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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.

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