Picking Up the Pieces

I am weirdly not in a mood to write about weekend piano goals today. Part of it is that I've been away for most of the week (for an unplanned trip) and have had very little actual practice. I say "actual" because, in the absence of a real piano, I did quite a bit of ear training. Using my 61-key keyboard, I made exercises for myself and quizzed myself for several days ... and I'm getting better at recognizing intervals! I also did some sight-reading as I played hymns and other songs for my dad on the keyboard. So, I did get some work done. But I didn't really practice . So it's hard to think about goals when I feel like I'm already behind. Add to that, I'm leaving for vacation in a few weeks, which means I have a piano-less two weeks in my near future. I'm not looking forward to being away from my practice routine. I fear all of my progress this month will disappear after two weeks of no practice. Also , I won't be home for most of Sunday, so c...

 Working from the Lead Sheets course, I was planning to video an impromptu improvisation last night ... but I was rudely interrupted. Here's the video.

This weekend yielded some good, focused work on Mozart's Rondo alla Turca. I still feel like I've hit a ceiling with it, though. It sounds okay, but it doesn't glitter. It doesn't shine. But at least it's better than it was last week . In my opinion. Here is my latest video of the full piece. I'm playing it at about 110 bpm, and my goal is about 120. I need to do more slow practice, and I also need to work on the little turnaround at 1:32 and again at 1:52 (which sounds great at 100 bpm but falls apart at 110). I also don't think I'm paying enough attention to the dynamics. It's like I'm remembering to think about them just in time, or just a little after the fact. The coda still isn't great. It needs to sparkle, glitter, flit, and shine, and right now it sounds like a sledgehammer to me. Just so you know that I'm not feeling completely negative about my performance, here are some things I am happy with: My sixteenth notes are (mostly) e...

It's time to think about my weekend piano goals! This should be a rare weekend where I can practice as much as I want to, so I'm excited about getting started. SCALES: I've been working on A-flat major and F minor all week, and they're sounding pretty good. I'll move on to E-flat major and C minor next week. These are both easy scales for me, so I might make my tempo goals a little higher, just to see what I can do! LEAD SHEETS: The lead sheet course has been helpful, but it's also been a lot of review. I've known about the Cycle of Fifths and Turnaround (Prison) progressions forever, so even though I'm applying them to new songs and using various inversions and working in multiple keys, the material itself isn't new. So I think I'm going to take some time to watch Lesson 3, which is on the extended turnaround progression. It may be another familiar progression ... but my goal, by the end of the weekend, is to be able to play/improvise songs fro...

I'm taking the PWJ "Play Piano with Lead Sheets and Seventh Chords" course, and the first two chord progressions he covers are the Cycle of Fifths Progression (which I wrote about  here ) and the Turnaround progression, which goes from I to vi7 to ii7 to V7 and back to I. The turnaround progression is what I think of as the "Prison Progression." Do you remember my early blog post about the rusty lock and key ? Where I felt like I was stuck inside a room and couldn't get out? One of the elements of that room was the Prison Progression. Whenever I would try to write music or improvise on my own, I would try all kinds of different chords, but I would keep falling back in to the Prison Progression. My left hand would play broken root-position chords (I wrote about that  here  and elsewhere), my right hand would mildly improvise a tune, and I would move slowly, predictably, from I to vi7 to ii7 to V7 and back to I. Why? Why couldn't I break out of that patte...

Bare Necessities is coming along nicely. I can play the whole thing at 120, and most of it at 140 or 150. It's supposed to be at 200-something, so it's still not up to speed ... but I am definitely making progress. There are a few small "problem areas" where I still struggle. All three of them are in the ragtime section, and they are the focus for today's blog post. Just a warning that the accompanying videos are very boring because they show me drilling these sections. My hope is that they'll be helpful for someone down the road who is trying to learn this same piece. Problem Area #1: Measure 55 This is the end of the verse that goes "just the bare necessities of life." I would put a photo of the measure here, but I don't want to break any copyright rules. So I'll describe it: The right hand is playing octave quarter notes, going down an A minor chord (E to C to A), finishing on G. The left hand is doing single-note jumps: It jumps from a lo...

