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November Goals, Part 2: The Specifics

It really helped me to write yesterday's blog post. I was feeling frustrated with my lack of progress this month, despite having some good, intense practices, as well as a few days where I worked over two hours at the piano. Laying everything out and seeing how truly all-over-the-place my priorities have been, it made sense. So I felt better.

Most importantly, I'm able to make changes for November. Below are my goals, broken down by project. I still think I may be a little too diversified this month. If that's the case, I will set The Entertainer aside until later. (But I hope I can keep all of these plates spinning.)

Liszt, Liebesträume: 25%

This is going to be a major focus for November. This is one of my dream pieces, and I think I'm ready to start working on it. It's a brand-new piece for me, and I may end up having to adjust this one's percentage to 30%. I'll know in a week or so.

Blues Theory and Practice: 25%

As I wrote yesterday, I've felt very stalled in my blues progress. Courses seem to take forever, and progress is slow. For a long time, I thought, "I'm just a slow learner." And, "I'm learning for mastery, and that takes time." Both of these are true, but I've also not given my blues work a great deal of consistent practice recently. That's going to change in November, God willing.

Joplin, The Entertainer: 20%

One of my goals for this year was to learn/re-learn and memorize the three Scott Joplin rags that I've dabbled with before, which also happen to be his three most popular: Maple Leaf Rag, Solace, and The Entertainer. Of the three pieces, The Entertainer is the only one I ever learned and memorized in full, though I never played it as well I played Maple Leaf A-B and Solace C-D.

My November goal for The Entertainer is to get it back up to speed. I haven't touched it in nearly eight years, so it's going to be rusty. But I'm optimistic that it will come back stronger than ever over the course of the next month.

Technique: 15%

In addition to my usual scales, arpeggios, inversions, and the occasional Hanon, I want to look into some short but challenging etudes. I have several books of exercises (Czerny, Moszkowski, Oscar Peterson), so I'm going to see if I can find something that will challenge me without beating me up. If I can't, I'll just stick to my usual technique work for now. (The truth is, I'm a little bored with the usual, so I hope I can find something.)

Maintenance: 15%

Of all my focus areas, Maintenance will be the hardest to keep at the percentage goal. I technically have eight maintenance pieces. I will probably play one or two a day, or two or three every other day, just to keep them fresh.

I'm still not sure what to do about Bare Necessities, as I don't seem able to just sit down and play through it once and be done with it. I can play it through, but I'm constantly stopping to tweak things, or correct things, and my "quick play-through" turns into a 45-minute session of drilling and slow practice that leaves me feeling deflated and unmotivated.

If I set Bare Necessities aside, that will leave me with only seven maintenance pieces, which would honestly be a lot more manageable.

November Starts Tomorrow!

It's possible I will have to drive to Atlanta tomorrow evening, but if I don't ... I'll be at the piano, getting started on these new goals. If I do need to drive to Atlanta, piano will have to wait until Saturday. I also plan to make a performance video of "Solace" this weekend, and possibly a video of my allegro-tempo "Jingle Bells Rag."

I am so ready for the weekend!
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