Piano Goals for March 2024

Here are my piano goals for March 2024. I'll divide them into categories for easier reading. For those items that are nearing completion, I'll also include a "what's next" to show that I'm already thinking ahead to the next goal. Both my classical and ragtime goals are pretty ambitious, so I may end up selecting one or more easier pieces as alternatives.

Classical

I know Chopin is Romantic, not Classical, but anyway ... my goal for March is to have the entire F Minor Nocturne by memory and performance-ready by the end of the month. My "performance" will probably just be a video that I post here.

What's Next: Hopefully Mozart, Rondo alla Turca

Ragtime

As with the nocturne, my goal is to have "Maple Leaf Rag" by memory and performance-ready by the end of the month.

What's Next: Either "The Entertainer" or "Solace" ... or something else.

Seventh Chords

Dominant Sevenths! Just as February was a deep-dive into the major sevenths, March will be devoted to dominant sevenths.

What's Next: Minor sevenths

Scales

I've started playing scales again, alternating between major and minor each day. By the end of the month, I'd like to be able to play both scales in all keys, similar and contrary motion, at 80 on the metronome. I can already do this with most of the major scales, so I may go past 80 on those.

What's Next: Faster major and minor scales! Also, modes.

Styles and Improvisation

I really didn't spend a lot of time on styles and improvisation in February. I'd planned to, but then I took on the advanced "Misty" challenge, and that took up a big chunk of my piano time last month. Since I am going to be living with dominant sevenths all month, I would like to delve into playing/improvising blues style. But we'll see.

What's Next: I don't know. Both the jazz and blues styles seem so far beyond where I am now, even though I've made a lot of progress.

Practice Time

I practiced a total of about 38 hours in February. My goal for March? Forty hours. That's just over an hour a day, which I think will be very doable, as long as I keep up with my pre-work practices and am able to put in a few extra hours most weekends.

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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...

Picking Up the Pieces

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