I'm not done yet...

Munchkin 2 is here on my lap starting to snooze, so I thought I'd update you on my practice today while I have the chance. Tomorrow is a busy day (church at 9!) so I need to get to bed early.

So. I have only practiced in short bursts today, but that's better than nothin'! Total of about 30 minutes so far, but I'd like to get a bit more in before I go to be to hopefully bring it up to a full hour or more.

I once again worked on my beautiful Chopin nocturne and waltz. One fun thing about today was cleaning up the church. After we were done, I sat down at the grand piano and played for about 10-15 minutes. I brought my music from home with the intention of doing just that! I worked really hard to clean the church, so I deserved it, darn it! This piano is very well maintained. In fact, there are maintenance records of this piano inside the piano. It was last tuned in November. It is tuned religiously (lol) every six months. Playing on this piano actually left me breathless with how beautiful the pieces I'm playing are. I also played Clair de Lune from memory, which I could do until the last two pages before I couldn't remember anymore. So I faked an ending, because I couldn't just leave it there hanging! The nocturne actually sounded good! Even with whole pages skipped because I can't play them yet! It left me with that tingly feeling I get when I play Clair de Lune. It was exhilarating! I'd like to get a chance to play a grand about once a week. Can't wait 'till the folks get back from Germany and we can start planning the Steinway renovation project (bet you guys didn't know we're getting the whole thing restored now, did you?).

What a difference playing a piano that is in tune makes! It was absolutely beautiful. I can't believe how much better I sounded! The action was perfect, the keys were so much more sensitive, and the upper register of the piano played brilliantly and much louder than mine at home. I'm scared to get my piano tuned. My neighbor tunes pianos and told me that with some of the older pianos, the strings break pretty easily. Since they're old pianos, the strings aren't standard size, so you have to special order them. Sooo... I don't know if I should tune it or wait to get a new one! I'm considering getting a digital piano when we have the money for it so I can play a piano that is in tune and also have a recording function so I can use something other than my camera. Oh, a girl can dream.

Later today, I started working on a Bach fugue. I already know prelude 21 from The Well Tempered Clavier book 1. In fact, this is another piece that I auditioned with. It is super fun to play and very fast, with some great chords in there and just sprinkled with a few flourishes. Mostly this prelude is about speed. The fugue is great too, and I really need to learn it.

Goals for myself: Establish a list of "must learn" pieces from all the major composers. I realize that I have never played anything by Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and several other important composers. I really need to get some works going from all those guys, and more! I'll start a running list on the side bar in a day or two with pieces I know, pieces I'm re-perfecting, pieces I'm working on, and pieces I'd like to learn someday.

Well, the kiddo is in bed so it's time for me to get working on my next half hour!