Skip to main content

May Piano Goals

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, and other technique exercises, and 10% to the diminished and half-diminished 7ths.) (In April, fully 23% of my practice time went to Technique and Theory.)

Style

My April goal was to get through Lesson 5 of the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge at PWJ (check!). My May goal is to get through Lesson 8.

Why am I spending so much time on these? Because the video lessons are so long (over 60 minutes each, which means at least 2 hours at the piano watching and pausing video), I've been averaging one lesson every two or three weeks. I'd like to go faster, but I really think it's good for me to let these new concepts marinate the way I have so far.

Percentage goal: I’d like to spend about 15% of my practice time on Blues. In April, about 16% of my practice time went to the Blues Learning Track, so I’m looking at roughly the same amount of time.

Classical

My April goal was to "finish memorizing" the Chopin Nocturne and "polish, polish, polish!" (check!) I'm there. My May goal for the Chopin is to spend about a half-hour a week playing the nocturne, just to keep it fresh. This could mean playing it once a day, or playing through it a few times every few days, maybe polishing a little more as I see fit.

As for Rondo Alla Turca ... The structure of this piece, as far as I can tell, is A B-C-B-A-B-Coda. Perhaps I'll try to learn this one from back to front, and make learning the final "A-B-Coda" section of Rondo Alla Turca my goal for May. Because there is some repetition, I'll be learning some of the earlier material as I go.

Percentage goals: 30% of practice time on Mozart; 5% of practice time on Chopin. In April, I spent 20% of my practice time on Chopin.

Ragtime

My April ragtime goal was to “keep working on MLR, but also shift focus to Bare Necessities.” That sort-of happened. Looking back, I almost wish I’d waited to get through Maple Leaf before starting Bare Necessities. I would have finished Maple Leaf sooner, and I wouldn’t have had the frustrations with Bare Necessities that I’ve had. The good news, is that Maple Leaf Rag is in the books, and I can now truly shift focus to Bare Necessities.

My May goal is to learn all of Bare Necessities. That is a big goal and I’m not sure I can do that … but it’s the goal. If I can learn the whole piece this month, I can spend June (and maybe July) getting it up to speed, polishing, etc.

Percentage goals: In April, I spent 36% of my practice time on ragtime, with 20% on MLR and 16% on BN. For May, I’m looking at devoting 30% of my time to BN and just 5% to maintaining MLR.

Other Stuff

I know I wrote about my discovery of gospel blues a few days ago, but I'm going to hold off on that because I have enough on my plate for May. I also occasionally think about re-learning an old and not-too-challenging piece, but for I’m not planning to do that in May. My musical plate is full for now.

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

Dance of the Digits

Note: I've expanded significantly on this post over at my other blog, A Sort of Notebook . I am loving Liszt. I love the way my hands have to "share" the melody. I have so much to write on that, but I'm borrowing a computer and don't have enough time to do it justice. Suffice it to say that I've practiced three and a half wonderful hours today, and about two hours on Liszt alone. What I find wonderful about Liszt is that it pushes one hand hard, but not too hard. Then the other hand gets a turn to be pushed. But it's never both at the same time, and never one hand for too long. It's hard to explain. When I have more time to write, I'll word things rather more eloquently, I'm sure. All I can say now is that my fingers feel like they're dancing a wonderful, graceful dance. I've been trying to "play with my body," as my piano teacher says to do, so all of me is dancing. And Standchen, though it still need a lot of work (like, um...
3 comments
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