Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

At my piano lesson Tuesday, Eric pointed out the fact that I wasn't playing my white-key octaves cleanly in the broken-octaves section of Rondo alla Turca. The "B" was particularly sloppy; I was brushing its "C" neighbor with my thumb each time. Horrors! Seriously, this is why I have a piano teacher, even though I already know how to play the piano. Because I know I have blind spots. I had no idea that those white-key octaves weren't clean as a whistle, probably because I'm listening to two versions of the piece as I play: the version in my head, and the version at my fingertips. I found a brief but helpful "lesson" on YouTube , where Noriko Ogawa had some good advice: Chromatic/scale sections:  Don't overpower the left hand, but make sure the arpeggio is audible. Right hand should be full of energy. Look into each phrase with a magnifying glass and think about how you want to phrase each one. (This is great advice for any piece of music!) ...

If you've been following my Bare Necessities posts , you'll know that I spent the first two months of this piece dilly-dallying. I'd put in a good practice, and then I'd take a few days or even a week or two off, and then I'd return to it for another practice, and then I'd take a few more days off. In short, I wasn't taking it seriously. I was viewing it as "fun side project" while focusing primarily on Maple Leaf Rag and the nocturne). Not surprisingly, I was stalled for most of March and April. Putting In the Work As May approached, along with my graduation from Joplin and Chopin, I was determined to give Bare Necessities the time and effort it needed. And I've done it. I've been ... well, "obsessive" may be too strong of a word. But I was focused . Very focused. Other than when I was in piano-less in North Carolina, I worked on it every day. And for the past week or so, I've worked on it twice a day: the outro in the mornin...

As I've written in this space before, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I learned Mozart's Rondo alla Turca. When I mentioned to my piano-store friend (who is a fellow pianist) that I wanted to learn it, her eyes got big, and she said, "No! Stay away from that piece! It sounds so easy, but it is a bear! Avoid! Avoid!" Well, maybe she didn't use those exact words, but you get the idea. Of course, I wasn't going to let her warning stop me, but it did cause me to pause and think, "OK, do I really want to learn this? Even if it takes me six months or more?" The answer, thankfully, was "yes." And so I began to learn it ... and found that it wasn't so hard. That's not to say there aren't hard parts. The section with the broken octaves is not easy. Keeping them balanced, both dynamically and rhythmically, is a feat I haven't yet mastered. And the scale passages are tricky. They are sounding pretty good now, but I've had...

I've been thinking a lot about my " Looking Ahead to June " post from a few days ago. I had just about decided that I would set aside my non – PWJ  projects (other than the usual maintenance) and focus on my three PWJ courses: Bare Necessities, Blues 10-Lesson Challenge, and Lead Sheets/Seventh Chords. Those three courses focus on ragtime, blues, and theory/improvisation, respectively, but my mind is kind of thinking June is going to be very blues-oriented. A bluesy June. And then my every-two-or-three-weeks piano teacher/consultant went and suggested that I take on Gershwin's Prelude II.  I honestly don't know if I want to do this. It's not an easy piece, and it's going to take a lot of time away from my PWJ stuff. I'll also still be working on the Rondo alla Turca . I'm not quite ready to graduate from it just yet; I can play it start to finish, by memory, but I'm nowhere near where I want to be with the tempo. (I'm at about 80, and I wan...

Good news! I was right about the crossed-hands section of Bare Necessities: It isn't hard at all! What a relief after struggling through the stride, ragtime, and outro sections! A real breath of fresh air! No crazy hand stretches, either! Yay! I still want to put a good bit of work into it to ensure that I have it properly memorized. The temptation here is to blow it off because it's so easy. As I mention in the video, I could literally play the whole right-hand section with my forefinger. But I did go through and figure out the fingering I'd like to use. Anyway, I share a few more thoughts in this video. I also play the crossed-hands section, slowly. I'm so excited about finally getting to this part!

