Amazing

I'm feeling so good after today's session. I only got in 55 minutes before midnight tonight, but the minutes I got really counted today. I made some amazing progress in all the pieces I worked on today, specifically my nocturne. There are three sections where I just can't get up to speed, as they are lightning fast. But I know I can play fast because my fingers move very quickly with my Schubert piece, so fast that if I look down, they look blurry to me. I know I can do it. It's just getting my fingers to move that way that is the tricky part. I learned the Schubert 13 or 14 years ago and my fingers still remember it, so I have a lot of years with that one, and the Chopin is new as of November. I've been thinking about how to make my fingers move, and it dawned on me as I was drilling one of the super-fast sections. Movement. Limited movement. I noticed on my way up, I wasn't crossing my thumb under the rest of my fingers to get up the scale, but I was on the descent, and I am much faster ascending. So I started working on lifting my thumb and moving my whole hand down, not just the fourth finger, in order to work on getting up to speed.

It's working. And I'm thrilled. I played through the whole piece today after I was done with my drills. I had the *sigh* feeling when I finished like I get when I play Clair de Lune. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy that makes me feel. I seriously felt like I was floating on air. I could have played piano for hours after that, but I have to get up for 9 am church in the morning, so I couldn't. Not tonight.

I also worked on my Schubert number, which is so beautiful. I really only played it through, but it is sounding so much better. I'll probably have it memorized again within a week or two, and the trouble spots are really starting to disappear, though there are a couple more places I need to drill through before I will feel like I'm really there again. I am so close to allowing myself to pass this piece off.

I also worked on the Bach Fugue today. That is also coming along nicely. I didn't have an epiphany on this piece like I did the Chopin, but it is coming together so nicely. This piece will likely be ready in a few more weeks to where I am confident, and memorization will follow soon afterward. I don't really feel like I understand a piece of music until it is memorized. Once that happens, more good things follow, and soon it is so imprinted in my mind that it is hard to leave, unless I happen to have a 10 year hiatus on the piano (which won't happen again!).

Unfortunately, I had to kiss my piano good night and blog about my wonderful session instead of playing the whole night through like I wanted. I'm really hoping for more sessions like this in the coming week. I feel so good now.

Gah, has it really been ten days?

Since I last blogged? Yipes. My parents actually thought I had given up the practicing. Not so. I'm still practicing daily, and today I was actually able to bump up my average to an even 60 minutes per day in February. I was feeling rather uninspired today, otherwise I would have spent a bit more time working on my pieces. I worked on Beethoven Sonata no. 8, drilled a few portions of it and then played through the whole thing to see how it sounds. Ugh. Not so pretty. I have some work to do on that one! I'm hoping part of my problem was the lack of inspiration I had today. Oh well.

I also worked on Clair de Lune a bit, just playing it through a few times. I'm working on memorization with this one, and there's not really any big problem areas right now, though I could stand to do some drills at the key change, and I think I need to slow it down a little bit.

Next I worked through the Nocturne, drilling my speedy parts. I also made a discovery-- at the first super fast run, I was actually playing too many notes. I was playing 43 notes when actually only 41 are notated! It's not going to make that big of a difference in getting the speed to where I want it, but it's nice to know I was playing it wrong all this time before I got it totally ingrained in my memory. So I drilled it a few times to work on the actual way it is supposed to be played, then I played the song through once. Again, it sounded awful, hopefully due in part to my lack of inspiration today.

I was going for 65 minutes of practice today to bump up my time, and I had three minutes to go, so I played May Song from memory. I'm pleased to say that I still remembered it! It didn't sound so great, but I know it, I know the notes, I know the dynamics, but I just didn't feel it today. Perhaps I'll feel music tomorrow.

Today was just one of those days

You know, the kind where you're moving from the minute you wake up until it's bedtime? Yeah, that was today. Except a lot of my day was spent sitting down doing taxes. Fun. Thankfully, we got a nice big return, so it wasn't all that bad. But I did have to spend some time on the phone with the IRS. That was a joy. All I needed was my ARI from last year, and somehow I don't have a copy of my last year's tax return. How did that happen?

