Skip to main content

Weekend Goals, June 7-9

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 I find myself pausing. I do need to start working on speed for the entire piece, but I'm not going to do that until I have these last two sections locked in.

Bare Necessities

Continue the slow practice of the entire piece, and work on a few sections that I'm still struggling with. That includes the outro and a couple of short passages of the ragtime section. By the end of the weekend, I want those three sections to no longer be a problem. For the moment, they're keeping me from increasing my speed even a little.

Blues

Keep jamming and improvising! Work on the blues song I've written. And go through Lesson 9 of the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge. (I may wait until early next week to do this, as I'll be in NC and working from a keyboard instead of a full piano.)

Lead Sheets

Continue working on "Fly Me To the Moon," "Autumn Leaves," and "All The Things You Are." Come up with a version of "Fly On By" (Jonny's tune for Lesson 1) that I can share here. (My plan is to do Lesson 2 of this course while in NC.)

Maintenance

I've been working to get both the Chopin and Maple Leaf Rag back up to speed. For the weekend, I just want to continue playing MLR at a manageable pace (metronome 88 or so), and continue drilling different sections of the Chopin in preparation for the September masterclass.

And that's it! It will be a great weekend!

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