OTJ Day 5, Part 2: Scales and Arps and 13ths, Oh My!

This evening I reviewed the B section from this morning and considered changing it from yellow to red (after changing it from green to yellow this morning). I kept it yellow, but it has definitely given me more of a challenge than I expected.

Working on the Solo A Section

After that, I moved on to the solo A section. The two passages in this batch are four measures each, and the smaller sections definitely made my practice sessions more manageable. I spent 15 minutes on each passage, using the following techniques:

Practicing in tiny chunks/rhythms: Because this section has some scale and arpeggio work, it made sense to practice in small chunks, or rhythms as I call it. This is very similar to one of the techniques Rebecca recommends for speed. I'm not going for speed right now so much as muscle memory, and this technique is good for that.

Memory: Because we're looking at scales and arpeggios, this section has been easier to memorize. I can't say I can play the whole thing from memory, but I've memorized the scale and arpeggio sections.

Mental practice: There are three measures in a row where the left hand does not do the standard 1-to-5 motion (jumping up and down the keyboard) but instead stays more or less stationary while still playing the oom-pah rhythm. Because I'm so used to leaping back and forth, I had to deliberately not do that. It should be easier to play these measures, but I found it harder because I had to fight the tendency to leap back down into the bass. To address this, I pictured my left hand staying in the same place as I audiated the melody in my mind. This seemed to help.

Humming: There are a couple of rhythmic "hiccups" (16th notes) among what is mostly eighth notes, and I hummed the melody to myself a few times to prevent my tendency to play all hiccups (common in the previous sections) or none of them.

Theory: As always, it helped for me to understand the theory behind what I was playing. The left hand is not hard at all because the chords are the same as in the other A sections, though sometimes in different inversions. And I play a 13th chord and recognized it as a 13th chord! Yay!

Tomorrow will be more of the same, but tomorrow is also maintenance day. Normally I wouldn't work on my active projects at all, but I'll be working on this one for the challenge!

Meanwhile, here is my Part 2 video, starring Buddy the Cat.

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