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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. From here on out, it's all about expression. I need to take some time to figure out what I want to do with phrasing and dynamics, beyond just playing what "feels right." I've been listening to a lot of recordings to see what better pianists are doing, and I'm learning a lot.

RAGTIME/STRIDE GOALS

Maple Leaf Rag

March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready.

I have the entire piece by memory, and it is performance ready ... if I'm playing it at 80. I want to get it up to 100, though, and that will take a little more time. But at this point, it's really just a matter of playing the sections over and over again so the whole piece is more and more comfortable in my hands. It's about a three-minute piece of music, so if I spend 15-20 minutes a day playing it through a few times (or playing the whole piece a couple of times and then playing a single section through five or six times), I'll get there.

I actually made a nice video of the whole piece this morning, but I got stuck in the final few bars of the D section and stupidly turned off the camera. I'm wishing I hadn't done that, but I should have a full "performance" video to share here very soon.

April Goal: Keep working on MLR, but also shift focus to Bare Necessities.

While I'll continue working on Maple Leaf Rag to get it up to speed, I'm going to start spending more time on Bare Necessities as my primary stride/ragtime piece. My goal for Bare Necessities is to have the stride and ragtime sections (roughly the first four pages) memorized and sounding good by the end of April.

FOUNDATIONS GOALS

Dominant Sevenths

Goal: Get through all PWJ Theory & Application lessons, as well as all PWJ exercises.

Done! My only regret is that I didn't spend as much time as I wanted to on the little songs for each lesson. I could go back and work on them later, but I'm also eager to move on to the next step ...

April Goal for Sevenths: Minor Sevenths!

I started minor sevenths this morning, and I'm going to spend a lot more time this month learning and improvising on the various songs in the Theory and Application lessons.

Scales

Goal: Major and minor scales, all keys, in parallel & contrary motion, at 80.

Made it! I can play all major scales at 88, and I can play all minor scales, except for B-flat and E-flat, at 88 also. B-flat and E-flat are more comfortable at 72, and I have to admit that, even though I can play the other black-key minors at 88, I don't feel 100% confident in that.

April Goal for Scales: Majors and Minors at 100!

STYLE/IMPROVISATION GOALS

Blues Piano Track on Piano With Jonny

March Goal: No goal; I wasn't sure whether I wanted to focus on jazz or blues.

I didn't do much in the way of improvisation this month, but I did start the PWJ Blues Piano Track, and I've made it to Lesson 3, which focuses on playing variations of the blues scale with a blues shuffle in the left hand. It's been a long time since I've had such a hard time coordinating my right and left hands! It reminded me of when I first started learning the contrary-motion scales. But I'm making progress.

April Goal: To get through Lesson 5 of the PWJ 10-lesson blues challenge.

And that's it! I may write a more detailed post on my April challenges, but this is all I have for now!

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