 I did it! I finally made a video of myself playing the Chopin Nocturne in F minor, where I don't make some egregious error or have some ridiculous memory lapse that brings the whole piece to a screeching, stuttering halt! Is it perfect? No. I play the wrong trill in the third instance of the trill, and my right hand at the very end as woefully uneven. There are other small imperfections here and there, but I'm not too worried about them. My biggest complaint about the video is that the air conditioner is running during most of it. I wish I'd thought to turn it off, but I didn't. Anyway, here is the final video. If I ever make a better final video, I'll post that one too! With this video, though, I am officially moving on from the Nocturne. I'll still play it occasionally, but I'm chalking this one up as "done."

For the past three mornings, I've spent 20-30 minutes on the Bare Necessities outro. The outro is both very simple and very tricky. It's simple in that the left hand is pretty basic, and the right hand follows a very straightforward, upwardly chromatic pattern. It's tricky in that the chromatic pattern sometimes emphasizes notes that aren't in the chord (for example, playing an Eb in the right hand while playing an A7 in the left hand ... or working toward a resolution to C, and playing C in the right hand, but having to play a D7 in the left hand instead). With each measure, I'm very aware of what chord I'm in, so when the right hand emphasizes notes that aren't part of the chord ... it kind of throws my logical mind for a loop. Also, despite the "simple" elements I mentioned above, this section is not very intuitive. For three mornings in a row now, I've felt like I've had to re-learn each instance of the pattern (there are three). At the...

Yesterday I posted my weekend goals, so I'm at a loss for what to write today. Ha. As if I'm ever at a loss when it comes to writing about piano. We're nearing the end of the month, and I'm thinking ahead to my schedule and goals for June. A few things will change next month: My daughter is out of school, so I'll probably be practicing more (using the headphones) in the morning, as the whole family will no longer be waking up at 6:15 a.m. My daughter will be at summer camp for two weeks and the beach for one week. With the quiet evenings at home, I will probably get a lot more after-work practice time in.  I am going to graduate from Rondo alla Turca much sooner than planned. I thought the Rondo would be a three-month piece, but it's proven to be a one-month piece ... even with not practicing it for the two weekends I was out of town. It will move to maintenance mode in June, and I need to decide if I want to start learning a new classical piece, or something e...

I haven't written a goals post in a couple of weeks, so I'll post this one a day early. SCALES Sadly, the Tonebase Two-Week Intensive on Gb/eb really threw me off my routine. Because I was doing it for a "class," I lost all my motivation. So by the end of the first week, I wasn't playing the scales much better than I had the week before. This was disappointing, particularly after the crazy progress I've been making on scales each week up to now. I have extended my Gb/eb work to this week (and I'm still not motivated), but I'm going to switch over to Db/bb Saturday morning and do quite a bit of drill work on those two scales over the weekend. My goal is to have them to at least 100bpm in contrary motion, and up to 120bpm in parallel motion, by the end of the day Monday. FOUNDATIONS: My time studying seventh chords, which started back in February, is coming to an end. I've been working on diminished and half-diminished sevenths this month, but these ...

I had just a few minutes this morning after practicing Mozart, so I decided to play through the Bare Necessities coda/finale/outro. As I explained in my previous post , I've skipped ahead to this section, opting to tackle the easier-looking crossed-hand section and kiddie section after I have the outro down. I've been scared of this section. If you listen to Jonny May play it (link takes you to the beginning of the outro), you can see that it doesn't sound like a walk in the park. And it's not. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's not the big, scary challenge that I thought it would be. The hardest part is the syncopation. I wrote in the beats, circling the melody beats, and clapped out the rhythm a few times. It took a few times before I "got it," but once I figured that out, it was just a matter of learning the notes ... which aren't that hard. It's basically chromatic octaves with inner notes that don't change that much, while t...

I've reached a similar point in both of my main pieces (Bare Necessities and Rondo alla Turca): I'm ready to tackle the codas. The outros. The grand finales. In the Mozart, I've learned everything up to the coda. In Bare Necessities, I've skipped ahead to the coda because it looks like it will be more challenging than the crossed-hands and kiddie sections. In both cases, I was steeling myself for a challenge. I'd planned to wait until the weekend to work on these; I was even planning to write a blog post titled "Coda Weekend," where I wrote about how I was going to spend the whole weekend learning these grand finales. I had some time this morning, so I decided to work on the Mozart coda a few days early, and ... It's not bad. It's not hard. It's fun . I need to put some work into it, of course ... but it wasn't the big scary section that I imagined it would be. I made this video of how it sounds now, starting with the broken-octaves section...

