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November 1, 2018
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To start off the month, I was determined to get back into a good practice habit. Recently with my problems finding a place to practice, I have been cutting back my practice times by thirty minutes to an hour. I spent a lot of time on Brahms today attacking his pieces with different strategies and it worked well. I am confident I will be able to get through both his pieces at a slow pace a week from now. It is interesting how when I start a new piece, it looks much harder than it actually is. However, when I start playing it, I find I can get through it much easier than I thought I could. With Ballade Intermezzo today, I got the counting down well, and now the next step is to speed it up.
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November 7, 2018
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I did not practice too much today, but I got a chance to play both of my new pieces. I am learning how to play Intermezzo without looking at my hands, keeping my eyes on the music only. It is funny, because when I look at my hands and music for that piece I do not do as well. I used this same tactic when I was learning Rhapsody 2. I stayed on page 2 today, and only ventured a bit onto page 3 towards the last 20 minutes of my practice session. When I got to Ballade 3, I focused on the fingering I use for the sequence that involves both hands descending in a 14,32 pattern. It is a fingering pattern I use a lot in pieces by Mozart that I play, and it works enough so I do not look like an amateur. I finished my practicing today by sightreading Schumann. I did that well, playing evenly and slowly without missing too many notes.
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November 8, 2018
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I had a lot of time to practice today, and I am thankful for that. I spent time on my new pieces, however I am started to get a little tired of them. Whenever I start a new piece it is difficult to practice it more than forty five minutes at a time because of the learning curve. The fingering on Ballade 3 is proving to be challenging, and I wish I could just do my own amateur fingering instead. However, because I will probably use these techniques in future pieces I will make an effort. I sightread Bach for forty five minutes at the end of my practice session. Before that I practiced Un Sospiro and impressed myself, since I was able to remember all the sections that have been giving me problems while performing. After Un Sospiro I practiced Partita 2 and did the same thing.
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November 12, 2018
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It was a Monday today, and that means I had to start practicing again from the weekend break. I ended up practicing my usual routine of new Brahms pieces, and I focused on that the entire practice session. There is a section in the 3rd Ballade that has 6 sharps, and I have gotten good at identifying the chords. When I starteded playing that section it was difficult for me to read in 6 sharps, but I have gotten accustomed to it. I have also gotten good at the timing in that section reading in 6/8. Op 76 No. 2 is becoming more difficult as I am progressing through the pages, and I am almost stuck trying to understand the fingering. The notes are not so difficult, but I find myself continuously picking up my hand, moving it around, and using different fingers for the same sections. I need to figure out a good strategy to tackling this problem, so I think I will start by playing it slower.
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November 14, 2018
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I had a lot of time to practice today, so I took advantage of that by playing mostly Op. 76 No. 2, and a little bit of Ballade 3. The reason I did not play Ballade as much was because I am learning it quickly, and feel confident that I will finish it much sooner than Op. 76 No. 2. As for the latter, I spent a lot of time on the tricky fingering of the piece, and have gotten to a point where it is not intimidating anymore. I am surprised it only took a couple of days to feel comfortable with the entire piece, because the last 2 pages were especially difficult. Figuring out the phrasing is my next goal, which is something I probably should have done first, but I was really excited to start the piece as soon as possible. I ended my practice session with Bach's Partita 2 since I have been performing it at the retirement homes with mild success. I believe it is an impressive piece that shows off my finger dexterity, and I want to be able to show others that I am capable. I practiced Partita 2 differently today though, by keeping a lighter touch on the keys while still making sure they registered with the strings. I was playing on a Yamaha grand, which has a heavier touch than many pianos which is why at first I felt I needed a heavier touch to play Partita 2. My fingers were started to get tired though after half an hour, so I switched to this technique in order to practice longer.
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November 23, 2018
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For the past week I have been progressing nicely with Op. 76 No. 2 and Ballade 3, with the latter almost being finished in regards to learning the notes well. The only challenging parts of Ballade 3 are the fingerings of the descending sequences. I can apply amateur fingerings to them, using the same two fingers for each hand alternating notes, but I cannot play them as smoothly as possible limiting myself to those standards.
I am getting more comfortable playing Op. 76 No. 2 with each passing practice session, and hopefully within two weeks I will be able to play it all slowly at a steady pace.There is more exciting news for my practice sessions, and that is the inclusion of playing Suggestion Diabolique on my iPad with the automatic flip function. That means it will be easier to perform it for the retirement homes, the first step to perfecting it.
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November 28, 2018
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I was a little sad today because I did not get to practice the new pieces I am learning by Brahms, but I will have a chance tomorrow to play them for extended periods of time. Ballade 3 is coming along greatly though, and I predict I will be able to perform it for the retirement homes soon. Op. 76 is also coming along great, and more importantly I am having a lot of fun practicing it. I am not sure why, but it's difficulty level is proving to be enjoyable to practice. It is not incredibly difficult in the way that can get frustrating, because sometimes if a piece is very difficult I can only practice it for forty-five minutes at once before I am exhausted. I like that I am able to play Op.76 for a little more than two hours at a time.