Picking Up the Pieces

Ever feel that way? Work has been super-busy, particularly this week because I'm having to put in extra hours so I can leave early Friday--we have a piano group class at 4:00 in Asheville, which means I need to leave work no later than 2:00 or so. Had a 2-hour lesson on Saturday afternoon. Awesome lesson. It wore me out, but it was a great lesson. I honestly think I may be playing better now than I've ever played in my life. Prelude sounds great. I'll be playing it for the group class. I'm mainly working on speeding it up a bit, though Deborah said it sounds fine at the speed it is (about 76). Fugue: She raved about how well I played the first two pages. The last four sounded good but not great. "You're not thinking in musical sentences." So I need to work on making the last four pages less of a run-on mess of notes. OK. Liszt: I'm lingering a bit too much here and there, but for the most part it sounds good. I'm playing it for the group class, too...

I like my job. I love the fact that I don't love my job. The network folks monitor employees' internet rambles, so I'm sure I'll get "caught" sooner or later for blogging. Thing is, I punch out before I blog, and I punch in after I finish blogging. I work hard at this job. I work from the moment I walk in until the moment I leave, save for the 45 minutes or so I take mid-day to commune with Sebastian, Franzi, Bob, and the rest of them. The only bad thing I'm really doing is using the company system for blogging. I work for a good company. I have a good, laid-back boss, and I work with some really great people. I've made some friends. Life is good.

It seems my blog is dead. Three years of blogging ... gone. I'm not sure what to do now. Should I just blog from here? Should I start a new blog that isn't just piano-related, since piano isn't the only thing in my life? I definitely don't want to use Blogger again. Should I go to squarespace or wordpress or one of the other blogging services? I've actually been thinking about starting a piano podcast. As if I have the time. I'm kind of depressed about this. Boo hoo. :(

I had a whopping 25 minutes available for practicing today. I spent most of it drilling this: Have I mentioned that "Elfe" is a complex little piece for a small-handed pianist? I did? Oh, OK. It was fun, though. It's really, er, stretching my capabilities. Piano lesson tomorrow! I can't wait!

Thursday's practice session lasted all of 45 minutes. I basically flew out of a meeting at 12:00, got to the piano as quickly as I could, let time stand still as I practiced for 45 minutes, then ran back to the office for another meeting at 1:00. Not much time to write at the moment. (Being important at a job has its perks, but it also means never being able to slack!) Here's what I focused on today: This is "Elfe." After the usual scales and arps, I spent 20 minutes--20 whole minutes--on this itty-bitty little section. This sure is a complicated "intermediate" piece. It would help if I had Rach-sized hands, but oh well. I'm playing block chords in rhythms, only I can't play block chords in the last two chords of the LH in the section circled above. So, I'm in rhythms, going from block chords to rolled chords for two LH chords. I'm not playing fast, but my hands seem to be scampering elfe-like all over the place. I also worked on the second 9...

Not a bad practice today. I started with the usual scales and arps and really, really focused on using my forearms and not just my hand/finger strength to strike the keys. This "fingery playing" is a technique issue I've been dealing with for some time, and habits are hard to break--particularly when no one's ever corrected the habit before. But the arm-thing has begun to feel more natural. I'm getting there. My "intermediate" piece, "The Elf," is from a series of short pieces by Robert Schumann. Here's a blurb from Music Web International : "The Albumblätter are twenty miscellaneous little pieces, sounding much like other miscellaneous little Schumann pieces; the playing is precise, dramatic, and idiomatic, but at times I found it hard to keep my attention on them, even though number 17, ‘Elfe,’ is a marvel of pianistic skill. Some may prefer these rather cool performances, but I look for those uniquely Schumann passions in this musi...

I'm still alive. I'm just very, very, pre-occupied with the day job. I worked my first 45+ hour week last week, and I'm well on the way to my second. We were gone all Labor Day weekend, camping near Boone, NC, home of the Appalachian State Mountaineers, who beat Michigan in football on Saturday. (Hubster is an Ohio fan and was delighted.) It was a pretty good weekend, but not a restful one. "A Sort of Notebook" is gone. I'm glad it's gone. I was so tired of it. I don't know if I'm going to pick up blogging again, but if I do, you, dear readers, will be the first to know. I managed to eke out 45 minutes of practicing today, most of it on Schumann's "The Elf." Last week was a disaster for practicing, as I didn't take one single lunch break all week, and then I was piano-less for the entire Labor Day weekend. My next lesson is Saturday, so I'm going to try for two practice sessions a day from here until then ... even if those ses...

