Picking Up the Pieces

Hello, piano friends! I’m back with more updates on my journey to tame Jonny’s arrangement of "America the Beautiful," and it's starting to feel more like a friend than a challenge. In this post, I'll share where I’m at (again, LOL), with a video from three weeks ago and one from early this week. See below! Jazzy Intro: Finding My Flow (and My Voice) Three weeks ago, I shared a video of me working through the jazzy intro —definitely a bit rough. Now, I’ve got it memorized and I’m playing it with more confidence and emotion. Check out this video from two nights ago to hear how it’s coming along: Last night, I started adding some slides to the melody and a few harmony notes. And I loved it! I'd like to add just enough to give it a bluesy feel without losing the smooth jazz vibe. So that's another thing I'll be working on! Ragtime Section: Building Speed This ragtime section is tough, but I'm making progress. Yesterday I focused on fast-twitch exercises...

I had such big dreams of nailing Jonny May's arrangement of "America the Beautiful" (with an improvised finale) by July 4. Alas, I didn't even come close. This piece is a sneaky little devil. Jonny makes it look deceptively simple , but it's anything but easy. This beast has four wildly different sections, each with its own personality--and its own way of humbling me. I'll break it down for you and will include a new video of my ragtime section with links to videos from late June to show how far I’ve come. Section 1: Jonny’s Jazzy Intro This intro (in G major) is smooth and melancholy, a cocktail-jazz sound replete with quartals , extensions, and chord alterations I don't understand. It’s slow, moody, and a bear to memorize. I posted about it a few weeks ago , and looking back, I’ve made some serious strides. But full disclosure? I’m still not 100% solid playing it from memory, so there's still work to do. Section 2: Jonny’s “Fun” Ragtime Section “Fun”...

OK, y’all, here is a new work-in-progress. I'm so excited about it ... but also a little nervous to share. I’ve been playing with a stride/ragtime spin on the LSU Fight Song as part of a bigger medley project. I’ve had the lead sheet forever, but this weekend I finally sat down to mess around with it, kind of a few minutes of “what if I do this?” at the piano. Here’s the result so far. It’s rough, and definitely not pure ragtime since it swings, but I like it this way! It’s far from polished, and I imagine the final version will sound totally different. But that's the fun of it, right? I just love the creative process. I love starting things. Finishing? Hm. Like my ragtime fight song, I'm definitely a work in progress!

This morning, I left Elite Hearing Centers with two new devices: a high-end hearing aid for my left ear, and a CROS transmitter for my right. As I pulled out of the parking lot, Ray Charles's "America the Beautiful" started up on Spotify and, as if on cue, I started sobbing like a kid hearing music for the first time. The harmonies, which are normally a single blur, were clear and distinct. I noticed instruments I hadn't realized were there before. And most important, the music had a warmth to it that it had never had before. Do normal people hear music like this? I sure hope so. It is heavenly. For someone who’s been mostly deaf since childhood, these new devices aren’t just technology — they’re a door opening up to a rich musical world (and I thought my musical world was already pretty rich)! How do you describe the moment you hear a favorite song as if it’s brand new? Here is a bit about my hearing-aid journey. From One Ear to Two I’ve worn a hearing aid since 1999...

(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...

  How is it almost time to flip the calendar to July? I swear I just started my June spreadsheet, but here we are, with June nearly in the books. July will be a bit of a whirlwind--partly because I'm sneaking away for a week of vacation. This means I'm keeping things focused: no shiny new pieces until August. Instead, I'll focus on Liebesträume and America the Beautiful for performances, keep up with my maintenance pieces, and dive into a few creative projects that have been swirling around in my brain for a while. Still, I need to have goals beyond "focus on," "keep up with," and "dive into." Let's make them SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound)! Liszt: Back in the Spotlight After a short break, I'm putting Liszt back on the priority list. My mission? Get it performance-ready before vacation. I'm aiming for an August recital--maybe Piano with Rebecca B or a video to share on social media. I'm hoping...

I haven't had a chance yet to seriously work on Jonny's jazzy intro to his "America the Beautiful" rag. This morning I had about 5 minutes before taking my daughter to driver's ed, so I sight-read through the intro once. It hasn't come together yet, but you can see that some sections are easier than others. None of it is really hard--it's just jazz, which means the usual harmonic rules (at least the ones I'm used to in blues and ragtime, and even classical) don't always apply. One reason I'm not crazy about jazz is the constant reharmonization and the dissonances ... but I really, really love this arrangement. This first take is a bit rough, full starts and stops as I hunt for notes. But stick with me—it will sound great after a few days of practice!

