Picking Up the Pieces

Greetings from your long-absent piano blogger! Have my three regular readers been wondering what happened to me? Well, in this case, infrequent blogging does not translate to infrequent practice. What it does translate to is a lot of life-stress, particularly related to work, and I haven't had the time or desire to be at the computer any more than necessary. So no blogging. I do want to write a quick update, though, for myself as much as for anyone who is reading this. The main reason I started this blog was so I could track my own progress, so I want to start doing that again. Below is a quick update on my progress in everything. Scales Slow and steady is the rule here. I'm slowly, very slowly, working my way up the metronome. I'm still not playing anything fast (72 for major scales, 52 for minor), but I'm working on playing everything perfectly--smoothly, with total control. I now have near-total confidence in being able to play all the notes of a given scales; f...

I've hit a milestone. It's not a particularly measurable milestone, but I know that I've hit it. Ever since I started taking lessons again, I've had this sense of, "Ugh, I'm so out of piano-playing shape. My fingers are weak. My timing is off. My technique is bad. I can't remember the minor scales. Ugh, ugh, ugh." Of course, there wasn't that  much ugh. There is always piano love and piano happiness and piano joy. But I was definitely out of piano shape, physically and mentally. I'm getting back into shape. I've been playing a lot of Hanon, some of it quite slow, always focusing on keeping my thumb relaxed and forcing my fourth and fifth fingers (particularly on the left hand) to work. This has been a challenge, but I can tell that my fourth and fifth fingers are starting to feel more independent, starting to carry more of their own weight. This is huge. The Chopin is starting to sound good. I don't know if I'm playing ...

Yesterday the plan was to work on Schubert, and I did ... but I spent another half-hour on Bach, specifically measure 28 of the fugue. I had a hard time with this one. A couple of measures before, the F is sharped, and I kept wanting to play F#, particularly in the left hand. I finally ended up writing in a natural sign. I also couldn't figure out which fingering to use on that same F-natural. Four on F-natural, five on E-flat? Playing a black key with 1 or 5 is almost never a good idea, though it's occasionally necessary. Bach said to use 3, and I ended up going back to 3, even though it's a stretch from the 1 on D. I also struggled to hear the individual voices at the end of the measure when the soprano comes back in. I don't like to use the word "struggle" because that implies that the process wasn't enjoyable, and it was totally enjoyable. It took some concentrated work, and I forgot time as I played the voices hands separately, played slowly, p...

Today's practice was broken into several short sessions. This morning, I tackled scales and arpeggios: All major scales at 72, all harmonic minor scales at 40. I feel like I could go a good bit faster on both, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. As always, I'm playing four octaves with contrary motion. Arpeggios are going well, I guess. I'm playing them the "old" way--or the "pre-Deborah" way. Deborah told me not to worry so much about connecting the notes, at least not to the point of twisting my hands this way and that. But now I'm back to the old, legato way ... which is fine. It's actually easier. Plus, I'm not doing contrary motion. It's just four octaves, repeated once, and that's it. I think it's good to do it this way for now. I'm definitely out of practice, and while I'm finding the arps "easy," I know there's always room for improvement. At another short practice, I played through Han...

OK, so maybe I'm not going to the beach, but I do  see some quality piano time on the near horizon of my life! It's Friday, and my family has no plans for the evening. That means I will (metaphorically) clock out at 5:30 or so, and then I descend up on Henry the Grand and spend a few hours practicing ... oh, I don't know ... Schubert, probably. We do have a few things planned for tomorrow, but just a few. I'm hoping to spend a good chunk of the morning with Henry. And then I have Sunday afternoon. A whole afternoon with Henry! My husband and daughter are tossing around the idea of going to the beach for the first few days of the Thanksgiving holidays. I am gently encouraging them to go and have fun. Meanwhile, I'll stay home (since I don't have vacation until Thursday) and ... PLAY THE PIANO! (when I'm not working, of course) And write. And think. And walk. And read. And do all those things I never have time for. Most important is piano. I a...