Here are a couple of blues scale patterns that I’ve been doing every day since I learned them a couple of months ago, back when I was on Lesson 3 of the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge at PWJ. (I’m now starting Lesson 8.) One video is of a six-note pattern, and the other is of a 3-note pattern. These were so hard when I first learned them, and they still sometimes take me a second to get in the groove, but I have come a long way with them. 

I was in North Carolina again this weekend, which meant yet another short break from piano practice. I brought my 61-key keyboard, but I purposely only played it for my dad for a half-hour or so each day and didn't do my usual routine and stay up until the wee hours, practicing. I really was at a low point last week, and I needed a break. A Brief "Bare Necessities" Update The break was good for me. I was too tired to practice much after getting home last night, but I did managed to squeeze in about 40 minutes on Bare Necessities, and the ragtime section is coming along. I'm staying at a manageably slow pace (using the metronome so I don't cheat), and just playing it over and over again, thinking about what chords I am playing, and getting to the notes just a hair before I have to play them. It is a very focused, "in the zone" kind of practicing. By the time I finished last night, I played the whole ragtime section at 100 bpm three times in a row without ...

I am starting to hate the Chopin. Not really. But (in case you haven't noticed) it really bothers me that I can play it with no camera and no audience, but I fall apart when I'm recording. Even if I'm casually talking to the phone like it's a friend. Maybe it's worse when I do that. Below is a video where it takes me a painful 10 or so minutes to get through the 6-minute nocturne. I stop and complain a few times. I'm not upset in the great scheme of things -- I'm just very, very frustrated that I have put this much work into this piece, and that I know I can play it well ... but no one else will ever know. I am also baffled as to how people post videos online all the time of their playing this or that piece with no mistakes, or with mistakes that are so small that they're barely noticeable. When I try to record things? I end up with this video, and others like it. I need to go exercise. A tough workout should help things. Unfortunately, I have to go on a...

My last few practice sessions have been very frustrating. I'm making progess--I can see this from session to session--but I've just felt really tired and cranky, and I'm getting angry quickly. I think part of the problem is that I haven't been exercising. Between work, family, home, piano, travel, and volleyball, I haven't had a lot of time for it. And when I'm not exercising, I get cranky. And stressed. And tense. I think all of that is coming out in my practice sessions. I'm also very frustrated that I seem incapable of playing through the Chopin Nocturne without making some really huge, noticeable error--either a series of harsh missed notes, or a complete memory lapse altogether. I think I have this piece memorized backwards and forwards, but when I turn on that phone camera? My mind goes blank. Usually, I just take a deep breath and try again ... or not. But today? Not today. So, friends. That is my state of mind. I'm going to be in North Carolina t...

My scales for this week are Gb major and Eb harmonic minor. I don't think I've ever played anything in either, though I would like to learn Schubert's beautiful  Op. 90, No. 3 Impromptu in Gb major someday. Tonebase TWI This week and next week, I'm participating in a Tonebase Two-Week Intensive (TWI) on improving scale speed and accuracy. For my scale, I've chosen to work primarily in Eb harmonic minor, and for two reasons: (1) it's one of my two scales o' week, and (2) it's possibly my weakest scale. Maybe I should have done A major or A minor, or F# minor, since those are the main keys of the Rondo alla Turca. Or Ab major (Maple Leaf Rag) or F minor (Chopin). Bare Necessities is in F, C, and G ... but those are the easiest scales, and I wanted a challenge. So, Eb harmonic minor it is, though I'll also be putting in some focused work on Gb major as well. For the TWI, I made this "baseline" video, which was a little embarrassing to share ...

If you were reading my blog back in January/February, you might remember that those were heady days of trying to figure out what learning resources I wanted to use. Here's an update on that. Option 1: Private Classical Teacher This was the obvious first choice because ... well, it's always the obvious first choice. Every time I "get back into piano," I immediately look for a good teacher. And I've found some great ones: Deborah  worked some serious magic with my technique for a few years starting in 2004, and Carol was the stickler I needed to bring even more precision and musicality to my playing in 2019-2020. But this time around, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the time or money for an hour a week of lessons, along with the hour or more a day for practicing. Sure, I wanted to play classical music, but I also wanted to (finally) learn other styles, primarily jazz, blues, ragtime, and gospel. Option 2: Private Jazz Teacher So, I wondered, should I find a jaz...

