When to practice????

Saturday flew by and now I'm at the end of Sunday also. Tomorrow I teach my second class at UWO which means I'm not home until around 11 p.m. Tuesday I volunteer at CFCC. Wednesday I'm going to Supperworks. I'm running out of days here! I think I am in for a rough piano semester; I will find out the limits of Peter's patience! My schedule could be: come home, practice piano, eat supper, go out. The problem with that is also fitting in: create course notes, mark assignments etc. Hmmm. No new pieces for me this week!

happy new year!

Well, I kind of deserted the blog for awhile. That is because I also neglected the piano. How did this summer go by so quickly? I had such plans to learn an entire Bach suite! Oh well. About a week a go I realized that my first lesson of the year was approaching rapidly. I pulled out some books and started to learn a new Christopher Norton piece (Latin Lament), a new Scott Joplin rag and a piece out of my Pride & Prejudice soundtrack book. At my lesson I warned Peter that I would not have as much time this semester to learn new pieces because of the teaching gig at UWO. As a result, we are going to work on my sight reading by doing some duets at the lessons (you have no choice but to keep going and try to sight read well if you are playing in time with someone else!). We played a Mozart piece today. I did ok when doing the high part; not quite as well when sight reading with both hands in the bass clef. I kept reading the right hand as treble clef by mistake. At least I kept Peter amused for 1/2 an hour!

Blame it on work and weather

My apologies for lack of posts. I just haven't felt like writing or even playing much. I blame it on too much to do at work (which results in couch potato at home) and also the gray, rainy weather. Anyway, my lessons are finished for the school year. I will attempt to learn a Bach suite this summer (English suite no. 2). I started most of the pieces while still in lessons so that Peter could point out potential problem areas; hopefully I will remember what he said! I also need to do some practicing because I promised mum & dad an end of term recital. I will play the Chopin from the adult recital and perhaps a piece called Chopin but written by Schumann. I'll also choose one of the Christopher Norton pieces.

I was very upset last week because the Beckett School newsletter came out and they got my name totally wrong in the article about the recital. I am over it now, but the recital was very important to me, so it would have been nice if the article was correct. However, name aside, this is what they said about me: "dazzled the audience with her fluid light touch on the incredibly beautiful but challenging Nocturne in c# minor by Chopin". Yay me! :-)

Recital update

My apologies for not blogging; I haven't been in the mood. However, I do owe people a recital report. I was hoping to have a picture to post with it but Beckett School hasn't sent me the picture they took of me. The adult recital was done cabaret style, with people sitting at candle-lit tables and supplied with wine and cheese (although I took Peter's advice and didn't have wine until after my performance). The audience was mostly composed of the students and the atmosphere was very informal and friendly. They compiled the play list in terms of difficultly and I was second-last on the list! Luckily the person before me was a vocalist and he sang "Bring him home" from Les Miserables. I was able to close my eyes and calm down a bit before playing. I was very pleased with my performance. Despite a left leg that was shaking so hard I thought it would fall off, I played really well and I only grimaced once. When playing piano as a child, I played at least 2 recitals per year and competed in the Kiwanis Festival. This performance was better than all of those other ones. I think I was better prepared! It was nice to be in a recital that included singers, violinists, guitarists and pianists. Overall it was a good experience despite the nerves.

Waiting, waiting, nervously waiting

There are less that 2 hours to go before my recital. I'm trying not to let my anxiety rise too high! I will concentrate on supper and getting ready...

The reason for dress rehearsals

Cathy, Kim and Christine came over last night to listen to my recital piece and a couple of other things. In return, I gave them mango margueritas and tortilla chips with guacamole. I have been playing my recital piece every day from memory for weeks and weeks; last night I forgot the opening chord! Hurray for dress rehearsals! Now I know that before playing on the 29th, I need to remind myself that the opening chord is the 1st inversion of C# minor. Once I had that chord, I did pretty well. The things that I didn't do well were not things that most audience members would notice.

March Break for adults

No lesson this week because it is March Break. I wish I had March Break at work as well as at piano lessons! I hope Peter is enjoying his week off. I'm in procrastination mode at the moment because I know I don't have a lesson until next week (will have to figure out the Good Friday thing though, hmm, don't think I'll have a lesson that day!). At least I am practicing my recital piece because Kim, Cathy and Christine are coming on Saturday. I'm also re-learning a couple of other pieces to play for them.

The new issue of Keyboard Companion is out, so hopefully I will soon receive my first issue in the mail. There are some interesting articles available in the online edition (but more in the print). Clare might like the editorial on tool kits for students.