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.

Today's Progress

So, I didn't get any practicing in during the day. Maybe 5 minutes total. I sat down and started playing my nocturne but didn't get very far. Today was very busy, and we were gone this evening, so I was worried I wouldn't be able to get in all my time today.

Both my husband and I had volunteer work with youth at our church tonight. This means The Children had to come with us. Fortunately, there were several other kids there tonight for the girls to play with, and they had a great time running around the church causing all kinds of problems. This did mean that we got home well after their 8 o'clock bedtime, and children weren't snuggled up in their beds dreaming sweet dreams until closer to 10.

Which is when I began my practice tonight.

I first worked on the nocturne (duh). I'm getting quite a bit farther on page 3. I'm surprised how much easier this work is for me than I initially thought. It's going much more quickly than I anticipated. I'll need to spend a lot of time working on detail work, but it will be nice to be able to play it through at a decent tempo. One problem that I have being ADD is that my mind starts wandering if I play a piece too far below tempo, so I find it difficult to sightread for that reason (and a couple others, including the fact that when I first learned to play I couldn't see and essentially learned to play by ear and shape before I learned to read music well).

For some reason, I wasn't really feeling the nocturne today and stopped practicing early and went on to a waltz for a little while. This helped me to keep my focus and continue on for a total of 65 minutes (70 if you count earlier today... and since I have little kids, I count every second I spend at the piano, assuming I'm not just goofing off).

Then I worked on Prelude 21 by Bach. I'm having a bit of trouble keeping it even. It is a very quick piece and is really fun to play. I worked this one for about 10 minutes and moved on to the accompanying fugue, which I worked on for about 20 minutes.

For the last little bit of my practice time, I worked on Clair de Lune and tried to record it for you. I am not going to share it, however! For some reason, once the record button is pressed, I start making stupid mistakes that I never make while practicing.

One thing I have noticed, though, is I make fewer mistakes when I play a good piano. So the Kawai at church? That's well maintained and tuned semiannually? I sound really good and hardly make any mistakes.

My next mission is to find time about once a month to record at the church and share it here. I would aim for more often, but... well, it's just hard to find a couple hours that I can spend playing piano away from home without the kids.

Tired tonight

I'm glad I got about 30 minutes of practicing in earlier today, because I'm beat! It was actually closer to 40 because I sat down a second time and went over some parts in the nocturne I'm working on. I also ended up with a total of 70 minutes yesterday, focusing on Beethoven's sonata 8 and also (of course) the nocturne. Dave told me today that when I first began playing that song, he thought I was doing warm up exercises! But now it sounds like music.

Today I wanted to work on the Fugue, but all I got in was a waltz and the nocturne. OK practicing today, but at least I got something in!

I'm not done yet...

Munchkin 2 is here on my lap starting to snooze, so I thought I'd update you on my practice today while I have the chance. Tomorrow is a busy day (church at 9!) so I need to get to bed early.

So. I have only practiced in short bursts today, but that's better than nothin'! Total of about 30 minutes so far, but I'd like to get a bit more in before I go to be to hopefully bring it up to a full hour or more.

I once again worked on my beautiful Chopin nocturne and waltz. One fun thing about today was cleaning up the church. After we were done, I sat down at the grand piano and played for about 10-15 minutes. I brought my music from home with the intention of doing just that! I worked really hard to clean the church, so I deserved it, darn it! This piano is very well maintained. In fact, there are maintenance records of this piano inside the piano. It was last tuned in November. It is tuned religiously (lol) every six months. Playing on this piano actually left me breathless with how beautiful the pieces I'm playing are. I also played Clair de Lune from memory, which I could do until the last two pages before I couldn't remember anymore. So I faked an ending, because I couldn't just leave it there hanging! The nocturne actually sounded good! Even with whole pages skipped because I can't play them yet! It left me with that tingly feeling I get when I play Clair de Lune. It was exhilarating! I'd like to get a chance to play a grand about once a week. Can't wait 'till the folks get back from Germany and we can start planning the Steinway renovation project (bet you guys didn't know we're getting the whole thing restored now, did you?).

What a difference playing a piano that is in tune makes! It was absolutely beautiful. I can't believe how much better I sounded! The action was perfect, the keys were so much more sensitive, and the upper register of the piano played brilliantly and much louder than mine at home. I'm scared to get my piano tuned. My neighbor tunes pianos and told me that with some of the older pianos, the strings break pretty easily. Since they're old pianos, the strings aren't standard size, so you have to special order them. Sooo... I don't know if I should tune it or wait to get a new one! I'm considering getting a digital piano when we have the money for it so I can play a piano that is in tune and also have a recording function so I can use something other than my camera. Oh, a girl can dream.

