Picking Up the Pieces

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, ...