When the Song Gets Lost in the Style I was playing yesterday's recording of Jonny's "America the Beautiful" rag for my husband last night, and he gave me the strangest look. "What?" I asked. "I can't even tell what that song is," he said. I sang along to help him follow the melody, but he just shook his head. "I don't hear it. I don't hear 'America the Beautiful.'" I thought maybe my version was too slow and mistake-riddled, so I played a recording of Jonny himself playing it. It still just sounded like a bunch of tinkly notes to him. I was floored. This isn’t the first time this has happened, either. Awhile back, I played a bluesy improv on "Silent Night," and he couldn’t decipher that one either, even when I sang along. I shared that recording on Facebook, asking friends to name the tune. Some recognized it instantly, but others? Completely stumped. How can a song be so clear to some and unrecognizable to...

Ah, the joy of trying to make a quick video while your teen daughter is pushing you to hurry up so you can get her to drivers’ ed on time! That was my life this morning as I worked on Jonny May’s delightful “America the Beautiful” rag. Where I’m At I’m having a lot of fun learning this rag—it’s not too difficult, and the structure is simple enough that my brain is buzzing with improv ideas. Now that I’m mastering the score, I’m ready to start adding my own signature, and perhaps a key change. (No more details for now in case it doesn’t work out!) I also have the option of learning Jonny’s page-long jazzy intro, which I’ve sight-read a few times. But it’s tricky, and I’m not sure I can have it ready in time for my July 4 deadline (particularly since I’ll be away from the piano all weekend). The Video This progress clip is at a slow tempo, and my playing is a little raw and wooden, as I’m just trying to make sure I hit all the right notes. Despite my best efforts, I fumble a few notes (I...

Here is a post I shared on in the Piano With Rebecca (PWR) group . I am making important practicing discoveries these days! Retrieving Maintenance Pieces: Lessons Learned On Saturday, I posted that I was about to tackle my neglected maintenance pieces. I was afraid it would be a miserable weekend of stumbling through a dozen or so pieces that I'd worked so hard to learn and memorize in the past year. I started with an interleaved approach (7-minute intervals), alternating between with Mozart's Rondo alla Turca, Jonny May's "Bare Necessities" arrangement and Scott Joplin's "Solace." It was, as expected, quite frustrating as I struggled to re-learn measures I'd mastered just a few months before. Switching to Block-Style Practice In the afternoon, I switched to do a more block-style approach with three other pieces ("The Entertainer," a bluesy "Amazing Grace," and Chopin's Nocturne in F Minor) and accidentally discovered the ...

June’s almost in the rearview mirror, and what a ride it’s been at the piano! This month has dished out some serious highs, a few lows, and a whole lot of learning. With one week left, I’m ready to wrap it up strong and set the stage for an exciting July. Let’s dive into the good, the not-so-good, and what’s on the horizon. June’s High Notes (and a Few Flat Ones) This month was a whirlwind of progress and a few stumbles. Here’s what went down: Big Wins: I nailed Pineapple Rag (or is it Pine Apple? Who knows!) not once, but twice in performance. It felt like a graduation ceremony for this sassy, syncopated gem—time to hang its diploma on the wall! I also kicked off a new weekend ritual: dusting off old pieces to keep them shiny and ready. Plus, I’m making serious headway on two new projects: America the Beautiful Rag (perfect for July 4 vibes) and a great G Blues Improvisation course from PWJ . The Struggles: Mid-June, my daily Liszt practice hit a wall. Between pouring my heart into ...

 Here it is, folks. "Pineapple Rag" in all its glory! I made a few mistakes, and the C section wasn't as strong as it usually is, but overall, I'm happy with the video. Enjoy!

I have graduated from Pineapple Rag! Of course, I never truly graduate from anything, but Pineapple Rag will no longer be an active piece after this week. Starting this weekend, it joins my ever-growing mountain maintenance pieces that I'll revisit every weekend. Two Performances! I've performed it twice: once in the Piano with Rebecca B group last Saturday, and finally at the PWJ student recital yesterday. My Piano with Rebecca B performance wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. I approached it as a run-through for the PWJ recital, which I signed up for last month (or maybe in April). I wasn't able to practice much between the two performances, thanks to a ridiculously busy week and some hand pain due to my ganglion cyst and pinky arthritis. I tried to practice Wednesday night and made it about fifteen minutes before I had to stop. I honestly thought I would have to cancel on PWJ. Alas, I showed up and played, and it went quite well! Not perfect, but I was ...

