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October Recap and November Goals


I know it's been quiet on this blog lately, so I offer my profuse apologies to my two or three readers.

Actually, I'm not sure I have that many readers, but if I do? My profuse apologies! I am truly sorry and humbly repent!

Seriously, though. It's been quiet here, and it's been quiet in my piano room too. Poor, neglected Roland Nicholas (my piano) had to take a back seat to weight-training this month. Between volleyball season and my doctor's osteoporosis warning, I've been motivated for the past four weeks to get back into shape. I dusted off my old Beachbody DVDs and am on my way to feeling strong again! Roland Nicholas got love in October, just a little less of it. Still, I had a few wins last month.

October Wins

Liszt's Liebesträume No. 3 is now a true maintenance piece! I play it effortlessly (most of the time) and love being able to focus more on dynamics, voicing, and rubato, and less on memory worries and wrong notes.

Bare Necessities is back in my fingers! It still needs some polish, but that's honestly the fun part!

Finished Jonny’s Halloween Progression Challenge (mostly). It’s now a permanent warm-up, great for reviewing the progression, minor triads in all keys, and improvisation.

Reached Lesson 4 of PWJ's Silent Night Rhumba—intro, theme, and outro are done! Next up is the bigger challenge of adding slides, turns, and rolls.

You Are My Sunshine Rag surprised me last night as I played it for the first time in two weeks. The riffs I added in early October felt natural, and the whole piece sounded pretty good!

I ended up dropping Honky Tonk Women for lack of time. I did the same with Chopin Waltz B150, but I'm planning to pick that one back up in November.

I was pretty faithful with my weekend maintenance sessions; my ragtime pieces and Rondo alla Turca are sounding good as ever!

I was also pretty faithful with my hand yoga and other technique exercises.

November Goals

My November goals are pretty modest: three focus pieces and some holiday prep, plus daily hand yoga/technique work and weekend maintenance.

  1. Master Silent Night Rhumba – add all the decorations and own it in time for the holidays.
  2. Memorize & polish Chopin B150 – it's a pretty easy sight-read, so I just need to work on some fingering and memorization. The goal? To aim for near-pro level by the end of the month.
  3. Share an online video of You Are My Sunshine Rag – I've been tinkering with this one for so long! It's time to make some decisions on which great ideas I'll include and which ones I'll set aside for another arrangement. I also need to work on a few technical aspects--nothing in the piece is too difficult, but I do need to improve the smoothness of a few transitions. I'd love to have a video to share before the end of the month.
  4. Extra maintenance: Dust off Jingle Bells Rag for Christmas.

My time goal is a daily practice minimum of 30 minutes, though I should realistically be able to log 60+ minutes most days. I'll keep up with the weight training and workouts, but piano moves back into the priority spotlight this month!

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