Skip to main content

Henry

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 hope to get a couple more hours of practice in. Tomorrow's going to be busy, so if I practice at all, it will be late tomorrow evening. And then ... I'll be back to my 20-minutes-a-day weekday routine.

But I love the picture above. I need more times in my life where Henry is waiting for me like that, and where I have a block of two or three hours to focus and play.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thursday, July 13

I worked in a short practice today. Had piano this afternoon. The short practice involved the usual scales and arps, and a run-through of my pieces. It wasn't so much a practice as a review. Piano was good. She said that the Bach sounded very musical. I asked what I should do next, practice-wise--continue drilling and memorizing HS, or start HT? She said that I "shouldn't hold off any longer" on playing HT, and to keep drilling HS if I want but to begin working HT on whatever I find to be the most difficult passage of the fugue. That's easy. I don't have the music in front of me, but in the Alfred edition, it's the bottom of page two. I played the Liszt pretty well, if a bit timidly. I'm playing it with emotion and paying attention to all of the dynamics and all of that, but I'm still also trying to make sure I get the notes right in several sections. She had all kinds of nice things to say about the Liszt. The 9-against-4 is sounding much better (...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Need an Intermediate Piece

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 ...
3 comments
Read more