Later today, I started working on a Bach fugue. I already know prelude 21 from The Well Tempered Clavier book 1. In fact, this is another piece that I auditioned with. It is super fun to play and very fast, with some great chords in there and just sprinkled with a few flourishes. Mostly this prelude is about speed. The fugue is great too, and I really need to learn it.

Goals for myself: Establish a list of "must learn" pieces from all the major composers. I realize that I have never played anything by Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and several other important composers. I really need to get some works going from all those guys, and more! I'll start a running list on the side bar in a day or two with pieces I know, pieces I'm re-perfecting, pieces I'm working on, and pieces I'd like to learn someday.

Well, the kiddo is in bed so it's time for me to get working on my next half hour!

Day 2

Another day, another successful practice session. I got half my practicing in during the late morning, the rest at night at 11. I was away from home during the afternoon and into the evening today. Dave had the girls and I was with one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, Diane B. She is so sweet and kind and humble. Plus my kids both love her. She used to babysit L. when she was a wee one, right up until I had R. In fact, I think L. was with her when I went into labor.

Anyway. Here are my challenges: I'm not very good at warming up and practicing scales, arpeggios, Hannon exercises, etc. I need to get better at that. It's just that, when I sit down to practice, I want to feel the music, and I don't really feel the music with those. It is uninspiring to me. So I've got to find a way to be inspired when I play. Sometimes I will run a few scales and arpeggios in the key of works I'm focusing on. But lately, that's it. My practice time is so precious that I don't want to spend it running scales. Then again, it will improve my technique, so I should do it anyway.

Oh, the trials of being ADD.

I also haven't figured out how to run through a song the first time all the way through if it is in any way challenging. I don't like playing really slow. I will slow a piece down if I'm micro-focusing on it, and I won't play it completely up to tempo when I'm just learning it, but I have a hard time really going through it slow enough to get all the notes and finish the piece without first losing concentration and starting to think about something else. Another trial of my ADD.

Today, I worked on the same pieces as yesterday. I have been working on the last line of page three of Chopin Nocturne 62/1 and will probably have it down in a day or two. I'll just keep working my way backward until I have the whole piece down, then I can start playing it through and I'll be so happy to feel the music of that song.

As far as the waltz goes, I'm "passing off" the trio. The way I "pass off" on something is to play it 10 times without a mistake (fingering, timing and notes all perfect). Then I can move on to the next section. Since I can't count very easily when I play piano, I use a trick I learned as a teenager that has improved my practicing skills immensely. What I did then was take two small bowls, and put them on either side of the piano desk. Inside one bowl would be 10 pieces of macaroni. As I played a section, I would transfer one noodle to the other bowl. Since I don't have bowls that are small enough to fit on my upright piano now as an adult, I've found that a saucer works very well. I put 10 beans in the center (or today, eight beans and two raisins) and as I play I can move the bean to the outer rim . I actually like this method better since I can very quickly move the beans over. It saves time over my previous method.

At the end of practicing today, I played Debussy's Clair de Lune, here performed by Van Clibun. I'm not back to performance level with this piece, but I sure enjoy myself when I play it. It is my favorite song of all time. It's one that I auditioned with way back when. Whenever I play it, I feel so rejuvenated and happy.

No recordings of me today. As for now, I need to get to bed. I've stayed up way too late once again, and I have to start getting up in time for 9 am church starting on Sunday! I got spoiled with church being at 1.

Today I practiced in spurts during the day. This is unusual for me, as I usually practice at night after the kiddos are in bed. My main focus today was on two different Chopin works. I practiced both for approximately 30 minutes.

The first piece I focused on was a waltz, opus 69 no. 2 (posthumous). It is a beautiful piece. Just take a listen to this beautiful waltz on YouTube performed by Arthur Rubinstein. My method is working one line at a time, figuring out the fingering first and practicing each section over and over until I can continue to the next. I overlap the sections so there is continuity when I put them together.

Later, I started working on my big piece, the piece that will probably take up most of my attention during this year. This is a Chopin Nocturne, opus 62 no. 1. Here's what it's supposed to sound like, as performed by Rubinstein. So far, I have the first 9-10 measures basically down (though you wouldn't be able to tell by my recording), and the last two pages, starting with the key change (at about 4'25" in the YouTube recording). I'm terribly slow with all the ornamentals, but I'll get there, darn it. I have until October, and it's coming together much faster than I anticipated! My goal was to have the 4th page down, at least as far as the notes are concerned by 1/31, but I already have it down and am starting on the 3rd page (last line). And here's my pathetic attempt at this beautiful nocturne, minus the middle. Normally, I would keep this to myself, but since I'm blogging my progress this year, this will make for a great comparison when this song is recital-ready!

I didn't get in any theory study or music history study today.