I am taking a Piano With Jonny course in G Blues Improvisation. I learned the C blues scale when I was 11 or 12 years old, and, while I never actually learned to play the blues then, I've always known and played that scale. My long history with the scale may be part of why I have struggled so mightily to master G blues improvisation. The C and G blues scales are very similar — start with a white key, go up a minor third to a black key, then up a whole step to a white key, a half-step to black key, a half-step to white key — and then it changes. In C, we go up a minor third to B-flat, whereas in G, the minor third is to F natural. This shouldn't be that hard, but I have had so much trouble making the switch to G! I keep throwing in the F# from the C scale, and then the E-flat. It's a mess. To show you what I mean, here's a video I talk about (and unintentionally demonstrate) some of the problems. As you can see, I'm slowly getting better at blues in G, but I still h...

Good news! I'm ready to start playing through the Liebesträume No. 3 occasionally. I'm hoping to perform it at a student recital in July or August. Here's my first attempt at playing it from memory on video. It has a few memory lapses, some more obvious than others, but I'm posting this to track my progress and see how far I've come by recital time. Question for Readers (if I have any):  Have you ever struggled with memorizing a piece or performing under pressure? Share your experiences in the comments—I’d love to hear your stories and tips!

Here is my latest rendition of the A (1x) and B (2x) sections of Pineapple Rag. I have just over a week before student recital #1, and just under two weeks before student recital #2. I worked hard on this over the weekend (despite being sick from an antibiotic reaction), and it's getting there! I still have some work to do on dynamics and articulation, but I'm very happy with where I am at this point.

 I made this video a few days ago but never put it on the blog ... so I'm doing that now. :) By the way, I do not  like my new camera setup because it makes my upper arms look gargantuan. They need some toning, but they're not that huge in real life. (At least I hope they aren't!)

I love spreadsheets so much. (But not as much as I love piano!) Here are the stats for May! "May-tenance" Goals I had big plans  to bring all of my maintenance pieces back up to speed in May. It didn't happen. I revisited them each at some point , but I couldn't dedicate the time needed to have them ready to play by memory at a moment's notice. There are two main reasons for this: I put more time into technique than planned. Beneficial? Yes. Worth the extra time? Absolutely. Good for meeting the original goal? Nah ... but the technique work will help me to be even better  at my maintenance pieces. I signed up to perform Pineapple Rag  at two online student recitals, so about halfway through May, I focused more time on it. (The result? Not only is it now almost performance-ready, but the happy music has me dancing and humming my way through real life!) While I'd love to have more maintenance pieces in my back pocket, I now have Pineapple Rag down pretty well, a...

Folks, I bit the bullet. I signed up to participate in the next Piano With Jonny student recital. I paused a moment when I got to the "What will you be playing?" section. What would  I be playing? Solace? Liebestraume? A blues improv? Pineapple Rag? Yes. Pineapple Rag. It's not ready for performance at the moment, but I know I can have it ready in time for the recital. My minimum practice goal for this one is as follows: Focus on one section each day, drilling as needed and playing through 12x. Play through the entire piece 3x/day. And that's it! I have it memorized and have done the hard work of learning the tricky parts. What remains is to get it up to tempo and figure out how I want to play it (dynamics, pedaling, improv, etc.). I also want to get to where I can play it without thinking, the way I can now play Maple Leaf Rag. I'll get there. Yesterday I focused on the A section of Pineapple Rag. I got overly ambitious in the video and decided to continue on to...

I am so excited about this weekend! I'll be able to put in a lot of practice tomorrow, and I may be traveling to the Atlanta area on Sunday to meet up with a few other piano lovers! I'll also get some practice in tonight. My goals? Liebesträume - Y'all, this is sounding so much better than it did a month ago! I will continue drilling the few sections that are still a little bumpy. I also need to commit the final page to memory. I want to spent some (more) time listening to recordings and taking note of what this pianist or that pianist does, and then trying to reproduce the effect myself. Pineapple Rag - This one is coming back, albeit a little more slowly than I'd anticipated. I fully expect to have the whole thing back in my noggin (i.e., by memory) by the end of the weekend, and I'll be able to start playing it through and thinking more about expression and dynamics and less about where my fingers go. Blues - With all my work on Liszt, I haven't really fel...

 I was looking through my old blog and found this piano post from something like 2006. It was titled "Dance of the Nail-bitten Digits: A Ramble and an Analogy." I was working on Liszt's transcription of Schubert's Ständchen at the time--a beautiful piece that I've (sadly) forgotten. I'd also forgotten about the analogy at the end of this post, so I'm posting it again here. Dance of the Nail-bitten Digits: A Ramble and an Analogy (2006) I am loving Liszt. I love the way my hands have to "share" the melody in "Standchen." 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 the 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 ...

