Four Days into August: 7 Hours of Practice!

I’ve already logged seven practice hours this month, and I didn’t even practice this morning!

St. Louis Blues Challenge

This weekend, I kicked off Jonny May’s "St. Louis Blues" challenge. Learning his arrangement in G should be straightforward, but the real test will be improvising in G. I’m excited to apply techniques from the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge and Bible of Blues Riffs to make this piece pop. My goal? Master Jonny’s written section this week and spend the rest of August exploring G blues improv.

There’s a second part to the song Jonny skips, and I’ll likely skip it too unless I get bored with improv (unlikely!). I’m aiming to wrap this project by month’s end, so I’m keeping my ambitions in check. (I briefly considered taking on this tougher and more impressive version, but after pushing hard on Pineapple Rag, Liszt, and my America the Beautiful Extravaganza over the past few months, I’m ready for something more manageable!)

Here’s my first St. Louis Blues video: Left-hand shuffle with basic melody.

This video covers Lesson 2 of the course. (Lesson 1 was just the melody--it took about 30 seconds to learn, so no video needed.) The new shuffle pattern is the biggest hurdle so far. It’s similar to ones I’ve played before, but it still took focus to make it feel natural.

In Other News

I’ve booked a lesson with Rebecca on Friday to discuss Liebesträume and how to polish the broken-octaves section in Rondo alla Turca. It was a solid practice weekend, and I’m hoping this week’s sessions are just as productive. Stay tuned!

Comments

Eureka! Secondary Dominant!

I am such a nerd, and I love being a nerd! Today I was working on Section 5 of You Are My Sunshine, specifically on getting this section up to performance level. In other words, I was practicing being a performer , not an arranger . But then, of course, I came up with another idea. I had just played the delicate sixths and descending rag rolls of "when skies are gray" (I chord) and then moved to the parallel octaves of "you never know, dear" (leading to IV). The shift sounded abrupt to me. Harsh. It needed something. It needed musical WD-40. Something to ease the hinge between textures. And then I stumbled upon it! Right before moving to IV, I can slip in a V7/IV — a secondary dominant! So I tried it, and it sounded so good that I actually yelled "Secondary dominant!" out loud in my house like I was Archimedes discovering water displacement in the bathtub. It's such a small thing. One little chord. But it smooths that transition, leaning the harmony ...

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 ...

Ode to Joy Day 3: Patterns, Shapes, and Short Breaks

As I work through Rebecca Bogart's Learn New Repertoire Faster challenge , I'll be posting more extended updates here on my blog. Days 1–3 Day 1 was analysis, listening, and generally scoping out the territory of the music . The road trip to Florida last week turned out to be Day 1, even if I didn't label it that way at the time. Day 2 was fingering and the start of my first "batch": measures 0-7 (intro), 8-15 (Section A), and 16-23 (Section A'). Day 3 (today) was about recognizing patterns and continuing work on Batch 1. Batch 1: Intro, A, A' The intro isn't difficult, and it will likely be one of the two easiest sections in this piece. Still, the syncopation is a little tricky, so I took some extra time with it. I've already memorized it, as the chord progression is pretty straightforward and the melody is just a single line (no harmony notes). There is one big augmented chord at the end that required some focused work. Sections A and A' ar...

Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

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