I had a delightful piano lesson yesterday. Eric gave me some good insights regarding Rondo alla Turca, but he also said that it sounds great. I asked him to tell me honestly if the broken-octave and coda sections sound like a train wreck, and he said they don't sound like a train wreck at all. That was a relief. Apparently, all of my slow practice on that section, as well as all of my broken-octave exercises and all of my rolled-chord and articulation work, have helped. It was good to get some objective feedback and have that objective feedback be so positive and encouraging. So, it looks like I will graduate from Rondo alla Turca by the end of June. What's next? I'll be 10 or so days without a piano at the end of July, so I'm hesitant to start a new piece for July. I've also felt a little overwhelmed by the many different projects I'm working on. So perhaps I should just focus on finishing up both Bare Necessities and the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge by the time I...

 I hit a milestone yesterday: 250 practice hours since I started tracking them back in early February! Here's the breakdown from my Excel file: I'm not sure why Excel numbers don't match the PWJ numbers, so I'll have to revisit the practice log and get that all straightened out ... maybe. I'm not sure it's worth it to go to the trouble. But 250 hours! In about four and a half months! At that rate, I'll hit 1,000 hours in another year or so! I wonder how many hours of my life have been spent practicing piano. I have no idea. Several hundred in some years, to be sure. Maybe more. And a few dozen in other years. Whatever it is ... it's 250 more hours as of today!

This weekend, my daughter was in the living room watching a movie, and I heard a few bars of whatever the theme song was. Something in me recognized it--not the song, but the pattern. "Cycle of Fifths!" I said aloud. So, after a week of listening to Cycle of Fifths songs and working on such songs as Fly Me To the Moon, All the Things You Are, and Autumn Leaves, I'm getting a sense of what this progression sounds like. I've also had some fun just improvising and making things up using the chord patterns. I'd make a video of that, but it's early and my family is still asleep and probably wouldn't appreciate my waking them up. Losers. More Foundations: Ear Training Anyway, I was scrolling through the future "Level 4 Foundations" courses the other day and noticed one on ear training. For me, that would literally be ear (singular, not plural) training since my right ear is deaf. Ha ha. I decided to start watching/listening to it, partly so I could ...

Maybe I should have included this with my previous post on my Mozart practice, but I wanted to share my percentages.  You'll see that I'm either close to my goal, or over it, for everything except the Mozart. A sub-goal is to spend 50% of my practice time on my two "big" pieces (Bare Necessities and the Rondo), and I'm close to it ... but only because I'm spending so much time on Bare Necessities! I'm going to try to rectify this over the next few days and let Bare Necessities rest a bit while I focus hard on the Rondo. For tonight's practice, I want to continue the slow practice and the drilling, but I also want to make a good video of the entire piece to share on the PWJ page. Wish me luck!

Last week, I wrote about how I feel stuck with Rondo alla Turca . I learned it easily; after just two or three weeks of moderate attention, I knew all the notes and could play the whole thing by memory. But Mozart being Mozart, it's not enough just to know the notes. It's not enough to be able to play them. Everything needs to be even. Everything needs to be elegant and smooth. Articulation is king. It needs to be ... something other than what I'm doing. Progress Video #1 I hesitated to share this video because it's so bad. The left hand sounds too loud, but that may be due to the placement of my phone. Still, the repeated notes in the big octave sections sound thudding rather than brisk. And in the scale passages, I keep hearing moments where I hold one note a little too long and the next one a little too short, or vice versa. In other words, the runs lack evenness. And I don't even want to talk about the dynamics, which are virtually absent. Now that I can play th...

