484 Hours (so far) in 2024!

Today when I opened my practice journal on PWJ, I saw that I've put 484 hours of practice in since joining PWJ on January 30.

My home for 484 hours (so far) this year.

Wow. Four hundred and eighty-four hours. God willing, I should hit the 500-hour mark in another ten or twelve days.

Five hundred hours of practice! At that rate, I'll hit 10,000 hours in just 20 years!

10,000 Hours?

Honestly, I wonder if I've put 10,000 hours of practice in by this point in my life. I've never tracked my practice time until this year, so I have no way of knowing. I have had some years where I've practiced this much (and more), but then there have been years of almost no practice.

(Five minutes later ...)

So, I went into Excel just now and estimated my hours of practice every year since I started playing in 1974. My very first practice session, at age 4, was after church one Sunday evening. I worked and worked and worked at playing "Just As I Am." I have no idea how long it took that night, but once I realized I could play by ear, I was at the piano every spare minute. And that didn't change much for two years, until I started taking lessons and playing became "practice" and I begrudgingly "practiced" for 30 or so minutes a day.

Anyway, my estimate, once I added up all the years, is 10,750 hours. So it's very possible that I've put 10,000 hours of practice in over my lifetime. You'd think I'd be better at piano by now. Ha.

484 Hours = Lots of Improvement!

Seriously, though ... my 484 hours in 2024 have been worth it. I am a much better pianist than I was a year ago, and I have quite a few songs completely memorized:

Maple Leaf Rag
Solace
The Entertainer
Bare Necessities
Jingle Bells Rag
Chopin, Nocturne in F minor
Mozart, Rondo alla Turca
Amazing Grace (gospel blues style)
The Old Rugged Cross (gospel blues style)

That's nine songs! Jonny said it's good to have about 15 songs memorized at any point, so I have six more to go. :)

No recording or video today. It's rare these days that I'm home alone and have the opportunity to record. It's sad because I have so many pieces ready to share! Hopefully soon.

Comments

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 ...

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...

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...

Picking Up the Pieces

Search This Blog