Last night I practiced Misty , the Bible of Blues Riffs , and Liszt ! (My beloved Franzi!) Misty was a little rough, which was surprising, considering I performed it by memory less than a month ago. Alas, I am not a computer. After 15 minutes, however, it was mostly back in my working memory. I'll be working on it 2-3 times a week throughout the month. Bible of Blues Riffs was VERY rough! I started over from the beginning, reviewing only the one-note-at-a-time riffs for about 20 minutes. I also practiced using the stride style, which was very difficult, as I'm used to playing the blues shuffle. I didn't feel great about my progress by the end of the session, but I imagine it will come more quickly after a few more sessions. This is one of my top priorities for May. And Liszt ! I spent 32 minutes working on the cadenzas. The first cadenza is harder for me. I can play the notes and have practiced them in all kinds of ways--blocking, rhythms, hands separately--but I'm hit...

April was a weird month for piano! March was also a weird month for piano--I missed ten full days of practice. Toward the end of the month, after Don's death, I began working on the songs for his celebration of life. That got me back into the habit of piano. After that, I decided to focus only on Liszt for the rest of the month--about three weeks. And I did. April Stats As you can see, I got back on the proverbial horse in April, with regular practices and very few days off. I practiced 36.1 hours, bringing my monthly average up to 27.6. The piece that got the most attention was, of course, Liebesträume (23 hours of practice). After that, the top projects were Misty and What a Wonderful World (both about 3 hours of practice). I also put a little over two hours into technique. This chart shows how much time, each month, I've put into each piece. Yellow is April. I'm very happy with how April went. I'm glad I allowed myself to focus on Liszt for a few weeks. And I'm e...

This weekend, I realized it was time to make some changes to the fingering in Liszt. Here is a boring video of me talking about them. That's all it is. Just me talking. And here is a video where I play one of the sections with changes. Can you guess where the new fingering is?

 It's April 24, and I am continuing my work on Liszt! Last night I worked on (among other things) the quasi cadenza at measure 25. I had worked out a LH fingering using the Alfred edition suggestions as a guide, but then I watched a YouTube video (can't remember which one) where the pianist used a different fingering ... and I had one of those "duh" moments. When I got home, I tried the new-to-me fingering, and it made the passage so much easier. It usually takes me some time to change a fingering pattern I've already learned, but I adjusted pretty quickly. Here is measure 25. I am nowhere close to my goal tempo, but I do have it so that I can play it at 80 bpm (four notes per beat).

Back on January 1, I had so many great plans for my 2025 piano year. In 2024, I averaged about 52 hours a month, most months, on piano. But in 2025? 40 hours in January, 15 in February, and 18 in March. I'm currently at 22 for April and am hoping to make it to 30. Why has this happened? Part of it was volleyball season . I knew I wouldn't get as many hours in from January through March because we'd be traveling a lot of weekends for volleyball. The weekends we didn't have tournaments, I either (1) visited my mom in North Carolina or (2) caught up on all of the house and yard work that I'd neglected over the previous weeks. With all of that, I fell out of the habit. And I was tired. When I did find myself with a half-hour or more for piano, I chose instead to veg in front of the TV or just go to sleep. (I also got out of the fitness habit during this time, so it wasn't just piano.) Back to Piano In March, after Don died and Brenda asked me to play a couple of son...

At a recent Piano With Jonny Q&A, Jonny talked about the importance of narrowing your focus if you want to make real progress. He quoted Dave Ramsey's "Momentum Theorem": focused intensity over time, multiplied by God, equals unstoppable momentum. I can't complain about not making progress; I've made unbelievable progress in piano over the past year. But ... I also have constantly struggled with having too many projects, not being able to focus on things the way I want to, and knowing I could progress faster and more fully if I could give more focused intensity to just a few projects. About a week ago, I made the difficult choice to set aside the PWJ stuff to focus on Liebesträume. I've worked very hard on it at times and have made progress--but that work and progress came in spurts of activity, separated by days and sometimes weeks of no focus on it at all. I fed my goals to Grok and asked it to give me a schedule for having Liebesträume performance-read...

Sunday, April 6, was Don’s celebration of life (funeral). I played “Misty” and “What a Wonderful World.” I was happy with how the music went. I started off on the wrong foot (or the wrong pedal) and managed to stop and start over without any drama or ugly faces. I had come up with a short intro to "Misty" the day before, and I was glad I did; I would have hated to have to re-do the famous first few notes. Here is the version I played, complete with intro: "What a Wonderful World" was lovely, too. I'd gone to the church the day before to practice on their grand piano, and it was time well spent. I'd cut and pasted (literally) the music so that it all fit on two pages, and then taped it into a folder. (I was using a mashup of Jonny May's version and a lead sheet/my own version.) With everything arranged on just two pages (rather than four, which is how I'd learned it), my brain got all mixed up. My eyes would go to where something was supposed to be, a...

