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Weekend Piano Goals (April 12-14)

It has been a good week for piano, and I'm looking forward to working in some good practice time this weekend. I won't get to have a monster practice weekend like I did last weekend, but I still hope to get a total of four or five hours in.

I'll need to balance that with a few other things, though. One, I have a volleyball practice Saturday morning (I assistant-coach a rec team), and then I need to go pick my daughter up from a sleepover. After that, I'll probably spend some quality time with my daughter since she's been gone all week.

We're also planning to plant the flowerbeds, so that will include at least one trip to Lowe's (though probably more), plus quite a bit of ourdoor work.

So, I'm going to be tired, and my hands will probably be tired from digging and planting. Realistically, I should be able to practice an hour or two tonight, an hour or two early tomorrow morning, and an hour or two Sunday afternoon or evening.

The Piano Goals

What will I do with all of those hours? What will my SMART goals for piano be this weekend?

SCALES: Now that I've completed my week-long deep-dive into D Major and B Minor, I'll shift focus to A Major and F# Minor. A Major is pretty easy, but F# Minor is one of the keys that still gives me headaches. The weekend goal: Drill these for until they both feel very natural under my hands in both parallel and contrary motion. My goal for the week is to have them up to between 100 and 130, similar to what I did this week with D Major and B Minor.

MINOR SEVENTHS: Work through Lesson 4 of Minor Seventh Theory and Application, and work on improvising on the sample tune. Do half the minor seventh exercises as a warm up each time I sit down to practice this week.

BLUES: I think I'm ready to move on to Lesson 5. I'm improvising to the blues shuffle and I think I can handle adding slides (which is the Lesson 5 focus). That lesson is over an hour long, so my goal is to cover whatever that first major section of the lesson is. I also want to "jam" (practice improvising) when I can.

MAPLE LEAF: Focus primarily on Section B, using the new feathering/ellipse/thumb-tucking techniques. I feel like I've taken a few steps back in applying these techniques, so I am working to get Maple Leaf sounding good again. I spent time on Sections D and C this week, so B and A are next on the horizon (and A doesn't need as much work as B). The goal? To be able to play the whole thing (tempo doesn't matter) using the new techniques. To have those techniques become more automatic.

CHOPIN: Rhythms for the Transcendence, Voice of the Dead, and Flutter sections (essentially, the last page and a half). I've put a lot of work into the Agitation, Mad Chase, and Stretto Chord sections this week. I think the Chopin is in a really good place; I'm just doing the work now to get everything to feel very automatic.

BARE NECESSITIES: Rhythms for stride section B to work toward automaticity and speed. Rhythms for ragtime section A. I set this one aside for a few days this week due to hand pain, so I'm eager to get back to it ... but I have to be careful not to overdo it.

Can I Do All of This?

I don't know if these goals are realistic, considering the fact that I already have kind of a busy weekend ahead. But if I can get up early in the mornings, I should be able to fit most of it in.

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