Skip to main content

Goals Recap for February

Here is my goals recap for February. I didn't really start February with discernible goals, so I'll just list the accomplishments.

  1. I have learned "Misty." It's still a little shaky in places and I don't think I'll get to the soloing element of the challenge, but I will have it solid and ready to perform/video for the PWJ Facebook group by the end of this weekend.

  2. I can play through the nocturne. Now it is time to memorize anything I haven't memorized, and really work on getting the difficult sections feeling smooth and natural.

  3. I can play through Maple Leaf Rag. As with the nocturne, it's now just a matter of memorizing anything that isn't memorized (i.e., the transistion sections and the D section), getting things up to speed, and working in any stylistic touches I want to include.

  4. I've gotten pretty good at major sevenths, both playing them and understanding them. I enjoy doing the exercises, and they will now be part of my standard warmup.

  5. The 2-5-1 progressions with color tones have come along as well. I'll keep doing those regularly, but I'm also ready to branch out into using them in lead sheets. This is a major thing I want to talk about with Quentin at the jazz lesson tomorrow night.

  6. According to my PWJ practice log, I have practiced 34 hours and 14 minutes in the past month. I still have two more days, so that will be 36 or so hours by the time February comes to an end. I've been practicing every morning before work, anywhere between 20 and 45 minutes, depending on when I can get started. In the evenings, I'll usually practice another 30 minutes to an hour if there's time. All in all, I averaged a little over an hour a day of practice in February.

I'll be posting my March goals soon. Life outside of piano feels like a train wreck, but in the world of piano? Things are humming. I'm excited about developing my March goals and beginning work toward them this weekend.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eureka! Secondary Dominant!

I am such a nerd, and I love being a nerd! Today I was working on Section 5 of You Are My Sunshine, specifically on getting this section up to performance level. In other words, I was practicing being a performer , not an arranger . But then, of course, I came up with another idea. I had just played the delicate sixths and descending rag rolls of "when skies are gray" (I chord) and then moved to the parallel octaves of "you never know, dear" (leading to  IV). The shift sounded abrupt to me. Harsh. It needed something. It needed musical WD-40. Something to ease the hinge between textures. And then I stumbled upon it! Right before moving to IV, I can slip in a V7/IV — a secondary dominant! So I tried it, and it sounded so good that I actually yelled "Secondary dominant!" out loud in my house like I was Archimedes discovering water displacement in the bathtub. It's such a small thing. One little chord. But it smooths that transition, leaning the harmony ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

Ode to Joy Day 3: Patterns, Shapes, and Short Breaks

As I work through Rebecca Bogart's Learn New Repertoire Faster challenge , I'll be posting more extended updates here on my blog. Days 1–3 Day 1 was analysis, listening, and generally scoping out the territory of the music . The road trip to Florida last week turned out to be Day 1, even if I didn't label it that way at the time. Day 2 was fingering and the start of my first "batch": measures 0-7 (intro), 8-15 (Section A), and 16-23 (Section A'). Day 3 (today) was about recognizing patterns and continuing work on Batch 1. Batch 1: Intro, A, A' The intro isn't difficult, and it will likely be one of the two easiest sections in this piece. Still, the syncopation is a little tricky, so I took some extra time with it. I've already memorized it, as the chord progression is pretty straightforward and the melody is just a single line (no harmony notes). There is one big augmented chord at the end that required some focused work. Sections A and A' ar...
Post a Comment
Read more