In the beginning of May, I laid out my percentage goals for the month--that is, what percentages of my practice time should go to different pieces/skills. I am here to tell you that ... I'm not doing so well! At least according to the numbers. What The Numbers (and Colors) Say Here is where I am now. If a cell is blue , that means I've gone over the goal -- not a bad thing per se, but it shows that time spent on those pieces maybe should have been spent on others. If a cell is white , that means I'm pretty close to the goal range, either just under it or just over it. And a green cell means I'm in the goal range. Of course, a red cell means I'm far below the goal range. As you can see, I'm doing OK with my technique exercises, but I've gone over in Blues, Chopin, and (almost) Maple Leaf Rag. And I'm way under with the Rondo and Bare Necessities. Reading the Numbers This could mean one of at least two things. One, I'm not practicing my two main pieces...

Friends, I feel like I'm finally starting to make progress on Bare Necessities, now that I'm practicing it consistently. I'm still not giving it as much time as I'd like (averaging only 20-30 minutes a day), but consistency is the main goal. Well, I wasn't super-consistent last week because I was piano-less for three days. But other than that ... Section A: Stride Anyway, I have two videos to share today. The first is of the stride section, which I'd gotten up to a good tempo for several days. I noticed yesterday that it was starting to sound sloppy at that tempo, which was a clear sign that I was playing it faster than I was ready for ... and so I slowed it down. It's not perfect in this video (I miss a couple of notes and have a couple of memory lapses), but I'm very happy with my progress on this section. Section B: Ragtime This video is not nearly as much fun to listen to, at least not yet. In it, I'm playing the ragtime section with the metron...

I have stuck faithfully to my plan of focusing on different major/relative harmonic minor pair of scales each week. Over twelve weeks, my plan is to spend one week each of intensive practice on a single scale pair. This week's scales are B major and G# harmonic minor. B Major and G# Harmonic Minor, Contrary Motion, at 100 My goal was to have both contrary-motion scales at 100, and I seem to be there, though I think my B major scale is just a little sloppy (part of why I played it through a second time in the video). I can't always hear all of the notes, so I'm not sure whether I'm playing them together. Learning to Hear Fast? How does one teach one's brain to hear individual notes when they at a fast tempo? 100 isn't even that fast, but it feels kind of like movie previews these days -- the pictures move so fast that an old person like me can't follow them. Anyway, I feel like I'll be able to play these scales with greater precision if I can learn to h...

I don't think of myself as a "serious pianist." For much of my younger life, I did ... but I really wasn't one. I just liked the idea of being one. I would spend three hours in the practice room in college, but didn't know how to practice efficiently, so I wasted a lot of time. I was also too caught up in wanting to impress people, and not caught up enough in wanting to truly develop my knowledge and skills. For example, I loved to play fast but I neglected scales. I wanted to write music but I wouldn't touch theory with a ten-foot pole. I wanted to be a serious musician but I refused to learn anything by Bach because I'd lost in the first round of a Bach festival once at age 11 and had never forgiven him. I've grown a lot since then! When I watched the video below, which I bookmarked on YouTube a while back, I found that I am indeed a more serious pianist now than I was a 15 or 18 or 22. It's kind of ironic that I don't think of myself as ser...

Oh, how I love diminished sevenths! Here are a couple of quick videos featuring them. The first is from a PWJ exercise of block and broken-chord inversions/arpeggios of D diminished seventh. The second, which is the "Voice of the Dead" section of the Chopin Nocturne in F Minor, features C diminished seventh, and then G diminished seventh, in the right hand. I wonder ... did Chopin use diminished sevenths because he wanted this section to sound like the voice of the dead, or do I call it the "Voice of the Dead" because it uses diminished sevenths with the sinister "voice" in the bass? It's a mystery. I would so love to post a video of myself playing this nocturne. I've tried to make one, but I can't seem to get through it without making some egregious error. And then, after that one, I make three or four more before I get to the end. So, dear readers, you will still need to wait for this one.

