May Goals: Mid-Month Check-in

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 enough. Or two, my 30% goals were unrealistic. (Also, even though Maple Leaf and the Nocturne are both now "maintenance" pieces, I keep finding things in them that I need to work on, so they're taking more time than anticipated.)

Oh, and did I mention that I had to create a new "Free" category of things that aren't even in the goal list?

Yes, a full 5.3 hours (17% of my practice time!!) have gone to "free" things -- PWJ course-watching, sight-reading, and working on a gospel arrangement of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" (more on that in another post). So I'm only spending a little over 80% of my practice time on my goal ("assigned") work. That was unexpected.

Looking Ahead

I don't want to make changes to the spreadsheet now, but I'll be able to do better next month. For one, I'll include at least one additional category ("Free"), or probably more ("Sight-reading," "Improvising/Arranging," etc.). I'll also begin by thinking about how much time per day I want to give each item, and then work the percentages from there. I think I did that for May, but those goals weren't realistic -- if I spent as much time as I wanted on each item in the list, I'd be practicing four or five hours a day!

Still, this is a learning process, and I'm getting a better idea of how I can set these goals in the future.

Meanwhile, I'll plan to put more time into the Rondo and Bare Necessities than I have. And I'm going to try to hold off on gospel arranging until June. Or until I'm through the Blues Track on PWJ. Because I already have too many things on my piano plate.

Comments

Rethinking Bare Necessities

Today's breakthrough moment (there are actually two of them) focuses on "Bare Necessities." As you'll remember, I discovered Jonny May's arrangement back in early March and immediately decided to learn it. I printed out the music, started the course, and proceeded to learn the stride section, posting a few videos of my progress. Ha. I bet those videos make it look like I was making progress. I guess I was ... but not really. And I realized something this weekend that I hadn't before: Because I was thinking of "Bare Necessities" as a "fun" piece, I wasn't practicing it seriously or diligently. I wasn't treating it as something I wanted to master. This mindset might work with an easier piece, but this arrangement isn't easy. The result: despite a little progress at the outset, I wasn't moving forward. I was stalled. Breakthrough #1 The first breakthrough was realizing that if I truly want to learn this piece and play it well,

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Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin? At the Beginning I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around. Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a

Picking Up the Pieces

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