Skip to main content

Breakthrough Weekend

I had the most amazing weekend. Each member of our family did their own thing: The husband went to Ohio to see a rock concert with some old friends, the kid went to Atlanta to visit a camp friend, and I stayed home to cuddle the cats, do some spring cleaning, and (mostly) practice the piano. (According to my piano journal spreadsheet, I put in a total of about nine and a half hours between Friday night and Sunday night.)

And it was glorious. I also had a number of breakthroughs this weekend. This blog post is more of a round-up of my progress, but I'll be writing more about the breakthroughs throughout the week.

What I Worked On

Friday night was mostly devoted to Maple Leaf Rag and Bare Necessities. On Saturday, I spent about a half-hour on minor sevenths, and then almost an hour on two scales: D Major and B Harmonic Minor. More on that in a scales-centric post later this week. After that, I dove deep into Chopin for several hours, taking the occasional break to do enough spring cleaning not to feel guilty.

And then, most of Sunday afternoon was devoted to the Blues.

Weekend SMART Goals

It was a good idea to come up with some SMART goals for the weekend. I had a clear idea of what I needed to accomplish over 2.5 days. To recap ...

Scales

Goal: Majors and 88, Minors at 76. ACHIEVED! But I also decided to take a different approach with scales, which I'll write about more later. For now, I'll just say that I'm now playing the parallel/contrary D Major scale at 120 and equivalent B Minor scale at 100. Parallel motion only? 130 and 110. Not lying. But like I said, I'll write more on this little breakthrough later this week.

Minor 7ths

Goal: Complete Lesson 2; improvise tunes. ACHIEVED!

Blues

Goal: Easy and medium shuffles with 3- and 6- note patterns and improv on eighth notes and triplets with both easy and medium shuffles. ACHIEVED! (I will post a video of my blues progress soon.)

Maple Leaf Rag

Goal: Whole piece by memory, with no pausing at transitions and minimal forearm fatigue, at 84. ACHIEVED! Playing at 84 now feels like child's play. This was another project that yielded a breakthrough moment this weekend, which I'll write about later this week.

Bare Necessities

Goal: Stride section by memory; sight-read rest of piece. ACHIEVED! Sight-reading was quite the adventure; another blog post for another day.

Chopin

Goal: End-of-weekend progress video for YouTube/PWJ community page. Video should be relatively error-free and include intended interpretive effects. ACHIEVED! I posted the Chopin video to the YouTube/PWJ/Facebook, and here it is:

As you can see, I still have work to do (particularly on the last page), but I feel very confident that I will have this ready to perform at a high level by the end of April.

So, there are a number of blog posts in the works this week. For now, I need to get ready for work. I'm working from home today, so I should be able to grab a few practice breaks in lieu of the coffee breaks I would normally take at the office!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Amazing Practice Tracker 2.0: Leveling Up My Piano Game

(Apologies for the cheesy clip art. I needed to come up with something, or the Blogger template would show a fuzzy, overly-enlarged snippet of the first chart below.) When I showed my husband my piano practice tracker, he said I should market and sell it. Ha. It’s not for sale, but I’m excited to share how this tool has transformed my practice—and why it might inspire all three of my readers. Since my last post about the Amazing Practice Tracker, I’ve made it even better. Here’s a peek at how it works, using my June data. All The Pretty Colors, All the Pretty Winners My tracker now sparkles with color: darker shades for active pieces, lighter ones for maintenance, technique, and sight-reading. Each day, the piece I practice most gets a bright yellow highlight—a little “gold medal,” if you will. (Click image for a slightly larger view.) A leaderboard automatically shows the day’s top piece and time. And if that isn't enough, I keep track of the month's leaders--specifically, ho...
Post a Comment
Read more