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Getting Back Into the Habit and Making Plans

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 songs for his celebration of life, I was forced to practice regularly again. I had to re-learn and memorize "Misty" in a matter of weeks, and I needed to come up with a good version of "What a Wonderful World" in just a couple of weeks.

And just like that, my piano habit came back. The celebration of life was over two weeks ago, but I've been averaging between one and two hours a day at the piano ever since. We went to the beach over Spring Break, but I brought my keyboard with me and spent time on it every day.

What's Next?

I'm now thinking of what the near future holds, piano-wise. Here is what I'm thinking:

Rest of April: Continue to focus primarily on Liszt.

May: "May-Tenance" month -- Devote about 50% of my time to Liszt, Pineapple Rag, and the Bible of Blues Riffs, and about 50% of my time to bringing my maintenance pieces back up to speed.

June: New pieces! I'm thinking about Jonny's "America the Beautiful" rag and a couple of easy classical pieces that I can learn and memorize in a month (probably Chopin's short Prelude in A major (Op. 28, No. 7) and Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1.) I'll continue to keep up my maintenance pieces and will either take the next blues course or the next foundations course on PWJ.

I'm excited about what's ahead, and it makes me feel better about focusing so much on the Liszt now, just knowing I'll be able to return to ragtime, blues, and gospel before too much longer.

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