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Thursday, May 21st, 2020
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I had a Zoom performance at Valle Verde today, in their Quail
Lodge building, and I am hoping the audio quality was OK
enough for the residents. I set up my computer correctly, but
when the residents were speaking to me, their voices and video
feed appeared choppy. I hope that's not what it seemed like on
the other end, because I am trying to make my Zoom
performances as enjoyable as possible. I would say my favorite
Zoom performance so far was when I brought my keyboard to
Villa Riviera and played through my amplifier. The next door
neighbors were giving me applause which was encouraging, and
the residents seemed to be so happy to listen to me play.
Hopefully that can continue.
With Valle Verde today, I had a smaller audience, but it was
my usual attendees who enjoy my choice of musical pieces. I
was able to play a favorite, Clair de Lune, and also Fur
Elise. Liebestraum 3 was included along with the third
movement of Beethoven's Pathatique Sonata, and I hope that
pleased the seniors enough to want to come back. Prior to the
performance I was having technical difficulties with my
sustain pedal and it's habit to squeak , but I was able to
apply some CLP to fix the problem almost instantly. One thing
about these times of the coronavirus, is that I have to
maintain my piano myself. Thankfully, CLP works for just about
anything and I have enough technical sense to figure out how
to apply it in the correct areas to stop the distractions an
out of tune piano can have.
I am a little worried about my future with Valle Verde, mostly
because of the recent audio difficulties we have been having,
but I am still hoping for the best in future Zoom
performances.
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Saturday, May 16th, 2020
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I am having another Zoom performance with Mariposa today,
which is to be broadcast to two different televisions in their
facility. It should be nice to have a larger audience, but it
still does not feel like I am performing in front of an
audience. It feels like I am still in my studio playing for
myself, while not getting any performance exposure practice. I
hope my performing skills do not get too rusty, since one of
the advantages of performing at retirement homes is that I got
opportunities to lessen my anxiety displaying a difficult
skill in front of others. So far I have gotten positive
responses from the homes I have played at, but I have not
gotten a reoccurring schedule at any other them. I guess that
is advantageous for some reasons, because I do not have to
feel the pressure of being bound to anything and I have the
freedom of saying "no" if I do not want to perform on a
certain day. As an adult supporting a family, it is always
hard to say no to a paying job, but not having a set schedule
takes pressure off and that always makes it a more enjoyable
environment to play.
I plan to play my usual repertoire at Mariposa today, because
unfortunately I have not been able to practice my most recent
pieces, such as the Rachmaninoff Prelude in G minor. One of
the advantages of performing at retirement homes three or four
days a week was that I was able to review those pieces on the
spot and get used to improvising sections that might have had
some holes in it. I could justify that I have the time now to
do so, but I would prefer to spend my time practicing my
Polonaises and recording new music. I think I need to focus on
recording public domain music though, because those are free
to publish and distribute online through music networks.
Overall, it should be an easy performance at Mariposa today,
and I expect it to go through with no technical difficulties.
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Saturday, May 9th, 2020
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I was able to do a Zoom
performance at Mariposa today, and everything went well
musically. There were some technical issues on my part, but
those got fixed quickly. Half of the retirement homes I used
to play at have been acclimating teleconferencing with their
entertainers, and Mariposa did a great job doing that with me
today.
I played my usual repertoire, since I am not quite finished
with my Polonaises. The whole environment change of performing
has be concerned though, because the biggest challenge I have
in performing is my anxiety playing in front of people, and
playing in front of a computer does nothing to work on that. I
am waiting patiently for the day that I can go back into
retirement homes to play for the residents, but for now Zoom
performances work fine.
Since I have not used my piano for a while, some of the keys
stick, so I had to buy some lubricant to apply to the pins and
inner workings of the key action. Thankfully that worked, and
now my piano plays beautifully.