Right on the money

I got in exactly 60 minutes of practice today, which is my goal. I was a bit uninspired, so once the 60 minute mark rolled around, I considered continuing on, but then I thought I'd rather get the house cleaned up and go to bed.

The first 20 minutes I spent working on my Bach fugue. It is sounding a lot better. I have the first three lines down, so now I'm working on the rest of the first page (it is about 2 1/2 pages in my book). I'll do another recording in a week or so so you can see my progress. I am really enjoying learning this fugue, and I'm thinking I'll learn another prelude and fugue in the near future so I have a couple of those under my belt.

I worked on my Chopin nocturne for another little while, about 30 minutes, and I am creeping up and learning all of page two. I have now played that whole page through. It gets really fast in one part, which is the only spot where I have trouble. I need to learn some tricks to improve my speed.

Finally, I worked on my Villa-Lobos number. That's a fun one. It's also very, very fast. Fortunately, it is also hard for the casual listener to tell if you've made a mistake, so it's not the end of the world if you hit a few wrong notes during the piece. I know a lot of people out there probably don't appreciate music like this, but I *heart* 20th century music.

Another day down, and I'm feeling more and more confident with my playing. Even though today I was uninspired and was ready to quit at any second, I got a lot accomplished. Usually that doesn't happen when I'm feeling this way when I practice.