This morning I returned to Schubert for the first time in a couple of weeks. You read that right. It's been about two weeks (maybe more?) since I last practiced Schubert. There is something wrong with your life and your priorities when you don't have 30 minutes a day to spare for piano practice or  voice practice. And there is definitely something wrong. Not only have I not had time for piano, I haven't had time for writing, exercise, meditation/prayer, reading, listening to music, blogging, or even housework. It seems I go from work (where I'm always behind) to toting Anne places (where I'm always in a rush, and always late). Take, for instance, right now. I'm sitting down at 7:40 (work doesn't start until 8:30). My calendar has my first three hours blocked off for non-priority stuff that I need to get out of the way before I start on the priority stuff. But I just checked the ticket queue, and guess what. I have a good hour's worth of client...

How has it been almost two weeks since I've blogged here? It's not because I haven't been practicing ... though the practice sessions haven't been as often as I'd like. I am continuing to work on the usual pieces, though my main focus for this past week has been the getting the fugue into my fingers. I guess it's been "nothing to write home about"--just slow, steady learning of measure by measure, starting with the final measure and working my way backwards. I can now play the entire second page through quite smoothly, if slowly. My next lesson is tomorrow and I have a busy night tonight, so I don't imagine I'll get much further. I'm also getting through my scales in less time, now that I've upped the majors to 72 and the minors to 40. Those minors are not quite so tough anymore. Even C# and G# aren't too bad. Playing them every single day for a couple of months has worked its magic! (If regular practice can be called "magic...

Despite almost no time for practice last week, I managed to start writing in some fingering for the B-flat major fugue, starting at the end. At my piano lesson yesterday, I played through the last few measures. We talked a bit about the fingering, and she agreed that my LH fingering in measures 45 and 46 will work well. Here's measure 45: Bach said to use 3 and 2 for the C and E-flat, but I switched it to 2 and 1, which makes it easier for me to move from 5 to 3 in the bass. The thumb of my left hand just slides down from E-flat to D, and all is good. I am so excited about playing another fugue! The C#-major one was a bear (albeit one that I loved dearly), and this one has been a lot easier (so far) to pick up. For the most part, the fingering flows pretty smoothly; I've only come across a few weird/nonstandard fingerings ... like this move from 4 to 5 in the LH: Normally, you would go from 4 to 3 there, but the 3 is busy playing the B-flat above. I just lov...

Yesterday was my first lesson with my new teacher where I felt truly unprepared. Despite some good practice time over the weekend, I hadn't been able to practice more than a couple of scales (literally, a couple of scales) all week. So, it was pretty much another Week in the Life of an Adult Piano Student. It was a good lesson, though. Carol gave me a lot to think about--my practice-work is now cut out for me, you might say. I went through some scales and then a Hanon exercise, and she had me freeze mid-play, and pointed out how my left wrist had dropped. I was using pretty good technique in my right hand (as far as the palm being higher than the fingertips), but my left wrist had taken a dive. She'd mentioned something the week before about my left wrist needing to match my right wrist, and I'd thought about it ... but apparently I hadn't thought about it enough. So there was that. The other issue was that I've adopted this loose, limp, flourish-y movement wi...

I really shouldn't refer to the ben marcato  section as the "hard section." I'm sure that does something negative psychologically. Still, it's considerably more challenging than the flowing E-flat scales, and for several reasons. It's much more disjunct, for one thing, so that hands are jumping around a little. And then there are lots of accidentals, so your brain can't relax and just play what's expected for the key. For my mom (and any non-theory people), what this means is: If I'm in, say, B-minor, then I know that my fingers will be playing any combination of the following notes: B, C#, D, E, F#, G, and A (or generally, A#). Those are the notes in the B minor scale. So when I see a "C" in the music, I automatically know to play a C#. This is a challenge when you're first learning music, but I've played long enough (and I know my scales well enough), that I really don't have to think about it. My brain just automaticall...

