Bare Necessities, Day 3

I'm planning to give regular updates on Bare Necessities. This version is a real showpiece, and it will be a challenge to learn it, memorize it, and get it to a good performance tempo. Translation: I'm going to be living with this one for a long time. How long? I have no idea. I'm guessing anywhere between 3 and 6 months, though it could be a year.

I started learning the piece on Monday, and I've been encouraged by how (relatively) quickly I've picked up the first page. I can now play it through, hands together, at a slow pace. I'm going to stick with this for a couple of days, playing it over and over again until it feels completely natural under my hands. Throughout this process I'll be working on memorizing as well.

I won't have access to a piano for most of the weekend, so I'm thinking I won't start the B section until late Sunday, or early Monday morning. In fact, I'm wondering if I can learn this at a rate of one page a week. The piece is eight pages long, roughly two pages per section plus a finale. If I can do a page a week, that's 8 weeks to get the entire piece hands-together. And then I can spend a few weeks working on speed and style.

So maybe I can get this thing down in three months. It's something to think about!

Anyway, here is my s-l-o-w rendition of the "A" section. I'm not concerned here with style, dynamics, etc. At this point, I'm just working on notes and rhythms.

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