Skip to main content

Jingle Bells Rag Weekend

I found myself with an unexpectedly capacious amount of time for piano practice this weekend--and my wrist didn't hurt at all! I have no idea how long I practiced, but I estimate it was around seven hours over the two days. I tracked my time on Saturday (103 minutes on Liszt and 90 minutes on Jingle Bells Rag). But Sunday? I have no idea.

I spent nearly all of Sunday's practice on ragtime. Technically, I was working on Jingle Bells Rag, but I was working more on improvisation and arranging. I came up with my own little arrangement for the first instance of the verse after the crossed-hands section. I'll share it here, even though it sounds terrible--not only is it plinky because I had the piano on a low volume due to family members sleeping, but I accidentally cut off the first second or two. But here it is:

The "Nina elements" of this are (1) the off-beat notes in the melody, (2) the harmonized chromatics as filler, (3) the ending of the first part with the held chromatic in the right hand and the walk-up in the left hand. I'm also playing the melody completely on the off-beats for a couple of measures of the second part of the verse before returning to the notes as written. (This is where I speed up, though that speed-up wasn't intentional.)

I'm so proud of my little old self! It's a very basic improv/arrangement (started out as improv, and then I picked out the elements I wanted to keep, which is what you hear in the video), but it's mine. And I couldn't have done this without Piano With Jonny.

I'm so excited about making the final video for the entire piece. I'm going to do that either tonight or tomorrow morning. It's just about ready. The only parts that I still need to work on are (1) this new section, which I can play but not at the tempo of the rest of the piece, and (2) the right-hand octave-jumps toward the end. I've come a long way with those octave-jumps, but I still never quite know if they're going to turn out right until I play them. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised to play them perfectly at tempo, but it's always a surprise when I do. I need to know that they're going to be perfect.

I'm hoping to spend some time today (and over the next few days) thinking about my January piano goals and how I'm going to track them in my amazing practice tracker.  I wrecked my December percentage goals this weekend with all of my work on Jingle Bells Rag yesterday ... but it's OK. Rarely do I have a month where I don't stray from the plan, and it's usually when something like this happens--I get an idea for arranging something, and then everything goes off the rails. :)

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

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

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