March has been a whirlwind, and I am often too tired to practice more than 30-45 minutes each day. But I'm getting back into the habit, and once volleyball season ends (our last tournament is this weekend), I'll be back to playing regularly. My sister's father-in-law, whom the girls called "Pop Pop," passed away suddenly earlier this month. His celebration of life service will be in April, and his wife, Brenda, has asked me to play "Misty" and "What a Wonderful World." I've been working on John Proulx's arrangement of "Misty" from the PWJ February challenge, but I didn't have "What a Wonderful World." I dug through the PWJ site and found a Quick Tip from Jonny that was just what I needed. Here is what I have so far. I'm playing (more or less) Jonny's version for the first part and the repeat, and my own improv/arrangement from a lead sheet for the second part, and then we're back to Jonny's arrang...

February practices are going pretty well, particularly considering I haven't had as much time for piano this month. I've done a pretty good job of balancing things, and my percentage goals have guaranteed that I would spend more time on You Are My Sunshine and Amazing Grace -- two songs that I fiddle around with now and then, each time thinking, "One of these days I need to really work on this." This morning I focused on Amazing Grace. Here is a video where I explore some of my improv ideas. I'm having so much fun.

That's my sweet #34. February started on Saturday. So did the volleyball tournament several hours away. My daughter didn't play until Sunday, but we still had to leave by mid-day Saturday since we had an early team dinner. I managed to log a whopping 40 minutes of practice Saturday morning--22 minutes on the Bible of Blues Riffs, and 18 minutes on Pineapple Rag. We got home from the tournament at about 9:30 Sunday night. I unpacked and changed into my pajamas, and then I went downstairs to practice for a few minutes, even though I was bone-tired. I never made it to the piano. Ruthie Cat was on the couch next to the piano, meowing at me to please come and cuddle with her. So I lay down on the couch to cuddle with her ... and we both woke up an hour and a half later. By then everyone was in bed, so I just went upstairs and went to bed myself. This morning I worked on Liszt (30 minutes) and the Bible of Blues Riffs (15 minutes). Tonight the plan is to work on arranging and improvi...

January was not a great month for piano practice. By the time I go to bed tonight, I hope to have reached the 40-hour mark. I normally practice at least 50 hours a month, sometimes 60. Despite my mere 40 hours, I did have a few accomplishments. Learned the entire Liszt piece and can play it, slowly, from beginning to end. Memorized about half of the Liszt. Became much more proficient at playing the two quasi cadenza sections of Liszt. Learned all four sections of Pineapple Rag. Memorized the first two sections of Pineapple Rag. Practiced Bare Necessities enough that I can play it again Learned Czerny Ex. 2. Made it through Lesson 4 of the Bible of Blues Riffs course. In addition, my blues improv of a few weeks ago was recognized yesterday as one of five "standout performances" on the PWJ Members Facebook page! So, it wasn't a terrible month for piano. And I knew going into it that it wasn't going to be a heavy practice month. And it wasn't--I ended up with not one...

This morning, I had exactly 30 minutes to practice. I set my timer to 30 minutes and got to work. The goal? Play through the first cadenza 25 times, and then play through the second cadenza 25 times. I've put so much work into the grand middle section that I feel like I've neglected the cadenzas a bit, so I wanted to make sure I didn't lose them. As I completed my 25th play-through of the second cadenza, my timer buzzed. Perfect timing! I'm very happy with how far I've come with these. They were both pretty difficult to learn; just figuring out the best fingering was a time-consuming challenge in itself. It's still not at the speed that you hear on recordings, but the movements are becoming more and more automatic. I will get there! This video shows the two cadenzas. I did one take of each and then combined the videos into one. Enjoy!

 I feel like I could write so many blues songs about this past week! "First-World Blues" would probably be the most appropriate title, but I have so many more in mind. Six-head Blues Alopecia Blues Itchy Back Blues Outta Zoloft Blues Home Alone Blues Working Mom Blues Leave Me Alone Blues Leaky Coffee Pot Blues Car-In-The-Shop Blues Bloaty Prednisone Blues Silent Desperation Blues No-Time-For-Piano Blues Dirt-On-The-Carpet Blues Lost-My-Hearing-Aid Blues God's-Given-Up-On-Me Blues There is just so much to choose from! This video doesn't have a title. It's not a song. I'm just noodling at the piano, feeling these melancholy blues that have set in. Sad as I'm feeling these days, I'm grateful to be able to play this way.