Last night I grabbed about 20 minutes to focus on Bach. I have been playing the scale sections in swing and in rhythms of 4 (starting on a different note/beat for each run-through), all in the effort to make the scales smoother and more equal, without (in particular) my fourth finger on my left hand slipping and stumbling and making things uneven. At the very end of my practice, I made a quick recording (without the metronome) to let my many (okay, two) (I think) readers hear how it's sounding. Keep in mind that my phone recorder is very low-tech (making everything sound loud), and that there wasn't much I could do about the air conditioning and the TV in the background. There are still a few spots of unevenness, and of course I missed a note or two (which is typical for when I'm recording something!), but overall I'm happy with how it's sounding so far. Enjoy!  (If you can't access it, please let me know in the comments.)

Working backwards, I've been through several sections of the Schubert, which I outlined (a little) in some previous posts. I've been through the coda (which I found challenging) and then the E-flat minor section with all of the chromatic climbing (which I found challenging) and then the circle-of-fifths section (which I found less challenging but still challenging). After that, I came to the E-flat major theme. Compared to what had come before? EASY. Really. It just flowed right along. All that scale work I've been doing has helped. This section is little more than running up and down on the E-flat major scale. So this morning, it was time to move back to another  ben marcato section, which is similar to what we had in the coda: marchlike, a little jarring, and generally lots of jumping around. Very different from the smooth, flowing scales of the main theme. I was ready to dive into to a challenge. This section is in B minor, and it has lots of accidentals. So I dove...

I have written at length about voice on my other blog . Sometimes I ask myself why I'm doing this. It's so dispiriting to listen to recordings of myself, now a year or so into voice lessons, and still find my own voice ... less than pleasing. I feel kind of bad for my voice teacher -- I love my voice teacher, but each week he sees a student who feels frustrated and uninspired by her lack of progress. Part of the problem is that I never do well in lessons. This is an age-old problem, of course. I never play piano as well in lessons as I do at home. There's always that nervousness that comes with playing for a teacher, even though I know I shouldn't feel it. When I'm home, I listen to opera all day long and sing "Libiamo" (from La Traviata ) and "Voi che sapete" (from The Marriage of Figaro )   with as much gusto as the most confident opera singer. At my lesson? My throat feels like a pinhole and I can barely choke out "Caro mio ben." ...

This is not the greatest picture, but it's what awaited me last night while Anne played at a friend's house for a couple of hours and Dan worked on genealogy. Henry the Grand Piano I spent some more time on Chopin, but most of my efforts were on Bach, on playing the scaley parts in "swing time," as suggested by my piano teacher. I worked on keeping my LH relaxed and even took a side trip into Hanon to do some very slow exercises, focusing on just where my hand tensed up, slowing down, and playing so that it stayed relaxed. I think it was a useful (though not very interesting to listen to) exercise for my left hand. This morning I started working on Schubert at 7:00 a.m. (sorry, sleeping family). I somehow managed to spend two hours on Schubert, which included writing in more fingering. (I'm finally starting on the easier E-flat-scale section.) What does the rest of the weekend hold? I have to work today, which kind of depresses me. But this evening I hop...

So there is a magic, invisible cord in my body. Two cords, actually. They're relatively sturdy, they lead from my brain to my fingertips, and there's enough cord for some slack. If you loosen the cord, the body can put more weight into the keys. If you tighten it, the fingers "pull away" and play more lightly. So that's what I imagine. The weight in the fingers comes from the body, from the core--not from the hands. When it's time to lighten up, the hands shouldn't tense; the core should control how much weight is used to strike the keys. So last night I worked on a measure of the Chopin that, in all the years I've played this, I've never given much attention to: measure 83. Here's what it sounds like, without the dynamics. In this measure, you have an accelerando  in the first half, and then a diminuendo  in the second half. The measure starts at something like fortissimo . So there is this rushing that is simultaneous with a dyin...

