Skip to main content

End of the Weekend

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 memorized the kiddie section (though it's weirdly depressing to practice ... and very hard to practice music you can't hear). And the outro is sounding a lot better! When I practiced it at 4:00 this morning, I played it through several times without missing a note, and it's no longer at a slow crawl. I'd say it's at more of a medium crawl.

There is still work to do on Bare Necessities, for sure, but I feel like I made some good progress this weekend.

I also made progress on Lead Sheets and Blues. Not so much on the Rondo. I feel a little stuck with the Rondo. But I'll write more about that later.

All in all, I'm happy with my progress this weekend, despite the forearm soreness and a day (yesterday) of almost no practice. While I want to continue pushing myself on Bare Necessities, my goal for this week is to even out that goal chart! I need to spend more time on the Rondo in particular, but I can't forget about my maintenance pieces.

With my daughter at camp for the next couple of weeks, I should be able to post quite a few videos, so stay tuned!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March Goals Recap/Looking Ahead to April

It's April 1, and time to revisit the goals I set for last month. I practiced a total of 50.45 hours in March, averaging 1.62 hours (or just over an hour and a half) per day. Realistically, I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day on weekdays, and I usually get at least one longer practice (or multiple shorter practices) in on one or both days of the weekend to bring the average up. CLASSICAL GOALS Chopin, F Minor Nocturne March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready. I have about 90% of the piece by memory, but I still have some work to do before it's performance-ready. The only two sections that I don't quite have are "The Agitation" and the "stretto" section with the seventh chords. I'll work on both this week and will have them both memorized before the weekend. April Goal: Finish memorizing, and polish, polish, polish! My focus now is really on phrasing and dynamics. I have the notes down, even in the difficult passages. Fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thursday, July 13

I worked in a short practice today. Had piano this afternoon. The short practice involved the usual scales and arps, and a run-through of my pieces. It wasn't so much a practice as a review. Piano was good. She said that the Bach sounded very musical. I asked what I should do next, practice-wise--continue drilling and memorizing HS, or start HT? She said that I "shouldn't hold off any longer" on playing HT, and to keep drilling HS if I want but to begin working HT on whatever I find to be the most difficult passage of the fugue. That's easy. I don't have the music in front of me, but in the Alfred edition, it's the bottom of page two. I played the Liszt pretty well, if a bit timidly. I'm playing it with emotion and paying attention to all of the dynamics and all of that, but I'm still also trying to make sure I get the notes right in several sections. She had all kinds of nice things to say about the Liszt. The 9-against-4 is sounding much better (...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Need an Intermediate Piece

Deborah wants me to pick out an intermediate piece to start learning next week. I went to the ARCT Syllabus guide that Robert so graciously sent me and looked up all of the pieces that I considered "intermediate." They were mostly Grade 6 and Grade 7. Not intermediate enough. I looked up my Beethoven Sonatina in G, my most recent intermediate piece. It's a Grade 3--a very early intermediate. So I'm looking for something in the Grade 4-5 category. And I'd kind of like to work on one of those pieces that everyone loves to hear--Fur Elise, Chopin's Em prelude, the Brahms waltz in Ab--all pieces I learned in junior high, but pieces that I'd like to re-learn, and learn to play well , and not like my junior-high self, whose heart wasn't in the music. And they are pieces I love, and that others love hearing as well. Hmm. Fur Elise is Grade 7. The Chopin Prelude is Grade 8. The Brahms Waltz is Grade 8. Too advanced for an intermediate piece? I'll talk it ...
3 comments
Read more