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Ode to Joy, Day 13: Finding Patterns in the Chaos
Happy Saturday, everyone! I’m on a bit of a piano high: a good experience at the assisted living facility on Thursday, then a TikTok Live with a friend last night. And this morning I finally shared my weeks-old You Are My Sunshine video on a few platforms, flubs and all. I’m tired of being my own worst critic. So I posted it, and the response has been very kind.
Anyway, enough coasting. Back to work!
Day 13
In my journey through the Learn New Repertoire Faster Challenge at Piano with Rebecca B, I’ve reached Day 13 of Jonny May’s stride arrangement of Ode to Joy.Today's assignment was to begin a three-day revisit of Batch 3 and continue with Batch 4.
Batch 3 and 4 Work
I started with Batch 3, drilling two- and four-measure sections: five minutes each, then three minutes each, all in random order. To choose the next section, I numbered them lightly in colored pencil and pulled a number from a jar.
Then I moved to Batch 4 using the same basic format, except all the sections were just two measures each (because Batch 4 is hard. Also because it’s only eight measures long).
Batch 4 is still very much a work in progress, but it’s logical once you see the patterns. You start on a four-note G major chord, then move to A minor, then B diminished, all in root position. After a brief stop at what looks like D major, you land on the final four-note chord: E minor, also in root position.
Despite the crazy accidentals dressing up the chord movement, that's essentially what's happening. Or at least that's the framing that helps save my sanity and makes the passage understandable.
Where I Am Now
Today is my last day on Batch 4 (for now), so I may review it one more time this evening. I thought I had one more day on it (as mentioned in the video), but I don't.
Batch 3, meanwhile, is sounding quite nice. I played through it a few times at $100 tempo near the end of practice. Naturally, when I made the video, I tripped up and the timing wasn’t perfect. But I’m not worried. My fingers seem to know where to go now, and the cognitive load has dropped considerably.
And that Batch-3 red section that I whined about so much in the video for this blog post? It's now my favorite part to play!
Here is the video where I talk through a few things and play the not-quite-perfect Batch 3 at $100 tempo.
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 ...
(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...
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 ...
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