I've named my left thumb Archie because he arches when I play piano. Do you see that? Do you see how Archie isn't looking rested and relaxed? That, friends, is what a tense thumb looks like. Oh, yes. That is not a happy thumb. Why am I arching my left thumb? I don't do this on my right hand. Just the left. In this case, I was playing the fifth Hanon exercise. Archie is perfectly relaxed on the way up the keyboard, but he arches right up on the way down. On the way up, the thumb leads off and my weak 4 finger doesn't have to work very hard: Not so on the way down. On the way down, the 4 finger has a bigger role. And the 4 finger is weak. This weakness throws off the balance of my whole left hand. And what does Archie do? He arches. He's overcompensating. My whole hand is overcompensating, I think, by becoming tense and stiff. Gotta get that 4 finger to do its job! But this isn't good. My left hand needs to be relaxed. Archie needs to c...

I got an unexpected 20 or 30 minutes with Henry (and Schubert) tonight. Anne snapped a picture of what is "typical me" on a late evening. If I ever become a concert pianist, I think I will have to perform with a pencil in my mouth. I'm not sure whether I know how to play without one.

Yes, life has returned to what it was before, now that my "fall break" (two days off from work) has ended. Yesterday morning I spent about 20 minutes at the piano, going through scales and a bit of Schubert. This morning, I had about 12 minutes, which I devoted mostly to scales and Hanon. I started to play through the Bach but I was distracted and playing too fast. So I played it through slowly, just so my brain wouldn't have those fast mistakes be the last thing it remembered ... and then I was done for the day. And that, friends, is a slice of life as an adult piano student. Now I'm at work. I've actually been at work for a few minutes, but no one is at the office yet, so I figured I could take five minutes for a quick piano blog post. Work has been really hard lately. It's been difficult to think. My mind lacks its usual focus, and I'm struggling to get through the simplest tasks. When I finished work yesterday, I was so completely exhausted. I to...

I slept fitfully last night, periodically waking in a kind of panic, my head pounding and my jaw aching. I do not like where my life is right now--not personally, not spiritually, not professionally. I'm just very unhappy, and I don't know if it's legitimate unhappiness or if a cloud of capital-D Depression has descended on me, coloring everything. It could quite possibly be legit unhappiness: It seems that every day I see or hear an announcement that someone I know has died, including a number of people who have died tragically young. So this cloud of sadness won't seem to go away, and I think music is serving as kind of a coping tool, or maybe an escape, for me these days. This morning I woke up with a sense of dread. On top of the emotional stuff, I have too much to do, I'm behind in work after a couple of days off, and I've taken on far too many volunteer responsibilities than I can handle. I really feel like I'm heading for some kind of a mental bre...

I actually said that as I started to type the title to this post: "Schlowly." I'm not good at tongue-twisters. Tonight I worked on some of the Schubert. I've completed the coda section (meaning I've learned the notes and can play it through at a relatively slow pace), and I've moved on to the dozen (or two?) measures prior to that, starting at measure 212. Here are measures 212 and 213, for reference: I am playing this section sooooo s-l-o-w-l-y. I was lucky to have a good hour for practicing tonight, and I spent the entire hour on measure 212 to right before the coda. I don't even know how to explain how slowly I played it. Basically, each note of each triplet was played on a beat of the metronome, starting at something like 52. Here's how it sounded by the time I'd notched it up to 72: Click here for slow Schubert . Note that that little section is a minute and 22 seconds. In this recording from Horowitz, the same short passage takes a...

Ever since I learned the notes of the Bach Prelude (BWV 866), I've been playing it at a snail's pace. In this recording (click) , I've sped it up to the furious pace of ♪=50. The suggested tempo is ♩=72, which is about three times faster. Here's András Schiff playing it a more typical tempo: So you can see that I have a long way to go. A couple of days ago, one day into my "staycation," I began inching up the tempo. I have been determined not to rush the tempo increase. I want my fingers to be strong and my mind confident by the time I get to the goal tempo. So I inched up to ♪=52. And then ♪=54. And then ♪=56. And on and on, playing it several times at each tempo. It sounded good! I wasn't just focusing on hitting the right notes; I was intent on making it sound smooth, not plodding or "punching," keeping my fingers light. ♪=58. ♪=60. ♪=63. ♪=66. It was easy. I wasn't sure if I should speed up so many notches in one practice sess...