Back in the 1990s, I bought Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of The New Real Book . These books are full of anything you could ever want to play in jazz, including all of the standards. I'd also bought Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book , and I was ready to learn jazz. Alas, a stack of books didn't cut it. I needed a teacher. Someone to show me the ropes. But I didn't know where to look, and besides, I was too shy to ask anyone. I mean, me? Middle-class, shy, cerebral little me, wanting to become a jazzer? Laughable. I didn't even smoke, and I looked silly in sunglasses. Still, I Could Play Pretty Broken Chords Every few years, I would dig out the Levine book and try to make progress, and I would dig out the New Real Book volumes and attempt to play songs. Whenever I saw the chord change, I would go to the root of the chord and proceed to arpeggiate, usually with the 1 and the 5. Thanks to my Mark Levine book, I did learn how to play the 3 and the 7 in the right hand with the melody,...

I don't even know where to begin with this weekend's goals. June has not been a great month for piano practice. I was out of town and piano-less the first weekend of June, and then I was out of town and piano-less for four days this past week. My daughter comes home from camp this afternoon and Sunday is Father's Day, so it will be a more family-focused weekend than usual. (As it should be.) Still, I should be able to get an couple hours' work of practice in on both Saturday and Sunday. Hanon and Scales Continue working on my 3-4-5 finger strengthening exercises with Hanon, as well as the octave exercises. (I'm on a mad mission to learn to relax my hands as much as possible when playing scales.) Finish up Db major and Bb minor scales and move on to Ab major and F minor. SMART GOAL: Db major and Bb minor at between 100 and 130 (parallel and contrary). Lead Sheets I didn't get past Lesson 1 (Circle of Fifths Progression/Fly On By/etc.) this week, so I will contin...

Bare Necessities is coming along! My dreams of graduating by the end of June seem less realistic than ever, but I am definitely making progress. I've been away from my piano for three days, and I'm hoping the rest has been fruitful. Early this morning, I played through it at a slow pace, the whole thing, and barely missed a note! I turned on the camera and tried again, but of course I missed a few dozen notes. But I still think this video shows that I've progressed. This one features the ragtime and crossed-hands sections. Enjoy, and try not to cringe at the many flubbed notes!

This video is from a few days ago, but I wanted to wait until my Wednesday Blues post to share it. It's basically me whining about how terrible my blues improvisations sound to me. After a couple of minutes of whining, I work on some improvisation, but I get interrupted before I really get to "the good stuff." Which was expected because I was waiting for my husband since we were about to go out to dinner. Anyway, blues progress has felt slow. Sometimes I feel like I need to go back and re-watch some of these looong PWJ Blues Challenge videos, just to make sure I'm understanding it all. I will say that I'm enjoying my blues song that I've written. What I want to do now is take a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and just work on that one song -- refining the lyrics, such as they are, and working on a few runs and patterns that I think will work. For now, I'm in living Whinyville. Enjoy!

Now that I have graduated from the four courses on seventh chords, I'm in the "Play Piano Lead Sheets with 7th Chords" course. The first lesson is on the Cycle of Fifths chord progression. I'm very familiar with the Cycle of Fifths, so I guess I'm a little ahead there. And thanks to the seventh-chord courses , I'm pretty good at moving from one chord to another, even when using different inversions. So I'm thankful for that. As I work my way through these lessons, I'm going to spend a lot of time transposing to other keys, using only the roman numerals as a guide. I also want to practice using the many skills I'm learning in the blues course: slides, turns, harmony notes, rolls, etc. Another goal: Avoid falling into my stale old habit of arpeggiating the left-hand chords . Use block chords, or stride/ballad-style chords, or bass lines, or ... well, anything but those broken chords! Broken chords are pretty and nice and I don't have anything aga...

