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Thoughts on the Second Half of 2026

Back in January, I wrote about my modest plan for the first half of 2026. In a nutshell, I wanted to spend six months becoming less of a piece-collector and more of a musician: building fluency in stride, harmony, and lead sheets; developing a smaller number of creative projects; and maintaining just enough repertoire to keep sharing music with other people.

And guess what. I did it.

I did all these things. Excuse me while I pat my goal-oriented self on the back.

I'm actually not very goal-oriented, but years of life experience have taught me that I'll never make progress if I don't set manageable goals. And I set manageable goals back in January.

I started the year with no "list of pieces to learn." None at all. I did end up learning two pieces, both of them "core" courses in the Piano With Jonny ragtime/stride track: After You've Gone and Ode to Joy. I'm planning to play After You've Gone at the PWJ recital in June, and I expect to have Ode to Joy ready for a video recital by the end of June. I'm currently 80% of the way through Level 4 Foundations at PWJ, and I expect to finish it up somewhere around June 30 ... though I may need a couple of extra weeks. And I've completed all of the available PWJ ear-training courses, as well as the Analysis Level 1 courses. I also started a new track in Skills, "Jazz Soloing." Finally, I played my first-ever stride arrangement (You Are My Sunshine) for the PWJ recital in March.

Speaking of performances, I played twice at a local assisted living facility: once in January and once in April. And I've now done four or five TikTok Live shows with my friend Chris in Canada, where we take turns playing the piano for a faithful audience of a half-dozen kind souls.

I have indeed become more of a musician.

But I'm not done yet. Now I have the second half of 2026 to think about.

Enter the Blues Era

My original plan was to take a deep dive into the Ragtime/Stride learning track from January to June, then switch to the Blues learning track for the rest of the year. I still like that idea.

I took quite a few of the PWJ blues courses when I first joined the platform in 2024, but then I spent most of 2025 on a mix of ragtime and Liebestraum No. 3, and most of 2026 on ragtime/stride, foundations, and various skills.

So I think some review of the blues courses is in order.

I'm going to use Rebecca Bogart's "28-Day Piano Journey" (previously the 28-Day Challenge) format to devote 28 days to reviewing my blues work. Each "batch" will be a course, and by the end of the month, I'll have revisited and dug deep into all of the courses I took in 2024. Here is just a snippet from the schedule:

After that, I'll be ready to move on to the next course in the Blues curriculum, one I've been looking forward to for a long time: an arrangement of Cruella de Vil!

As with Jonny's other arrangements, I'm going to approach it as a tool, not a piece to be mastered. How can I incorporate the stride blues style into other songs? How do I coordinate this new left hand style with the bluesy right hand? How can I use my blues improvisation skills to dress it up and make it my own?

I know it's only late May, but I'm already excited about kicking off this second half of 2026. Still, I won't start until July 1. In the meantime, I'll continue putting in the hours on Ode to Joy, After You've Gone, Level 4 Foundations, and the Jazz Soloing skills track.

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