I'm technically on vacation for a couple of days. I was supposed to go to Shenandoah National Park with a group of ladies for a camping/backpacking trip, but a number of things came up that left me too broke and exhausted to make the trip. I considered having these few days be regular work days, but I truly needed the time off ... so I took it. It has been heavenly, which has helped heal (somewhat) the disappointment of not going to Shenandoah. I've had to do a little bit of work for my job, but I've also had plenty of time for music. Yesterday at noon, I went to Augusta to see a chamber music performance that was part of the Westobou Festival. My piano teacher, Carol, accompanied mezzo-soprano Diane Haslam, who did a mix of songs and poems about love. It was quite enjoyable, and I'm hoping to take more opportunities during the week (when I can) to attend music performances. After that, I came back home and settled down in the music room for a few hours of practic...

Schubert has gotten the short shrift for a couple of days. Not that I'd planned it that way, of course. It's just that I'm at a place in the Schubert that isn't lending itself to micro-practices. I need time to work through a whole section. Plus, it's kind of hard. I focused on measures 230 to 238 today. It's where the familiar scale-y E-flat theme takes an interesting turn in the chromatic section (specifically, measure 232). I was having a little trouble with the fingering in the left hand (5 or 4? 5 or 4?) and was stumbling a little on the chromatic stuff. I played with the fingering in both hands and finally figured out my 5's and 4's in the LH. It's not that different from what I did with the Bach earlier today: arranging the fingering so to allow as little effort as possible for me. I also think I have a good fingering pattern worked out in the RH. Another challenge for today was switching from the chromatics to the downward F-mino...

I usually have a wide-open morning for practicing on Saturdays, but that hasn't been the case today, mainly because I was exhausted after a long, stressful week and slept in (a rare thing for me) this morning. But I did have time for some scales and Bach. At my lesson on Thursday, Carol said that I'm going to need to play more lightly if I ever want to get this prelude up to speed. I'm "punching" the keys and playing them with more weight than I need to. I think this is partly because I'm going at such a slow speed (♪=40). It's a plodding pace, and I'm tempted to plod and "punch." So today I practiced playing it more lightly, but with equal intensity, starting at ♪=40. My goal at this point—now that I have the notes and the fingering figured out—is to play it perfectly at this tempo. Once I can play it perfectly at ♪=40 (and by that, I mean that I can do it consistently, not just once), I'll move to ♪=42. I won't move to ♪=44 unti...

I'm going to be working on the first few measures of Debussy's "La fille aux cheveux de lin." I thought I would be learning the whole piece, and maybe I will ... but for the moment, the focus is on phrasing and "softness control" (my word for it), on using weight (rather than tension) to get the sound just right. This piece (these few measures, or maybe the first couple of lines) will be more of an exercise than anything else, for now. This will definitely be one of those "deceptively easy" things. I had a lesson yesterday, and we worked some on the Bach. I needed to change a bit of the fingering, but other than that, it is definitely time to start racheting up the speed, little by little. I'm going to have several days off of work next week, and I look forward to spending a lot  of time with Bach! And Schubert. And Chopin. And Debussy. Such delightful companions! Life doesn't get much better than that.

I've written several times about how I've been playing my Chopin Nocturne mostly from memory for years, and have totally ceased to think seriously about all the little dynamic instructions that poor Frédéric so painstakingly wrote down throughout the piece. I've been focusing very hard on, you know, paying attention to them now. The result is that I'm playing the piece much more slowly than before ... but I also think I'm starting to play it better. For my own reference (and for anyone who might be learning this piece and Googling "chopin noctrne op 9 no1 help what dose poco rallent mean"), I'm writing down some definitions here, in the order in which they appear in the nocturne*: p - piano , soft espress.  - espressivo , expressive smorz. - smorzando  - dying away (both tone and speed) legatissimo - very smooth and connected; more legato than legato appassionato  - with passion cresc. - crescendo , gradually getting louder con forza  - with...

