Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

Yesterday at the PWJ Annual Holiday Awards, I was honored to be one of the Classical Performance Award winners! As you can see in the video below, I got it for my Liszt "practice video" that I posted earlier this year. While I was happy to get the award, it felt a little ironic, considering my decision to move away from classical music—and learning written scores in general—and more toward writing and arranging. But then I thought it was a fitting (and affirming) end to this very long era of my life. As this was a fun online event yesterday, no one made acceptance speeches. But if I'd made one, it would have gone something like this. The Would-Be Speech Thank you so much, everyone! I am genuinely honored (and honestly a little surprised) to receive this award for Liszt's Liebestraum No. 3. I poured my heart and soul into learning and mastering that piece this year, and it's so nice to be recognized. Thank you to Jonny and the PWJ team—and to this community for a...

At lunch today, I had the opportunity to hear a fellow student perform Liszt's Liebesträume. As you know, I've been working on this piece for awhile and, despite making progress, I've been thinking of dropping it in favor of more creative piano pursuits. I played it for a few minutes last night, and all I could think was, "ugh, ugh, ugh." How can it still be so sloppy (compared to Kissin's recording, at least) after so much intentional, slow, and loving work over the months? Well, there's the fact that I haven't practiced it regularly since June ... But still. Even though I love this piece more than just about anything, I want to move on. Last night, after ugh-ing my way through Liszt, I switched over to Jonny's lead sheets course ... and time disappeared. It felt like maybe 15 or 20 minutes, but suddenly my husband was home from his meeting and an hour had gone by. How on earth did I focus that hard for so long? The Release At some point during to...

Good news! I'm ready to start playing through the Liebesträume No. 3 occasionally. I'm hoping to perform it at a student recital in July or August. Here's my first attempt at playing it from memory on video. It has a few memory lapses, some more obvious than others, but I'm posting this to track my progress and see how far I've come by recital time. Question for Readers (if I have any):  Have you ever struggled with memorizing a piece or performing under pressure? Share your experiences in the comments—I’d love to hear your stories and tips!

Last night I practiced Misty , the Bible of Blues Riffs , and Liszt ! (My beloved Franzi!) Misty was a little rough, which was surprising, considering I performed it by memory less than a month ago. Alas, I am not a computer. After 15 minutes, however, it was mostly back in my working memory. I'll be working on it 2-3 times a week throughout the month. Bible of Blues Riffs was VERY rough! I started over from the beginning, reviewing only the one-note-at-a-time riffs for about 20 minutes. I also practiced using the stride style, which was very difficult, as I'm used to playing the blues shuffle. I didn't feel great about my progress by the end of the session, but I imagine it will come more quickly after a few more sessions. This is one of my top priorities for May. And Liszt ! I spent 32 minutes working on the cadenzas. The first cadenza is harder for me. I can play the notes and have practiced them in all kinds of ways--blocking, rhythms, hands separately--but I'm hit...

 It's April 24, and I am continuing my work on Liszt! Last night I worked on (among other things) the quasi cadenza at measure 25. I had worked out a LH fingering using the Alfred edition suggestions as a guide, but then I watched a YouTube video (can't remember which one) where the pianist used a different fingering ... and I had one of those "duh" moments. When I got home, I tried the new-to-me fingering, and it made the passage so much easier. It usually takes me some time to change a fingering pattern I've already learned, but I adjusted pretty quickly. Here is measure 25. I am nowhere close to my goal tempo, but I do have it so that I can play it at 80 bpm (four notes per beat).

At a recent Piano With Jonny Q&A, Jonny talked about the importance of narrowing your focus if you want to make real progress. He quoted Dave Ramsey's "Momentum Theorem": focused intensity over time, multiplied by God, equals unstoppable momentum. I can't complain about not making progress; I've made unbelievable progress in piano over the past year. But ... I also have constantly struggled with having too many projects, not being able to focus on things the way I want to, and knowing I could progress faster and more fully if I could give more focused intensity to just a few projects. About a week ago, I made the difficult choice to set aside the PWJ stuff to focus on Liebesträume. I've worked very hard on it at times and have made progress--but that work and progress came in spurts of activity, separated by days and sometimes weeks of no focus on it at all. I fed my goals to Grok and asked it to give me a schedule for having Liebesträume performance-read...

