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.

Frustrated

I am so flippin' frustrated tonight I can't see straight. L took the camera somewhere and we have torn the house apart and can't find it. She has no idea where she put it (and how would she-- she's 4!). So. I got in a little practice on the nocturne tonight and I fear I will be unable to practice any more. I probably will stay up all night till I find the thing. I'm just glad I got some practice in today. I'll make up for it tomorrow (if we have the camera!).

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.

Uninspired

Today I really felt uninspired with my practice. And I was really feeling most uninspired about my nocturne. So I took a day off from playing it today.

Today I worked on Clair de Lune while dinner was in the oven. I went through it a couple of times, trying to make it smooth and beautiful again. 10 minutes there.

When the kiddos were in the bath, I practiced Bach's prelude and fugue 21 from WTC1. I kept practicing this until we had an incident involving shampoo in the bathroom. This was about 20 minutes.

Tonight after watching Monk and Psych (love fake psychics!), I practiced a few pieces that I've worked on in the past-- a Mozart sonata in C (k545 I believe it is), which is pretty easy compared to the Beethoven sonata I'm working on. I also sightread another Beethoven sonata that just so happened to be on the page after the Mozart one. I also worked on a Chopin waltz for a while. I debated cracking open the Beethoven sonata tonight, but I'm really not feeling inspired at all today, so I'm just glad I got in my 60 minutes.