I'm a little hesitant to share this recording, for several reasons. I'll get those out of the way now: My piano is not in perfect tune. I cannot play this piece perfectly because ... The tempo is too slow throughout, but a little faster than I want in places. The polyrhythm sections are still a little wonky. I accidentally turned two pages in the middle of the piece and had to stop and turn back to the correct page. The final note of the piece wouldn't play the first two times on my 100-year-old piano, so that final note sounds like it's showing up to the party really late. The recording isn't a professional one, and (I think) the left hand sounds louder and more plodding than it does in real life. (I will let my new piano teacher be the judge of that tomorrow.) I'm sure I could think another half-dozen reasons if I gave myself two or three more minutes, but I'll stop there. Why am I posting this? Because I want to capture a moment of time as ...

I've managed to squeeze in several short practices over the past few days. None of them were "worth writing home about," but I do want to keep track of my progress here, so this will be an all-in-one update. Scales I must say, I am so happy to be focusing on scales and not arpeggios right now. We'll return to "arps" in good time, but for now I'm working diligently at getting the scales back in my fingers and my brain. I'm playing 24 scales a day: 12 majors plus 12 harmonic minors, all in parallel and contrary motion. I still doing the majors at 60 and the minors at ♪ = 50. I do all of the majors plus six minors (C, C#, D, Eb, E, and F) in the morning, and then the remaining six minors (F#, G, G#, A, Bb, and B) in the evening. And they're getting better! It really doesn't take that much time, either, particularly now that I'm becoming comfortable with the scales again. I imagine I will move up a degree on the metronome for next we...

I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety lately. I've had issues with the depression in the past, but anxiety has never been that much of a problem for me ... until now. Some of it has to do with work stress, some has to do with money stress, and some is just plain old life stress. While the cost of piano lessons adds somewhat to the money stress, the escape of practice and the anticipation of the next lesson have helped me make it through these last few weeks. I'm finding that I tend to hit a low point on Wednesday evenings. Let's see why: On Tuesdays, I have a full day of work, including a required meeting at noon. On Tuesday evenings, I am the leader for a combined Tiger/Wolf/Bear Cub Scout Den. On Wednesdays, I have a full day of work, including a required meeting from 12:30 to 2:00. On Wednesday evenings, I volunteer to teach a pre-school class at church. On Wednesday nights, I have choir practice. So, as you might imagine, I can go two days without touching...

This evening's lesson was about 50% talking and 50% playing. We started with scales. I played six major scales at 60, and then we did a few minors at my new glacial pace of ♪ = 50. I played them through pretty well, and I think I need to stick to that pace (or slower) for a while with these contrary minors. Next, we did Hanon and worked on playing softly with both hands, then soft LH/loud RH, and vice-versa. One thing we are focusing on is "weight," as she calls it: how much core weight you use to get a certain volume out of a key--and knowing, before you press a key, exactly what volume you are going to get. So the focus is on playing softly and evenly. That's a challenge. If I play softly, some notes are a little louder than others, and some notes don't make any sound at all. So I have a bit of work to do. She suggested Debussy's "La Fille Aux Cheveux De Lin" ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair") as a good piece for working on what I'...

I woke up late this morning. Not only did I not have time to work out, but I didn't have time for the usual 20 minutes I've been devoting to piano in the mornings before work. I still managed to squeeze in about ten minutes. I spent those ten minutes working on the F harmonic minor contrary motion scale. Playing it in eighth notes at 60 wasn't working. I was getting through the scale, but never without stumbling. And when I did  get it right, it felt more like luck than anything else. So I slowed down. Really   s-l-o-w-e-d   down. All the way down to where I was playing a single note on each beat of the metronome ... at 40! At that pace, I could anticipate where my fingers would go next. I was anticipating three and four and five notes ahead. I had time to think . I felt like I could breathe . I felt like ... I knew what I was doing. I played the scale at that pace several times, and then I inched the metronome up to just a little faster...