I have finally begun Mozart's delightful Rondo Alla Turca! I'm so excited. This is such a fun piece of music, and I'll soon be playing it! I wrote previously on this blog that I wasn't sure how long it would take me, but if the first two sections are any indication, I should have this down in about six weeks. Famous last words? It's possible it's much more complicated than meets the eye (Mozart generally is), so I'm not going to let myself get over-confident. I'm looking forward to my biweekly piano lesson so I can go over all of this with my piano teacher. For now, here is where I am now. According to my piano journal, I've spent a little over an hour learning it (not counting the sight-read I did a few weeks ago). Considering that, I'm pretty happy with my progress! In this video, I'm just focusing on the notes, which I memorized today, and I do a little with the dynamics but not much. And as you'll hear, I didn't focus on tempo at ...

Did I ruin this nice photo with the cheesy clip art? It's 9:30 Saturday morning, and I've already practiced for three and a half hours. It is a rare Saturday that I'm (1) home and (2) don't have a whole lot to do. On those rare days, I can just let myself sink into the piano experience. Today was one of those days. It Starts with a Cat Story Last night, my indoor cat (Buddy) got out. I went out and called him multiple times, but he was enjoying the mild weather, so he'd run every time I got close to him. I finally gave up and set my alarm for 2 a.m. because I didn't want him to be out all night. So at 2:00 this morning, I went to the front door and called him. My indoor/outdoor cat (Ruthie) was ready to come in, but Buddy wasn't. He was too busy hunting worms, or baby moles, or who knows what. Here he was at 2 a.m.: I finally gave up (again). Ruthie is a good big sister, so she stayed out there with Buddy. Meanwhile, I tried to go back to sleep ... and could...

I'm posting this a day late because I had a crazy day yesterday. The good news is, the volleyball team that I coach won the last game of their season last night! Here are my piano goals for the weekend, which should be a good weekend for practicing. Scales & Hanon I've started working on B and g# for this week, and the B-major scale has made is painfully obvious to me how weak the 3rd, 4th, and 5th fingers of my left hand are. So in addition to working on scales, I'm going to spend some time doing some Hanon exercises that focus on those fingers. As with the other scales, I'm working toward between 100 and 120 on contrary motion and between 120 and 130 on parallel motion. This will be a challenge this week. B major is not a hard scale, but the weakness in my left hand is preventing me from building up speed at the moment. G# minor isn't one of the easier minors, but I've worked on it a lot in the past, so I actually have it at about the same tempo (possibly ...

Last night I sat down to make final videos of the Chopin Nocturne and Maple Leaf Rag ... but I was tired! My hands were tired, my mind was tired, my whole body was tired. I generally play better in the morning anyway, so I decided to wait and make my final videos this morning. I made a few good efforts, but I couldn't manage to play either piece without making noticeable errors. Here was the best I could do with the Chopin. As for Maple Leaf ... well, there was no "best" with Maple Leaf this morning. It felt sloppier than ever, and my younger self would have gotten angry about the whole thing. My older self? Well, I'm doing this for fun, and I can play it well enough. So I'm done. Graduated. I am now relegating these pieces to "play once a day and no more," or even "play three times a week and no more." Starting with tonight's practice, I am shifting focus to Bare Necessities and the Mozart Rondo Alla Turca. And, of course, diminished/hal...

When I first started blogging again, I had such a hard time trying to verbalize any kind of a piano goal. Now? I can't wait to write down all of my May goals! Below are some goals, along with a look back to my April goals, which I wrote about on April 1 , and how I did on them. Technique and Theory My goals for April were to get through the Minor 7ths course (check!) and have all of my majors and minor contrary-motion scales at 100 (sort of check ... see here for my adjustments in how I'm doing these). My goals for May are to complete the PWJ course on diminished and half-diminished sevenths and continue working on scales . My calendar shows that I’ll be focusing on B, F#, Db, and Ab with their relative minors this month. Goals? 100-110 for contrary motion and 110-120 for parallel. I also want to continue doing a couple of Hanon exercises a day to work on finger independence, thumb-tucking, and general technique. Percentage Goals: 15% of practice time (5% to scales, Hanon, ...