Yet Another Bare Necessities Update

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 obsessive recent focus on the outro, and there are also some parts (C-to-A-major-arpeggio-to-D-minor-seventh, I'm looking at you) that I don't think I ever quite "got" and will need to work on some more.

Finally, here is a video of the fun crossed-hands section. And it really is fun. I'm playing it by memory here, and I just have a few spots where I pause due to a slight memory lapse. One or two good, focused practices should solve those problems

I don't yet have a video of the kiddie section. I've been experimenting with playing the first half an octave lower because it really does drive me nuts to play notes I can't hear. But I think it probably works best as written. The notes themselves aren't hard; in fact, this section is, without question, the easiest part of the entire pice. So I should have a good video of it before too much longer.

And that's it. I promise, I won't post any more Bare Necessities updates for at least another 24 hours!

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Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

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