How is it already Friday? It's time to think about my weekend piano goals. This weekend will be a little weird in that I'm leaving for North Carolina on Sunday afternoon, so I may not get as much practice in on Sunday as I might otherwise. Anyway, here are the goals. Scales/Hanon Get the Db major and Bb minor scales up to speed (between 100 and 130 for parallel and contrary). I've worked on these a little each day, and I'm getting there. As for Hanon, I just want to continue doing one or two Hanon exercises a day. I'm mostly doing stuff from Exercises 1-20, though I'm mixing in the octave exercises as well. Rondo alla Turca Continue with the slow practice. Continue refining the first few sections, and continue to drill the broken-octaves section and the coda. Those last two sections don't sound nearly as good to me as the other sections, and I honestly think that more slow practice is the key, which as few fast-twitch drills thrown in for certain areas where...

Welcome to Ragtime Thursday! I have no Bare Necessities video to share with you today. Ten minutes into the morning's practice session, I remembered I had a dentist appointment at 8 a.m., so I needed to hit the road. Hence, no videos today. (I may update this post a little later if I'm able to get a video tonight.) Last Night's Practice: Slow and Measured Last night I practiced both the Mozart and Bare Necessities with the metronome, at slow tempos -- not so slow that I got distracted, but slow enough that I felt like I had plenty of time to think about where my hands would go next. It was a wonderfully satisfying experience to be able to play each piece at a slow but recognizable pace, and to play them without missing a note. Of course, I did miss a note every now and then. And when I did, I stopped, backed up a measure or two, and played it again. If I missed the note again, I stopped to drill. If I didn't miss it again, I kept going. I did this several times for each...

Thanks to my forearm soreness from trimming hedges last weekend, I didn't play much piano on Sunday, on Monday, or on Tuesday morning. I thought about canceling yesterday afternoon's lesson, but I decided to go through with it anyway ... and I'm so glad I did! Eric had wanted to hear "Bare Necessities," so I played it for him ... and he was impressed! I played him the Jonny May video so he could see the Bare Necessities master himself, and then we talked about how I might use dynamics and phrasing to put my own stamp on it. It was a good lesson. I'm glad I decided to stick with the lessons, even though they are more like feedback sessions than actual lesson. But I honestly think feedback sessions are just what I need at this point. At the end of the lesson, I asked Eric if he'd ever thought about having the piano store sponsor an amateur pianists' club. He said he'd brought up the idea to his adult students in the past, but that no one had ever bee...

I've decided to have themes for each day on this blog. I probably won't stick to them religiously, but I think it will help keep me from posting on Bare Necessities every single day. It should also help me to remember to practice other things. So for now, I'm thinking ... Monday : Mozart Tuesday : Technique (or Foundations) Wednesday : Blues Thursday : Ragtime Friday : Weekend Goals Since today is Wednesday, I'll share a little bit of my blues progress. I've made it through Lesson 8 of the Piano With Jonny 10-Lesson Blues Challenge, and I'll likely start Lesson 9 this weekend. My goal has been to spend at least 15 minutes a day on the blues, either working on licks (Lesson 8), or just jamming, practicing coming up with lines and working all of the different blues elements (slides, turns, rolls, and licks) into is, all while playing the 12-bar blues shuffle. Some days I sound great. Some days I crash and burn. But I know that if I keep showing up, I'll just ...

I don't know why I, with my tiny hands, want to keep learning octave-heavy pieces, but I do. And when I practice, my hands and forearms get tired. The most fatiguing passages lately have been the broken-octave sections of the Mozart and the outro section of Bare Necessities (though the ragtime section has plenty of octave challenges as well). I've been looking for some good resources on playing octaves more efficiently (and with less fatigure), and I found two extremely helpful videos from Kate Boyd, "The Piano Prof" on YouTube : Playing Octaves Faster with Ease: Piano Technique Tutorial (1/2)  Effortless Octaves at the Piano (2/2)   Among other things (summarized below), she writes about how you can build endurance by playing, then resting, then playing, then resting. It's basically the same idea as interval training in running. Or HIIT training in aerobics-style classes. So it makes sense. Anyway, I've summarized her suggestions in this blog post. I recommen...