It looks like "A Sort of Notebook" is an ex-blog. I'm not going to post a link to it because it's been taken over by spammers. It's Saturday night and I love merlot. No, I'm not drunkly. I went to a 50th birthday party tonight and had two lovely glasses of merlot. Then we went to a toy store. (I should never go to a toy store after two glasses of merlot, and after running eight miles. I bought some yellow teeth, a remote-control fart machine, two crazy pencils, and a present for my future niece who has yet to be conceived.) We went to an art gallery earlier that happens to have a grand piano and I played the Bach Prelude. Oh my, but it's sounding nice! Deborah (my piano teacher) has a grand (I can't remember the manufacturer. Forgive me.) that she wants to sell me for $8,800, or $100 a key. Hubster thinks that's too much. I told him it's a steal--we get the pedals, and the wood, and the wheels, and the bench for free! Lightning struck last nigh...

I had a two-hour piano lesson yesterday. It was awesome. I was afraid it wouldn't be. I had to work extra hours Monday through Thursday so that I could leave at 2:00 on Friday so that I could make it to piano for a 4:00 lesson. Which means I didn't get to take lunch on Monday through Thursday, and lunchtime is when I practice. So no practices. All week. No practices at home either, because once I've run/worked out, I don't get home until after 8 p.m. And I'm exhausted by the time I've had dinner and a shower. Work has been extremely busy, but in a good way. I'm enjoying the job. I can't say I love the job, but I like it. It's a paycheck, and it's somewhat challenging, and I work with good people. It's a good way to support my piano and writing habits. I'll write a little more later. For now, I'll just let the world know that I had a great lesson. And Robert, I'm planning to e-mail you this weekend, so don't lose hope! :)

But the blog isn't dead. Not yet anyway. I've been practicing regularly but haven't made the time to post about those practice sessions. I haven't had a lesson in several weeks, and won't have one until the first week of July or later. But I've been practicing. I'm going to talk a little bit about my intermediate piece right now. I've spent more time on it than I imagined I would, but you know how we musician-types get when our perfectionist gene kicks in ... I'm playing an "easy" Bach prelude in F. It's in a piano book I bought in England, something called "World's Greatest Piano Pieces" or some such, and it has a few dozen "popular" pieces, mostly from early-intermediate to intermediate, with a few late-intermediate pieces thrown in. The prelude has been a challenge for me. The notes are easy enough--they are mostly broken chords, typical of a Bach prelude. Nearly every measure has some form of an F chord, a Bb...

Scales: A-flat major and F minor. Ah, evidence of my lack of practice reared its ugly head tonight. The scales sounded OK at 92, except for when the LH is at the bass end of the scale (all the way to the left) and the RH is far at the treble end (all the way to the right). That's when my LH starts acting a little drunk, stumbling around and acting, well, uncouth. Pianistically speaking. I did some drilling on the "turnaround" sections of the two scales, and it helped. A little drilling goes a long way. Then, I went on to arps. Folks, I don't deserve a breakthrough. If anything, I deserve to move back a few notches on the metronome, particularly when it comes to arps, which have always gave me fits. Granted, I was working on the "easy" F major and D minor arps tonight ... though I kind of find white-key arps harder because they provide no black-key "anchors" to touch down on. I played F major at 72. Then I thought, "I really hate that jumpy...

I spent the morning working on Chapter 16 of my novel. Then I went and got my oil changed. Then I was going to come home, change clothes, and go work out (yes, I'm making the most of this last "free" week before my new job begins). So I got home. I thought, "If I don't practice now, I'm not going to practice at all today." After all, I do have a meeting from 6 to 8, and then a conference call from 8 to 9, and we can't forget that the season finale of "House" comes on from 9 to 10. I know. Pitiful. "House" shouldn't trump piano. Ever. So I sat down at around 2:30 p.m. and practiced. Scales: G Major and E Minor. Both sounded fine. I'm at 92 still--as I said in an earlier post, I'm pretty much picking up where I left off when I stopped practicing regularly a few months ago. Onward to arps at 72. Today I did B Major and G# Minor. They sounded fine. Not great. I don't know if I will ever be remotely happy with my cont...

