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Week of June 4

It's time to revive my practice-logging system. I'll be logging my practice hours, as well as my own comments, observations, and reflections about practice sessions, here. If you want to share your own practice notes or read mine, feel free. If you don't, then you can simply ignore any post that begins with the piano image at the top.

If you want to access the week's practice log quickly, simply click the link beneath the piano icon in the sidebar.

So let's get started!

Sunday, June 4: Approximately 90 minutes of practice. I warmed up with the usual contrary-motion scales; today was E major and C# minor. Then I did arpeggios (Ab major and F minor). For Suzuki, I'm working on a Bach Minuet in G that I first learned when I was about eight. I have the whole thing by ear, so Deborah now has me focusing very intently on articulation. I'm also supposed to be listening to the next Suzuki piece so I can learn it by ear, but I haven't been listening. Bad, bad piano student. I just really don't like doing the Suzuki stuff.

Most of my practice time today was spent on the Bach Fugue in C# Major. My practice times have been so spotty in the last few months that it seems I'm going to have to relearn what I thought I'd learned earlier. I can play each voice on its own, hands separately, all the way through ... or I could. When I tried the voices today, my fingers were tripping all over themselves and I had to trudge through it super slowly in order to play it.

I ended up having to drill small sections, hands separately for most of my practice. I got through the first page and a half. I'll do the next page and a half tomorrow, and the rest of the piece on Tuesday. That way, I should be somewhat ready for Wednesday's lesson, when I'll (hopefully) start ... tah-dah! ... putting the voices together.

I worked on the Liszt a little bit, but it's late and I was starting to get tired. Rather than practice badly because of low concentration, I simply played through the two sections I worked on last night, very slowly, a few times. And that was it.

Since it's late and I'm too tired to practice Liszt, I guess I'll go to sleep!

Monday, June 5: Snatched 45 luxurious minutes to do scales, arps, a Suzuki run-through, and a bit of Bach. Practiced the bass voice of the fugue through the Episode II. Yes, I'm having to re-learn it--knowing that learning it all hands-together will be yet another re-learning. But, as they say at McDonalds, "I'm lovin' it." Or, as Bach might say, "ich liebe es."

I'm hoping to practice a few more hours tonight after I get home from graduation.

Tuesday, June 6: Took about 70 minutes this afternoon to do scales, arps, Suzuki, and Liszt. I now have the last page and a half of the Liszt sounding pretty good. Did quite a bit of drilling of the last half-page. It's actually one of the easiest sections of the piece, but those easy sections can be deceiving, so I made sure to drill it as much as I would drill a harder section.

I didn't get around to Bach. Hopefully I will tonight.

Wednesday, June 7: Didn't really practice today because I had a lesson. Because I'll be hiking for a few days, Deborah gave me small assignments: Start learning the Bach Fugue hands-separately, play through the Prelude once, and work on voicing in Section 12 of the Liszt.

Saturday, June 10: Worked for about 60 minutes on scales, arps, Suzuki, and the Prelude and Fugue. Played through the Prelude twice (it's not hard at all), and started working on the Fugue hands-separately. I'd thought it would be a difficult step from voices-separately, but it wasn't so bad.

TOTAL PRACTICE TIME FOR WEEK OF JUNE 4: 4 hours., 41 minutes

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