I can play through both my main pieces now. Both Bare Necessities and Rondo alla Turca are fully memorized, and I've worked out the various kinks of learning the notes. Even the tricky BN outro has come together ... mostly. It's been a slow with Bare Necessities. The Mozart hasn't been so bad, but it's still tricky because all those 16th notes need to be absolutely even. And I still haven't discovered the secret of playing those broken octaves in the right hand effectively. And both pieces are fast. The Mozart is a nice Allegro that I'd like to have at about 120 to 130. And Bare Necessities? I think the stride section is supposed to be around 200, though Jonny plays it faster. And the whole piece following the stride section is faster, though I don't really like it that fast, so I may keep it all at the same tempo, or at least not speed it up as much as he does in his video . Time for the Next Phase So. Now that I have the notes down and have at least begun ...

I promise to post on other areas of my piano journey soon. But since I spent so much time on Bare Necessities this weekend, I have progress to report. I also was able to get a few decent videos this morning. And by decent, I mean "not horrible." They are by no means perfect, and all three of them required more takes than I'd like to admit. I was just about to give up when I finally, finally got a decent outro. I did give up before getting a decent video of the stride section at tempo. I felt frustrated (partly because by then I was going to be late for work), but at the same time, I'm so close to getting a video of myself playing the stride section at tempo! At tempo! This is a huge accomplishment that has been a couple of months in the making. Below is the ragtime section. As with the stride section, I can feel myself getting frustrated and discouraged by it, but then I have to remind myself of how far I've come. Parts of it have gotten sloppy due to my obsessiv...

It was a good weekend. I put in almost four hours of practice on Saturday, most of it on Bare Necessities. I also worked in the yard with the hedge clippers, which caused my forearms to be extremely sore Sunday morning, so I didn't practice much before church. After church, we left for northeast Georgia to drop my daughter off at summer camp. I didn't practice when we got home Sunday night, even though I had time. I felt really tired, for some reason, and my forearms were still very sore, so I watched some TV with Dan instead. I couldn't sleep last night because of this stupid menopause-induced eczema, so I finally got up around 3:30 and ended up practicing for a little over an hour, most of it on (yet again) Bare Necessities. I'm only three days into June, and my goals are already seriously out of kilter! I think it's been worth the imbalance though, at least for these few days. The memorized crossed-hands section of Bare Necessities is much smoother, and I've ...

Here are my practice stats for May 2024: I put 64.9 hours of practice into my "assigned" (by me) pieces, plus 5 hours into "free" work (mostly working on gospel stuff while in North Carolina), for a total of 69.9 hours of practice this month. That the most I've practiced since I came back to piano a few months ago! (Chart does not include the gospel ("free") work that I did.) The piece that got the most work in May was Bare Necessities (18.9 hours), followed by Rondo alla Turca (15.6 hours) and the Blues Challenge (12.5 hours). This was my first month to set percentage goals. I met some of them, but I fell woefully short on the Rondo and 7ths practice. I've adjusted my goals for June to allow more time (20%) for Blues, and less (25%) for each of my main pieces. I'm also going to bump my Lead Sheets goal up to 15% because I have a feeling this course will be more interesting and challenging to me than the Diminished/Half-Diminished Sevenths cour...

I was going to title this one "Bare Necessities Woes," but I apparently already have a blog post titled "Bare Necessities Woes." I worked on Bare Necessities for two hours today. Two hours .  Actually, let me rephrase that. I worked on the Bare Necessities outro for two hours today. Forty minutes this morning, and then in little 10- or 15-minute intervals throughout the day. And I still don't have it. It's better, but I can't play it with any semblance of confidence. When I do play it perfectly (at a snail's pace, always), it always seems like a stroke of luck. I finally had to stop practicing. Not because I wanted to, but because my forearm was screaming. I had to keep resting because the reaches are hard on my hands/arms. Even though I've taken out some notes to make them easier. I'm tired and I feel like I'm making my way through darkness. I still have not managed to wrap my brain around this passage yet, and it feels brand-new to m...