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Weekend Piano Goals (May 24-26)

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 haven't been as interesting as the majors, dominants, and minors. I've worked hard to learn the patterns and the shapes of the chords and their inversions, but I haven't worked as hard on being able to play the block and broken chords/inversion exercises at speed. I do think part of me is ready to move on to The Next Thing.

What is The Next Big Thing? It's a course titled "Play Piano Lead Sheets with 7th Chords." I took a sneak peek a few days ago, and I'm seeing that this course is less like the 7ths courses and more like the blues course. I want the Foundations work to continue to be a part of my warm-up routine each day, so that will mean some changes coming in June. I'm not sure yet what those will look like. Maybe I'll figure some of that out this weekend.

MOZART, RONDO ALLA TURCA

Good news! I've learned the whole piece! I still need to memorize the coda, which shouldn't be hard -- there are only three main chords (A, D, E), as well as a lot of repetition. I also want to focus on drilling the various scale passages so that they're smooth as glass.

BARE NECESSITIES

Good news! I'm making progress on the outro! It's not easy to reach and play some of the notes, but the structure of it is very simple--basic chords in the left hand, and a climbing chromatic scale, in octaves, in the right. This weekend's task is to do lots of repetitions + memorize it. I also want to begin learning the crossed-hands section. If it's as easy as I think it's going to be, and if I'm able to practice for as many hours as I'd like, I may shoot to have it learned, and maybe even memorized, by end of day Monday.

BLUES

I've made it to Lesson 8! This lesson focuses on 10 different licks to memorize. I've already watched the lesson, and some of those 10 licks are variations on others, so that makes it a little less daunting. I'll still be living with this lesson for a couple of weeks. For the past two weeks, I've focused on creating lines and using all of the other things I've learned -- slides, harmonization, turns, and rolls. Some days I sound great and other days I sound terrible. What's important is that I keep showing up.

CHOPIN and MAPLE LEAF RAG

I've long graduated from these pieces, but I still haven't made my "recital videos." I'd like to do that on Monday if I can. I've put some work into them this weekend, not every day, and I'm a lot more confident with both of them. I'd done a lot of "playing while reading a book," an exercise suggested by Jonny May. And it's helped, particularly with the Chopin! There is something valuable in learning to play something well while not focusing on it 100%.

So, that will be my piano weekend. I have some big goals, and I'm fully aware that I may not achieve them all. What's that saying about if you shoot for the stars, you'll at least reach the moon? Yes. That's the idea. Good luck to me!

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