September So Far

This week at the piano has been… unexpected. I didn’t set clear goals for September—life was too busy (I wrote about that here). I vaguely planned to prepare for my assisted-living performance during the first week of September, but I wasn’t feeling great physically or emotionally, so I canceled it. That left my September piano goals in limbo, but here’s what I’ve been working on anyway.

Playing Liszt (with emphasis on "playing")

I’ve now put over 100 hours into Liszt’s “Liebesträume No. 3,” and it’s finally feeling like a comfortable old pair of jeans. I keep meaning to revisit recordings to check my interpretation, but I just love sitting down to play it my way. I’ve listened to hours of “Liebesträume” over the years, especially this past year, so I think my version is just fine. So there.

Back to Bare Necessities!

This was not planned. I guess I thought I'd try to get “Bare Necessities” back to performance level for the recital, but there was no way. Still, I've continued to work on it most days for just 20 or so minutes. And it's coming along! If I were to play at the assisted-living facility today, I think I could deliver a pretty good rendition of this piece.

St. Louis Blues and G Minor Blues Improv

I’ve mastered Jonny’s St. Louis Blues Challenge arrangement, but the goal was never just to play the written music. Now I’m (1) adding the bridge, which isn’t in the challenge, and (2) honing my G minor improv skills with Piano With Jonny’s G Blues Improvisation course.

Getting in Touch with My Rock 'n' Roll Self

Chuck Leavell's performance lit a fire in me! I've been learning different songs/chord progressions by ear and then just jamming on the piano using Chuck's bluesy rock 'n' roll style. Yesterday, I jammed on “Dead Sea” by The Lumineers, and today I revisited “Of Heroes Who Never Die,” a song I wrote in high school in the late 1980s. Here’s a short clip of my early (and not very bluesy) take on “Dead Sea,” played by ear.

I've done a lot more since this video and hope to make a new video soon. I'll also plan to post "Heroes" at some point.

America the Beautiful + Maintenance Pieces

I’m still refining “America the Beautiful,” which isn’t quite where I want it, alongside other maintenance pieces. Time is tight, so I’m making the most of every little practice session I can.

All in all, it hasn't been a bad month for piano. I'm staying true to what I wrote in The Tyranny of the Dots and spending more time playing by ear and just improvising. Listening to myself play ... and liking what I hear! Life is good when you can play the piano.

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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 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...

The Tyranny of the Dots

In the Billy Joel documentary And So It Goes , Billy talks about "reading the dots." He didn't want—or need—to "read the dots," meaning the music notes on the page. He had developed his own rock 'n' roll piano style and, after a few years of classical training, he left the dots behind. I didn't want to read the dots, either, once upon a time. As a little kid, I had a good ear and could quickly figure out just about any tune on the piano. But in first grade, I finally started piano lessons, thus beginning my life with the dots. The Wall of Dots Between Me and Music I hated the dots! I wanted to learn them, sure, but it was so hard. If my teacher played what was written, I could play it right back for him. But if he asked me to play it from the dots, I felt like I would pop a blood vessel in my brain. It was so frustrating for my six-year-old self to have the code to a simple tune sitting silently before my eyes and not be able to crack it and bring th...

Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

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