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!

Starting to feel confident again

Finally I'm feeling like I'm a decent pianist. I'm not awesome, and I'm no virtuoso by any stretch of the imagination, but I am good enough to put on a show (or I will be in the near future, anyway!). Today I got in 90 minutes. I'd like to get more days like this in. The thing is, playing the piano is so good for me. It helps my mental capacity, it keeps me more level-headed, I love playing, and while I'm playing I am not eating, which is great for my waistline.

Let's review what I played today. Before the kids went to bed, I practiced for about 30 minutes. About 20 minutes were spent working on the Chopin Nocturne. Then I got out some of my old piano books and played a couple songs out of them. They're really fun songs, and I will be adding them to my list of songs that I'm working on. I hope to have a repitoire 10 or 12 songs that I have memorized and perfected so when I am requested to play, I can just sit down and plunk out a couple pieces. Both of these that I worked on today are quite fast (I kind of have a thing for fast and loud, but as I get older I'm discovering my tastes are changing). First I picked up my Schubert Impromtus book (opus 90). I played no. 4. It is so gorgeous. This video is Rubinstein playing. I could actually play this piece very, very well in my prime. Hopefully I'll get back to that level. Next was a Tcherepnin bagatelle, opus 5, no. 10. I can't find a professional recording of this piece, but it is quite lovely, as well. Very fast and furious (speed is presto!). Fun piece to play, and to hear. This is the kind of 20th century music that hubby can appreciate, I think.

After the kiddos went to bed, I got back on the piano and did some warm-ups first. That's two days in a row! I did about 15 minutes of Hannon, working on 11-20 (yesterday I did 1-10, and I plan to keep working on 10 per day). I then worked on my scales, B Major and F sharp Major. I am working on those two keys in particular for the benefit of the Nocturne. The Nocturne doesn't have anything written in F sharp Major, but there is a part where you basically play an F sharp Major scale, really really fast, so I'd better learn it! Finally, I did about 3 minutes of arpeggios, in C Major. Just a little floating up and down the keys to really get my fingers working on accuracy.

Then I pulled out Bach's Prelude 21 and ran through that a few times, trying to work out a few kinks. I mostly have it memorized, but there are a few parts in there where my fingers slip, and I want to correct that. Of course, I worked on the Fugue following that, for quite a while. I have the Fugue divided up into about 4 sections, and I'm working the fingering section by section, and then I'll be able to put it all together and it will sound fantastic. Baroque music needs to be very smooth and seamless. You typically don't use the sustain pedal with Baroque music, so you have to really hold the keys down for it to sound good. When I first started playing Baroque music, I got scolded for using the pedals, so now I never use the pedals when playing Baroque, and I actually use the pedals a lot less than I did before, because my skill at holding keys down has improved. I think I practiced the Prelude and Fugue for 20 minutes.

After the prelude, I pulled out May Song and worked on that for about ten minutes. I hadn't played it in a long time, so I was a little rusty. It is perfected and memorized, but if I don't play it regularly I'll lose it again. I don't want to risk that. Lastly, I worked on Clair de Lune by Debussy for about 5 minutes, only playing through it once. I need to work on it tomorrow for a bit longer-- the ending still needs some work, as does the key change. I'm close on that piece. Hopefully in a couple more weeks I'll have it down again.