Making up for lost time

Today I practiced at total of 85 minutes.

The first 5ish minutes were during the day when everyone was awake. I would have practiced more, but our house is small and the playoffs were on. So I got booted. Bummer. I mostly practiced Clair de Lune during this time.

I started practicing again after the kids were in bed. Hubby was gone at the moment, so I took advantage of the time and worked on "Ballet of Unhatched Chickens." It is his favorite and all, but I just needed peace and quiet to get it done. I worked on that for about 20 minutes.

I needed to finish off my 20th century stuff with "O Polichinelo," so I worked on that for about 1o minutes. It's sounding better!

Then I actually did warm ups! I can't believe it! It felt good, and I need to do them every day. I did 11 Hannon exercises, which took about 15 minutes, and scales in B major for about 5 minutes. I'm hoping working on these will improve my overall speed and accuracy.

Then I worked on The Nocturne. And I played it through, the whole way! It was awesome. I worked on this piece for 30 minutes. Loving it so much! Can't wait till I can actually perform it. I'll record it in a few days so you can here where I am right now, played through from the beginning. I'm not that good yet, and I'm not nearly as fast as I need to be, but I'll get there. Soon. I hope!

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.

Yeah, that's twice that I didn't check in.

I'm having a bummer week. But I'm keeping up with the practicing. I also noticed I had been neglecting my journal blog, so I had to post a bit on that today.

Yesterday I got in about 50 minutes, practicing Bach and Chopin only.

Today I have spent the majority of my time on those as well, but I also played Clair de Lune. I was about to open to that tonight when I opened to "O Polichinelo" from Prolo do Bebe, No. 1 instead. This little ditty is by Heitor Villa-Lobos. It is very fast and lots of fun. Listen here as performed by Marcelo Bratke. I can't play this piece nearly as well as this guy, but at one time I played it fairly well. I believe it was included on my senior recital. The hubby thinks it is just a mess of keys, which is what it probably sounds like right now anyway, so I'll give him that. But I was playing it more like at moderato, rather than presto. So I can understand his dislike. My goal is to make him like this piece! 20th century music can be hard to appreciate sometimes, but this is a great piece and its so fun.

Today so far I have about 50 minutes in as well. I'm going to get back to those ivories before I hit the hay so hopefully I can get at least another 10 minutes in tonight!