Practice for Monday, January 28, 2008

After Saturday’s (somewhat) disappointing lesson, I decided to try to spend a few minutes of this practice on each piece.

Scales and arps, blah, blah, blah. Sounding fine. Deborah said we could start doing scales in thirds if I want … I didn’t answer. I don’t know if my brain is ready for that yet.

Beethoven: This is a fun little piece. It’s an interesting little piece. I started working on it HS and made analysis notes as I played through it. It seems a little schizophrenic, yet it is utterly charming.

I once knew a guy named Kenny who was schizophrenic yet utterly charming. Maybe I’ll start calling this piece “Kenny”.

So Kenny (the Beethoven piece, not the person) and I were on something like the first blind date today. I’ve run through and written in all the fingering, sized him up so to speak, and now it’s time to get to know Kenny, to start getting a sense of how he feels in my hands.

OK, this is starting to sound R-rated. Suffice it to say that Kenny (the Beethoven piece, not the person) feels quite nice, thank you very much.

So, after a whopping 12 minutes of Kenny, I moved on to Shostakovich. Didn’t do anything particularly challenging—just played through the “A” section HS a few times, using the fingering that Deborah recommended, replaying/drilling any fingering that didn’t come “naturally”.

The Lyric Waltz has the typical “oom-pah-pah” in the bass, and Deborah has said to use a my “3” finger on the low notes instead of the “5”. I understand her point—using the “3” is more forceful and gives a greater sense of balance—but it feels weird. So I did some practicing of this, and it wasn’t long before it started to feel more natural.

I took a short interlude to run through Schumann, blocking the chords for "The Elf". I’m hitting all the notes, but she said I’ve lost some of the dynamics that I had earlier. So I just blocked the chords and trained my laser-sharp focus on dynamics.

Onward to Bach. Didn’t allow myself to touch C#. (Yes, it was tantalizing. But I yielded not to temptation.) Went straight to Bb.

Just a few minutes allowed for the prelude. Did the same thing as I did for the other two pieces: played through the first couple of pages (up to the big chords), getting a feel for the fingering.

I’ll try to scan some of these pieces for this blog so my readers can get a better idea of what I’m doing when I say I’m working on the fingering.

I didn’t get to the fugue. Hoping to squeeze in a half-hour or so of practice tonight after I get home.

Comments

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 ...

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...

March Goals Recap/Looking Ahead to April

It's April 1, and time to revisit the goals I set for last month. I practiced a total of 50.45 hours in March, averaging 1.62 hours (or just over an hour and a half) per day. Realistically, I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day on weekdays, and I usually get at least one longer practice (or multiple shorter practices) in on one or both days of the weekend to bring the average up. CLASSICAL GOALS Chopin, F Minor Nocturne March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready. I have about 90% of the piece by memory, but I still have some work to do before it's performance-ready. The only two sections that I don't quite have are "The Agitation" and the "stretto" section with the seventh chords. I'll work on both this week and will have them both memorized before the weekend. April Goal: Finish memorizing, and polish, polish, polish! My focus now is really on phrasing and dynamics. I have the notes down, even in the difficult passages. Fro...

Picking Up the Pieces

Search This Blog