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.

Practice psychology

I'm having a pretty good practice week. Perhaps due to goal-setting but more likely due to the order of pieces. I now make sure that my newer pieces and my tricky pieces are practiced first and then I work on the things that need polishing, like the recital piece. If I leave the difficult stuff until the end (when I'm "warmed up"), I will find reasons not to play them (too tired, ran out of time, leave for another time when I can concentrate better, etc.). Tonight I'm going shopping with Heather and it is always tricky to get back into "doing stuff" mode after being in the stores. So, while I'm waiting for her phone call I will do a partial practice and then it won't seem so daunting later in the evening when I return.

Recital denied

No recital today. Peter phoned to say it has been cancelled because there aren't enough people. So, no test-drive for me! I guess I should set my goals for the week:

1. fine-tune Chopin; I still have some trouble-spots
2. memorize that darn Norton piece which is giving me endless grief
3. continue to work on p. 2 and p. 4 of Bach
4. get back to the Chopin étude, which I have neglected for the last 2 weeks

Recital ready?

Peter says that my Chopin is "recital ready". I still have spots where I play wrong notes. I know what the notes should be and think "hey, that was wrong" as the moment goes by. Peter says that these are not memorization problems but "panic spots". Maybe if I go over those spots I'll get more comfortable and my mind won't panic as I approach them. There are only 5 students trying out pieces at tomorrow's monthly recital. I guess Kiwanis and exams are too far away! I am the only advanced student; I should sound good by default! :-)

Partial goals and excuses

Well, I think I have accomplished goals 1, 2 and 4 but I haven't achieved goal 3 because I haven't practiced much accept Chopin and Norton this week. My excuse: headaches. I've had headaches for the last few days and haven't felt like plonking on the piano. So, not sure what I will do at my lesson tomorrow because the Norton and the Chopin will not take up 45 minutes! I'll try to do some extra practice tonight if headaches go away.

Setting goals

Well, the lesson was OK but I had major memory problems on Cuban romance. The goals for this week are:

1. finish memorizing Chopin
2. improve memorization of Cuban romance (because it sucked!)
3. improve problem areas on p. 3 and p. 5 of Bach
4. play Chopin as often as possible because I am going to give it a "test-drive" at next week's monthly Beckett piano recital (yikes!)

In the midst of all of this I have also started a new Mendelssohn, the one know as the Spinning Song. Peter says it is fun; we shall see!

Breaking bad habits

I have a bad habit. You would think that having a good piano lesson would be inspiring but in fact it often has the opposite effect. If I've had a bad piano lesson (i.e. I played poorly) then I practice really hard until I have a good piano lesson and then I lose motivation to practice because I've shown myself and Peter that I could play; then I have a bad piano lesson and the cycle starts again. I had two good piano lessons in a row recently which means I am struggling to practice this week. Combine this struggle with the fact that I'm out at the Drayton Festival on Thursday night and I think I may be heading for a bad lesson. The good news is, this means I should have a good practice mentality next week! I would really like to break this cycle though. I probably should be setting practice goals for the week, for example "this week I want to improve p. 2 of the Chopin." Perhaps I'll use this blog to state my goal for the week. I have to wait until Friday though, it seems wrong to set a goal in mid-week.

Good long practice

I just looked at the clock and I practiced, with one interruption, for over an hour and a half today! (in addition to Michael's pieces which I went over this morning before work). I'm a bit tired but feel good about it. I think the pieces needed that concentrated effort. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it up all week (out tomorrow night and Wednesday) but if I can fit in at least an hour each day, I should have a good lesson on Friday.
Adult recital update: I thought it was February but it is actually March 29th. I should have time to learn something well before then. I had better make sure I don't schedule my vacation at the same time!

Back from a break

Coming back to piano practice after a bit of a break (other than Michael's violin accompaniment pieces) is interesting. Some pieces are better after a few weeks rest while others have deteriorated. I seem to have gained some ground on the Christopher Norton bluesy piece "The band strikes up" and my Chopin (1 nocturne, 1 étude) but I've lost ground on the Bach. I guess with Bach fingering, you need to keep playing it! Maybe it will be better by Friday.
Since the new year tends to encourage goal-making, here are my piano goals: (1) play in the adult recital (which I think is at the end of February) and (2) improve my left hand (which is why I am learning the étude). Peter & I will have to figure out which piece I should perform at the adult recital so that I am comfortable with it by then; in the past I have really disliked public performance but perhaps if I'm comfortable with my piece I will be more comfortable playing it for an audience. I have already alerted Cathy & Kim that they will be forced to listen to me so that I have a chance to play in front of other people! In response, Kim bought me a gift certificate to Music Plus for Christmas. She thought she could buy me some sheet music but was overwhelmed by the amount of it! I'm thinking of picking up some Mendelssohn.