Skip to main content

Update - Still Playing

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"!)

Schubert and Chopin have been on the back burner, more or less, as I focus on Bach. I'm hoping to give both of them some time over the next week, though this weekend isn't promising, as I'll be on the road all weekend, and then I have late nights away from home both Sunday and Monday night.

Despite an upcoming dry period, I'm hopeful for continued improvement. In fact, I'm thinking of taking a few more days off before the end of the year, just for piano practice.

And that's it, folks. My meager update for this two week period. I have a lesson tomorrow, so perhaps you'll see a lesson update soon!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rethinking Bare Necessities

Today's breakthrough moment (there are actually two of them) focuses on "Bare Necessities." As you'll remember, I discovered Jonny May's arrangement back in early March and immediately decided to learn it. I printed out the music, started the course, and proceeded to learn the stride section, posting a few videos of my progress. Ha. I bet those videos make it look like I was making progress. I guess I was ... but not really. And I realized something this weekend that I hadn't before: Because I was thinking of "Bare Necessities" as a "fun" piece, I wasn't practicing it seriously or diligently. I wasn't treating it as something I wanted to master. This mindset might work with an easier piece, but this arrangement isn't easy. The result: despite a little progress at the outset, I wasn't moving forward. I was stalled. Breakthrough #1 The first breakthrough was realizing that if I truly want to learn this piece and play it well,...

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...

Maple Leaf Rag Breakthrough

Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin? At the Beginning I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around. Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a...