Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

My two-week vacation starts in a few days. For almost the entire time, I'll have zero access to a piano. Isn't that sad? I'm sad. This is one of those times where it would be more convenient to be a guitarist. I haven't made any conscious changes to my practice sessions, but something has changed. I'm not going as hard as I usually do. I haven't watched a new PWJ lesson since last week. I guess I don't want to start something that I won't be able to finish. I'm still practicing, of course, but only an hour or so each day instead of the usual 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Some days it's not quite even an hour. I haven't lost my passion for piano, so no worries about that. I think part of me is just distancing myself. Kind of like you cut back on caffeine for a few days before you have to go cold turkey. That being said, I'll provide an update here, and this will probably be my final update before I leave for vacation (unless, miraculously, I get a few...

Have you ever watched a really good ragtime pianist fly through a difficult-looking piece of music and wondered how their hands know what to do? It's like their hands are pre-programmed machines, and their brains aren't having to do any work at all; the hands just know where to go. How do they do that? Practice Doing Something Else Jonny May suggests forcing yourself to do other things while practicing. This is one way of literally training your hands to play the right notes, independent of your conscious mind. He suggests having a conversation with someone while you play, saying that he got a lot of this kind of practice while at Disney Land, since people were always interrupting him to ask directions. He also suggests talking to yourself, which I'm quite good at doing it (albeit not while playing the piano).  Another suggestion is to read a book while you play. I tried this a few times and could do it (sort of), and then I realized he meant to read a book aloud . I trie...

I've really been struggling with priorities in my piano life. I currently have about eight things going on: Bare Necessities Blues Learning Track Rondo alla Turca The Lead Sheets Course Ear Training (mostly for when I'm on road trips, which seems to be often these days) Scales, octaves, and other technique work Maintenance Pieces (Maple Leaf Rag, Chopin) Composition/Arranging Of all of those items, Bare Necessities and Blues have definitely gotten the brunt of my attention for the past couple of months. Rondo alla Turca, not so much. And everything else? Not much at all. Something's gotta give. About the Lead Sheets Course A week or two ago, I wrote about my struggle with the lead sheets course . I can see the value, but it doesn't feel relevant to what I want to focus on right now: learning, arranging, and composing in the blues/gospel/ragtime styles, with a bit of stride and boogie-woogie styles thrown in. And the songs I want to arrange are primarily hymns, not jazz ...

This video is far from perfect, far enough that I'm hesitant to post it here. But one thing Jonny teaches is that sometimes you have to practice not stopping, because when you're performing, you can't stop. You have to keep going. So this was an exercise in that. Of course, I still managed to stop a couple of times, and I think I even groan once or twice as is my wont. But I got through it. Any piano teacher who listens to this will think, "She needs to slow down." And yes, I know I do. My practice sessions have been a slow creep up the metronome, along with some section play-throughs where I recite my multiplication tables as a way to practice playing without thinking about what I'm playing. So I've done a lot of work there. Occasionally, I will have a fast-practice session, where I speed everything up and play through it at breakneck speed a couple of times. When I go back down to my practice-pace, it's like I can magically play it better at that tem...

When you're a pianist, it's good to have other pianists who can inspire you with their skills and style. For the past few months, Jonny May's video of Bare Necessities has been the one I've returned to again and again as I work on his wonderful arrangement. I want to be able to play that well, and I want to be able to play with that much enjoyment. I do enjoy playing, but I tend to adopt a "stern schoolmarm" face whenever I play, particularly if I'm having to concentrate hard on something (like Bare Necessities). I dream of one day being so laid-back with this piece that I can just look and feel happy and joyful as I play. Recently I discovered a new pianist: Matt Gerhard . He seems to be in Indiana, and I guess he plays for a church, though he's also put some music on Spotify. He's an organist and a pianist ... and oh, what a pianist! He play exactly the kind of soulful, exuberant gospel music that I want to play. I've been watching his video...

 I finished the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge this weekend! Yay! I am so happy. I was feeling so hopeless toward the end there, and then I was done! Yesterday, I started the next course of the Blues Track: Endings. Here are the first four endings I've learned. They'll take some practice, particularly that last one. But I think they sounded pretty good after just a half-hour or so of learning them!

Y'all, I think I'm going back to the basics. I want to work through the PWJ Beginner Foundations. Do I need to do this? No. At least I don't think so. But this little adventure will introduce a new, and wildly different, approach for me to practice my scales. Plus, since these are all PWJ lessons, I have a feeling I'll learn plenty of stuff. What About Scales? I'm pretty good at scales. I should be; I actually love to practice and play scales. Arpeggios, not so much ... but scales? I would practice them a half-hour a day if I had time. There's just something so satisfying about being able to fly up and down the keyboard the way I can with scales. (If you want to know about my usual scale practice, read/watch the videos in this post .) That being said, I've been strangely unmotivated to practice my scales lately. I'm not sure why; I think part of it is that (as usual) I have so many piano projects going on that something has to get neglected. And for the ...