I practiced, and now I'm paying for it. Music has a way of catapulting me into manic mode, so here I am in manic mode. I played scales and arps to start with, as usual. Once again, it was like I'd never left the piano. I flew through contrary motion Db and bb like I'd been practicing them all along. Same goes for Bb and g contrary motion arps. Smooth as silk. I am not lying. Then again, I usually play pretty well when I sit down to play for the first time after a piano sabbatical. I'm embarrassed to say that I've taken more piano sabbaticals than I'd like to admit. This little 2-month sabbatical has been nothing compared to some of my previous ones. I declined to play my "intermediate piece," a Bach prelude that isn't a "P&F" prelude. Instead I played through the Prelude in C from WTC 1. Can there be a perfect piece of music? If so, can this prelude be it? No? It must be the unfortunately monikered "Air on the G String," the...

I don't know where to start. I've been forced to prioritize over the last few months and, unfortunately, and in contrast to my usual priority ordering, piano has had to sit on the back burner. I didn't plan it this way, but it's how it worked out. The months of April and May were very busy, between volunteer work and freelance jobs. My piano teacher, Deborah, was planning a recital at the time, and a couple of my "lessons" turned into listening/critique sessions where she played her pieces and I listened and gave feedback. We did this for several reasons: (1) I hadn't practiced; (2) she needed the practice; and (3) I think it was good for me as a piano student (piano colleague?) to have these experiences. Deborah said she would give me those lessons back, since they hadn't been actual lessons where I played and she critiqued/guided. That was fine with me. I was working a contract tech-writing job through part of April and most of May, so I suggested th...

Stay tuned. I'm going to start posting on this neglected blog again soon.

Yesterday, Deborah and I made the mutual decision to cancel my lesson. I've been estranged from the piano all week, and was going to need a "practice lesson" anyway. And Deborah had an unexpected schedule change. It wasn't a change that would interfere with my lesson, but it would have required her to race around and be stressed and have to hurry ... just to get home so I could have a practice lesson. And I wasn't all that crazy about the idea of the hour-long drive for a practice lesson. We both agreed. Not worth it. So, did I practice yesterday? NO. Why not? I worked at the bookstore, then ran four miles, then came home. My husband was home early, and it was Valentine's Day. It would be really bad form to lock myself up in the piano room when one's spouse comes home early for Valentine's Day. So I didn't practice. And I won't get much practicing in this weekend because I'll be on the road and piano-less for most of it. I'm not stresse...

My February 9 practice was short and sweet. I worked only on the Liszt, playing in rhythms. Do you know how hard it is to play a piece in rhythms when the LH is even and the RH is all over the place, with 2-against-3 and later with 4-against-9? Don't worry--I'm not trying to be impeccably exact when I'm doing rhythms. And I've discovered what a *rut* I've gotten into with the Liszt. It's so beautiful, and part of me is content just to play it through, again and again, and be done with it. But rhythms are forcing me to look at the seamy underside, at the 0's and 1's that make this piece what it is. And it's not an altogether pleasant experience. But it's waking me up. The beauty of this piece has lulled me into a sort of sleepy complacency when I play it. I think that's why Deborah said not to play the piece through a single time this week. It is so tempting to just play it through and listen to the beautiful music. But when I do that, I'm...

Deborah wants me to pick out an intermediate piece to start learning next week. I went to the ARCT Syllabus guide that Robert so graciously sent me and looked up all of the pieces that I considered "intermediate." They were mostly Grade 6 and Grade 7. Not intermediate enough. I looked up my Beethoven Sonatina in G, my most recent intermediate piece. It's a Grade 3--a very early intermediate. So I'm looking for something in the Grade 4-5 category. And I'd kind of like to work on one of those pieces that everyone loves to hear--Fur Elise, Chopin's Em prelude, the Brahms waltz in Ab--all pieces I learned in junior high, but pieces that I'd like to re-learn, and learn to play well , and not like my junior-high self, whose heart wasn't in the music. And they are pieces I love, and that others love hearing as well. Hmm. Fur Elise is Grade 7. The Chopin Prelude is Grade 8. The Brahms Waltz is Grade 8. Too advanced for an intermediate piece? I'll talk it ...

I've titled this post "Asheville Piano Teacher" for a reason. If anyone in western NC is looking for a good piano teacher and googles "Asheville Piano Teacher," I want this blog to come up. Deborah Belcher is probably the best teacher I've ever had. My last two lessons have been quite good. I think that's partly because my practices this week were good. I've really made strides in the fugue. I've been working exclusively in rhythms and can play the first two and a half pages at a decidedly faster tempo than my usual creeping pace. The notes are starting to feel natural (there's a joke in there somewhere, since this piece has seven sharps) to my hands. Really. I'm getting to where I don't have to think about every little movement and gesture. They're just happening . I sometimes doubted that I would ever get there. So I played the first two pages for Deborah, and she wrote "Great Work!!!" in my piano notebook. Of course, ...