Tonight I started practicing at 10:20. I decided that there was no way I would be able to get in a full day of practicing and exercise, and since practicing is more important to me (I'm only 10 pounds above my goal weight, after all), I decided it'd be better to skip the exercise. I practiced 'till 11, when I was starting to get droopy eyed. I needed to start a load of laundry (it is piling up big time!) and get a couple more things ready, so now at almost 11:30 I'm pooped.

Today I started working on my new method for practicing my Schubert piece. It went well-ish. I passed off one drill section at half speed.

I also practiced the prelude and fugue 21 by Bach. I'm starting to figure out the fingering, which is tough with these pieces. It's just not intuitive to me, so I have to really work it and figure it out in order to get it right.

I played through May Song twice today, and worked on a couple of spots. I think I'm okay there for a while. As long as I can play it once every week or two, I think I'll be fine on this piece.

No warm ups, since 40 minutes is hardly any time at all for practicing.

Now I'm almost off to bed. Tomorrow should be a better practice day.

60 minutes really isn't enough.

At my level, I really should be practicing a minimum of 120 minutes per day. But right now, it ain't going to happen. There's no way I can do the type of practicing I need to do in just one hour per day. But what I'm doing now is keeping me from going downhill in my skill level. If it wasn't ten o'clock when I began my practicing, I would have probably practiced much more today than just one hour. Since I had a busy day out of the home, I was unable to practice during the day, so I had to settle for all night time practicing today.

I wish I had practiced more when I was young, 17, 18, 19, 20... Suddenly I feel the urge to sing "I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger."

Today was the day of impromptus. I started off with my Impromptu by Tcherepnin. I played through that a few times then moved on to my Schubert Impromptu, which is probably one of my favorite pieces that I've ever played (it's up there with Clair de Lune and Beethoven's Sonata no. 8). I played it through once at my regular speed, which is a bit slower than "full speed" (144/123 bpm in 3/4 time). Because my fingers were so clumsy, I decided to play it at half speed. I still made mistakes, but I think it's because I played it the whole way through. I need to get my fingers to the point where they don't make mistakes, but not be so far-reaching as to try to get the whole song at once. So I'm breaking it down, section by section. It's 11 pages long, and I have three major trouble spots that I've been drilling for the last several days. So my plan of action is this: Practice each of the trouble spots at half speed 10x perfectly before moving on to a faster speed, working up till I can play each trouble spot full speed perfectly 10x in a row; once that is achieved, play through each page at 1/2 time 10x perfectly, then increase the speed on each page, until full speed is achieved. I think I'll be able to reduce my practice time on this piece to 20 minutes per day if I just take it one section/speed per day.

At this point, I had 10 minutes left, so instead of starting another piece (I was starting to get tired), I played through May Song a couple of time. Oy. I hadn't played it in a few weeks. It's amazing what a few weeks off will do to you! It was quite clumsy sounding.

I'd better play that nocturne soon before I lose what I have gained!

Yes, I have been slacking.

But not on my piano playing. Just my blogging. I haven't been playing too much of the Nocturne lately. I think because I'm so close to having all the notes down, and because I'm just a little bit burned out on it. Plus I am frustrated with it, because I am unable to get up to the speed I need to get to. It has scales that need to be played as quickly as a trill. My fingers just don't move that fast. Yet.

I can't really remember what I've been practicing for the past few days, so I'll just go over today's menu.

I practiced Schubert's Impromptu #10 for about 25 minutes today. I am drilling a couple of trouble spots and working on dynamics. I am a little clumsy throughout the whole piece, so I need to play it slower and work up to a faster speed.

I also played Bach's Fugue 21. I got out my "counting beans" and played a couple sections through ten times each. With the counting beans, I get to move the bean over from the middle of the saucer to the outside ridge every time I play through it perfectly. I pass when I get all ten beans to the outside ridge. Often, when I mess up, I have to put a bean back. If I'm really being hard on myself, if I mess up I have to put all the beans back and start over from the beginning. One section I worked on counting beans hands separately, the other hands together (I don't really pass off a section until I can complete the "counting beans" HT, though).

Lastly, I played Tcherepnin. I drilled the beginning couple of lines. In the past week I've been drilling trouble spots, but this isn't a trouble spot that I worked on today. It's the beginning, which has gotten a teensy bit clumsy.

All totaled I got in 80 minutes today. Not too bad.