focus that progress will be negligible. I expect to have Solace, Jingle Bells Rag, and Amazing Grace all "in the bag" by the end of the month, but that expectation simply isn't realistic, considering the amount of time I'll be able to give each of them. When I start the Liszt, I want to be able to devote a good chunk of my practice time (25% or 30%) to it. But if I do that now, my many other projects will bar

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote down some general thoughts about my October piano plans . October did not start off the way I thought it would, thanks to Hurricane Helene ! September also didn't end the way I thought it would. Yes, I went from Sept. 27 all the way to Oct. 6 with zero piano time! So I'm having to do some recalibrating and readjusting. Here are my percentage goals for October: I'll break these up into categories and write a bit on each.  New Pieces (35%) Technically, I only have one new piece, Liszt's Liebestraume No. 3 (25%). I haven't started it yet -- not only did I just get piano access back last night, but my music shipment has been delayed. I could print it out, I suppose, but I wanted the Alfred edition. It should be here today or tomorrow. Another new-ish piece is The Old Rugged Cross (10%), which is actually an arrangement I'm working on. I started on it at the beginning of September , but I set it aside for the rest of the month (mainly