Skip to main content

Piano Practice as a Mardi Gras Thing

Today’s analogy is a really bad one, but it’s the one that comes to mind, perhaps because it’s the “holiday season.”

My practices lately have felt like Mardi Gras. Only sober.

Let me explain.

Say you’re in New Orleans at a Mardi Gras parade. People on the floats are throwing all kinds of trinkets, beads, candy, etc. If you try to randomly catch everything that’s thrown, you’re not going to catch anything. But if you look a float-person in the eye and yell “Throw me something, Mister!” you’re likely to get a handful of beads zinged right at you (unless, maybe, the float-person is not a mister).

I don’t know if that’s how it really is. I haven’t been to a Mardi Gras parade since 1989, and I haven’t been sober at a Mardi Gras parade since … before that.

All these new piano pieces—Bach, Beethoven, Shostakovich—are like Mardi Gras trinkets and beads sailing past me. They’re all so pretty and shiny and fun … I don’t want to have to spend my limited practice time focusing on just one. I want to enjoy all of them! Now! Throw me something! Everything!

I think it’s important that I focus on at least three (if not all four) pieces each day. My practice time is roughly 50 minutes. If I spend five minutes—OK, ten minutes—warming up, that leaves me with about 40 minutes. That leaves me an average of between ten and 13.33333333333 (ad nauseam) minutes per piece.

So I’m trying to look each piece in the eye and hope I can catch whatever trinket is there for the offering.

Onward to today’s practice …

After warming up, I started with the Fugue. Worked on the RH for mm 37-46, focusing mostly on the last few measures, where the LH and RH are tossing the alto part back and forth. I think I got some good work done for those 10 minutes.

Next, the Prelude. Did rhythms for mm 12 and 14 for about 10 minutes. So much fun to play.

Next, Beethoven. Worked on the LH run sections: mm 12-15 and mm 26-29. Did some rhythms, but the truth is, the notes fall so naturally beneath the fingers that rhythms seem less than necessary. (Ha. Rhythms are always necessary … particularly, perhaps, when they seem otherwise.) 10 minutes.

I spend the final 10 minutes on Shosti. Worked on RH only, mm 21-27 and mm 45-53.

So, those were the trinkets. I think I did OK. I focused intensely on short sections for short periods of time. It’s a different way of practicing—these short bits and pieces of time—but I think it’s what I’m going to have to do for now.

I’m ready for Saturday—I get to have marathon practice sessions on Saturdays! Lotsa beads!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rusty Lock and Key

I'm in a room. There's a door in front of me. On the other side of that door is a whole world of adventure and imagination and joy and delight, but for the moment, I'm locked in this gray little room. The door itself has a lock that is all rusted. I've tried to open it in the past, but I've never gotten very far. Sometimes I try to scrape the rust off the lock. I also have a rusty old key that I occasionally try to polish. Each time, after I've made a little progress, I'll put it into the keyhole in hopes of opening the door. It turns a half a millimeter or so, but the brief excitement at my progress dies quickly when I realize, once again, the lock isn't opening. I set the old key aside, and from there I can forget about the door, the lock, and the world outside, for months—years, even. But then something happens—I hear birdsong, or I catch a glimpse of color—and I pick up the key and start picking away at the stubborn rust. That dark little room is my ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dance of the Digits

Note: I've expanded significantly on this post over at my other blog, A Sort of Notebook . I am loving Liszt. I love the way my hands have to "share" the melody. I have so much to write on that, but I'm borrowing a computer and don't have enough time to do it justice. Suffice it to say that I've practiced three and a half wonderful hours today, and about two hours on Liszt alone. What I find wonderful about Liszt is that it pushes one hand hard, but not too hard. Then the other hand gets a turn to be pushed. But it's never both at the same time, and never one hand for too long. It's hard to explain. When I have more time to write, I'll word things rather more eloquently, I'm sure. All I can say now is that my fingers feel like they're dancing a wonderful, graceful dance. I've been trying to "play with my body," as my piano teacher says to do, so all of me is dancing. And Standchen, though it still need a lot of work (like, um...
3 comments
Read more

The Amazing Practice Tracker 2.0: Leveling Up My Piano Game

(Apologies for the cheesy clip art. I needed to come up with something, or the Blogger template would show a fuzzy, overly-enlarged snippet of the first chart below.) When I showed my husband my piano practice tracker, he said I should market and sell it. Ha. It’s not for sale, but I’m excited to share how this tool has transformed my practice—and why it might inspire all three of my readers. Since my last post about the Amazing Practice Tracker, I’ve made it even better. Here’s a peek at how it works, using my June data. All The Pretty Colors, All the Pretty Winners My tracker now sparkles with color: darker shades for active pieces, lighter ones for maintenance, technique, and sight-reading. Each day, the piece I practice most gets a bright yellow highlight—a little “gold medal,” if you will. (Click image for a slightly larger view.) A leaderboard automatically shows the day’s top piece and time. And if that isn't enough, I keep track of the month's leaders--specifically, ho...
Post a Comment
Read more