Bare Necessities: A New Approach (and page 1 by memory!)

I'm sure I've mentioned previously that I had to change my approach with "Bare Necessities." My original plan was to learn the entire piece, and then work on memorizing ... but I realized that wasn't going to happen. It's just too hard to play any type of stride/ragtime piano while reading the music. You really have to be looking at your hands (particularly your left hand) while you play.

As a result, I changed my approach. I'm now working to memorize each page as I go. I was about a week into the ragtime section when I made this change, so I had to back up to page 1 and begin the slow process of memorizing. Page 1 took me about a week of steady, daily work, and I'm now about halfway through page 2. I expect page 2 will take me a few more days, and then I'll move on (again) to the ragtime section.

I'm about three weeks behind where I wanted to be at this point, but that's OK. I'm enjoying the process, and this piece is so much more fun to play by memory!

Here is page 1 (again ... I know I've shared a few "page 1" videos. The difference here is that it's by memory, and it's also a little faster than in my previous videos). If all goes according to plan, I'll have a video of pages 1 and 2 (by memory!) in another week or so!

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Picking Up the Pieces

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