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.

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.

On a roll!

I'm pleased to say that not only did I finish practicing last night, I also ended up with 100 minutes of practicing at the end! And today I've practiced about 40 minutes so far. Not too shabby!

I worked on Beethoven's Sonata no. 8 in C minor, op. 13 (Pathétique) last night and today. This is a piece I was working on when I was a piano performance major, and although I made a lot of progress on it while I was there, I didn't get it to the level I'd like. The hardest part is the tremolos in the first movement. The second movement is fairly straightforward and is probably one of the most well known pieces. Here's the first movement performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy. I also love the third movement, probably the least played of the three. I haven't studied that one with a teacher, but I plan to perfect it this year as well. I'm fairly close on this one, but get tripped up a little at some of the chords.

Today I worked on Sonata 8 again, and I also focused on page 3 of my Chopin Nocturne. I have another line that I started working on today and expect to have it learned to where I can play it without much effort in a day or two. It's going surprisingly fast! My goal was to have the whole piece playable by April 30, but it looks like I may get it by the end of February! Or sooner! I'm so excited about that! This means I will have a lot more time to spend on details, perfecting the dynamics, ensuring the voice leads (which can be difficult-- I usually play the leading notes at regular volume and press on top of the keys without pressing them down to work on the other parts-- it can be difficult to play two volumes at once, especially on the same hand), and memorizing this piece by ear and by shape. I then hope to have it to a close-to-perfect level by June or July, just to be safe.

I still would like to get some practicing in tonight. I probably should do some scales or something, too. Right now, I'm holding my almost-sleeping little girl and am going to work on a little theory!