This morning, I had exactly 30 minutes to practice. I set my timer to 30 minutes and got to work. The goal? Play through the first cadenza 25 times, and then play through the second cadenza 25 times. I've put so much work into the grand middle section that I feel like I've neglected the cadenzas a bit, so I wanted to make sure I didn't lose them. As I completed my 25th play-through of the second cadenza, my timer buzzed. Perfect timing! I'm very happy with how far I've come with these. They were both pretty difficult to learn; just figuring out the best fingering was a time-consuming challenge in itself. It's still not at the speed that you hear on recordings, but the movements are becoming more and more automatic. I will get there! This video shows the two cadenzas. I did one take of each and then combined the videos into one. Enjoy!

We are a week into December, and I haven't practiced nearly as much this month as I did in November. I should be able to get some good practice in this weekend. My daughter has volleyball stuff both Saturday and Sunday, so I'll be out of the house a bit to get her to and from. I'm also planning to work out on Sunday afternoon. Other than that, I'll be home--washing sheets and towels, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, and practicing the piano. Oh, and I need to go Christmas shopping. I keep forgetting. Anyway, onward to the piano goals! Technique I have the Czerny Exercise 1 at a good clip. I've started learning Exercise 2, which is even more delightful than Exercise 1. While Ex. 1 focuses mainly on the right hand, Ex. 2 is very left-hand heavy. I've played through the first half (luckily, it's an easy sight-read), and my goal for this weekend is to simply learn the second half and become comfortable playing the whole exercise before I start upping the tempo...

I finally have some progress videos to share! There were all one-off videos because I had no time to re-record things until they were perfect. These are progress videos anyway, so you'll hear a few unplanned pauses, wrong notes, and tempo inconsistencies. But it's sounding like music! And that is my current low bar for this piece! I am focusing really hard on bringing out the melody notes throughout. That is a harder task than you would think, but I'm getting there. Here is the first section, which introduces the theme: I don't have a video of the second section because I accidentally deleted it. But below is the first cadenza, which follows the missing second section. This seemed to take forever to learn, but now that I have it, it feels very natural under my fingers. I'm still playing it slowly and deliberately; speed and expression will come, but not just yet. Here is the B-major section that follows the cadenza. It includes the gorgeous modulation to C major. It...

  It's rare that I have a weekend that offers potentially unlimited practice time ... but I just may have that this weekend. And if I do? I want to take deep dives into a few different areas. First Cadenza of Liebestraume I've already broken down the cadenza theoretically, and it makes total sense--it's just a back and forth between D-flat minor and E-flat major in various inversions. But playing it is not so simple, and I feel like I need a good, long practice session to get it comfortable and automatic under my fingers. Blues Improvisation I diligently do some blues improvisation every single day, usually for 10-15 minutes in the mornings while waiting for my daughter to get ready to go to school. But I want to take some time to (1) improvise alongside actual recordings and (2) improvise alongside the backing track provided by PWJ. All of my improvisation so far has been just me and the piano, and I'm feeling a need to add something. I don't need a long practice s...

Liebesträume arrived yesterday! I am so excited! Last night I sat down and sight-read the whole thing, even the cadenza(?) sections. It's going to be a challenge. Some sections are going to require more work than others. But it's definitely doable. However ... A Change of Plans, and Why I'm going to set Liebesträume aside for a few weeks. Last night as I looked at my percentage goals, I realized one of the downsides of having a lot of piano projects on my plate, and it is this: Even if I meet all of my percentage goals, each project will get so little focus that progress will be negligible. I expect to have Solace, Jingle Bells Rag, and Amazing Grace all "in the bag" by the end of the month, but that expectation simply isn't realistic, considering the amount of time I'll be able to give each of them. When I start the Liszt, I want to be able to devote a good chunk of my practice time (25% or 30%) to it. But if I do that now, my many other projects will bar...