Time off for out-of-town visitors, lots o' school, and life in general.

Played a little Bochsa, but enough to give myself shadows of blisters. 4th fingers so incredibly weak. Designing in my head something to exercise fingers when not playing. Guitar strengthener thingy would not work because I need to bring my fingers all the way to the palm.

Hands completely pain-free up waking today. Mildly sore after work. Other body parts moderately to severely sore, so the couch, heating pad, and Star Trek are calling.

Tendons really sore in lt hand and not-so-great in rt hand. 20 min Lariviere.

Also, checked Method and it seems I'm doing things as right as I know how.

20-30 min Lariviere, 10 min Bochsa. Fingers tender from yesterday. Rt hand seems to be almost 100%, lt hand still needs lots of strengthening. Look at Method books by Salzedo for proper positions. Green band.

40 minutes Pozzoli. Do not flap hands to relax them! Thumb joints cannot handle that. Tendons seem to be able to handle octaves. Learn a piece? Do I dare actually try to practice something to get it to playing condition? Won't that just jinx me? Rrrrr...

Tendons hurt in wrist area today. Could be from practicing, but more likely from whirlwind cleaning of the kitchen this morning. And Iron Man 2 tonight so no practicing.

ETA: I had time so played 30 minutes Bochsa and La Dispute. No hand problems to speak of. Weird.

40 min of Bochsa. Went swimmingly until I was reminded I have minimal callouses after not playing very much for 2 months. 4th finger on wires strings, owie.

20 min of Lariviere. Still need to concentrate on pinkies. Played Bochsa 'thirds' exercise. And tried to play La Dispute, but my hands were stiff. Then realized it was probably because the room is freezing because I don't have a HEATER anymore. But right wrist got sore towards end of alternating octaves.

It helps to read through old entries. :)

Slowly through (flight). This isn't doing anything.

Hands extra ouchy today so played 2 scales. One in each hand.

Tiny bit of practicing. Really rough day. Still need to lay off the harmonics in lt hand.

Green band. Read through (Flight) and concentrated on pinkies. Basically need to start over and learn piece from scratch again. Read through (Idyllic Poem) and (Inquietude).

Ignoring the oil spill for now.

No practicing. I got the pleasure of trying to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill in my rug from my oil heater. Yays.

Lariviere. Bochsa. (Flight) with scary wavy hitting pinkies!

I got some really sad news last Thursday and haven't had the motivation nor concentration to play, or do anything really.

Green band. Lariviere. Notturno. I was, however, astute enough to notice that I transcribed most of Notturno wrong. I have been playing it correctly, but just now noticed the chords are written a third lower than they are supposed to be. Months of listening to Finale play it, months of looking at it, nothing triggered any notice in my head. Months. *sigh*

Now off to study.

Green band ex, Lariviere ex, Bochsa ex. Total of 20 min. Seem to be getting more dexterous.

Did NOT feel like playing today, told myself I could quit after one piece, barely played two. Allergies kicked my ass today which may be why.

Keep green stretchy band on harp, it's a good reminder.

Left 4th finger tends to fall off strings whether or not my pinky is "helping". Strengthening is strengthening.

Really wish I could have instant callouses.

When I concentrate on not gluing my pinkies to my 4th fingers, they seem more relaxed, but it's an effortful relaxation. Keep practicing relaxing and remember to BREATHE.

Hopefully, the concentration on and new motion of my pinkies is not pulling the rest of my hand out of whack.

I remember practicing last night. At least, I'm pretty sure I did. The "strength training" is obviously really engaging. (Side note: I really wish HTML included a sarcasm tag.)

I think I'm going to skip tonight. Of course, now that I type that, I don't want to skip it. Better than doing the dishes, I say.

Sooo... I potentially figured out why I have problems playing scales. You know how I've been doing strength training and noticed my pinkies are flying everywhere? Well, when I play scales and cross the 4th finger (of both hands!) under, my pinkies hook under my 4th fingers and actually push them off the strings. Nice. This has been going on for years, I bet. Yet another bad habit to break. I hope using my pinkies correctly actually helps my scales, and isn't just for decoration.

On the plus side, I played for 45 minutes without any flare-ups.

But, still...

15 minutes strength training, haha.

5 minutes Amélie, in which the alternating octaves strained my thumb.

More Lariviere. I think I need to consider these as regular exercise and not just "harp" exercises. Akin to pushups, or squats. Just as boring and filled with counting. My fingers are incredibly weak and stiff and I need to work up to being strong, not expect to be strong all at once. In particular, the rt 4th finger and pinky. Those will just require more work.

Thumbs seem to be ok, although lt thumb feels over-stretched. Which is weird because I was really stretching the rt thumb. Maybe I need to play hands separate for a while so I can focus on what I'm doing with each hand. Tried the green band elastic exercises, just two on each hand, and that hurt.

Bochsa and Notturno.

More Lariviere. 15 minutes? Need to keep these up as my 4th fingers are weak, and pinkies are flying everywhere.

5 min of Bochsa.

Played all sorts of different things, about 40 minutes again. Even harmonics! Started with Lariviere exercises. Those may be a good thing to keep up. Also start PT green band exercises.

We'll see tomorrow if I've over done it.

Played about 40 minutes. Played quietly as I have no remaining callouses whatsoever. No twinges of the thumb joints except when tuning and trying harmonics in left hand. It's basically the same motion so makes sense. My rt large thumb joint inverts when I try to play trills (creating a structurally unsound linkage), which may be why I was never any good at them. Wondering if PT strengthening exercises will help with that.

15 minutes (with timer!) of Bochsa and Notturno. Really need to stop when timer stops.

Played 10 minutes, no harm done (so far). Set an alarm this time! (And actually stopped when it went off, heh.)

Played too long.

Oops.

Played (Flight) once through slowly. Need metronome to keep it slow and pay attention to finger shape.

Played (Flight) slowly, 10 min. Played a little bit of (Mirage), 5 min. Fingers appreciated the exercise.

Little bit of Bochsa, 5 minutes?

Tried Les Anesses Grises sur la Route d'El-Azib. A little too much for my stiff fingers.

15 min of lariviere, bochsa, and (flight).

15 or so minutes of Lariviere and Bochsa. Fingers feel good if yet weak.

7 minutes of Vi... something exercises.

Rt hand 4th finger 1st joint is bending inward.

ETA: Lariviere. I knew it had a "vi" somewhere in it.

I thought playing nothing but scales was boring. Playing nothing at all is even worse.

Been ordered complete rest of the left hand. :(

So

sick

of

scales.
.
.
.

Hands separately seems to be the way to go to get things to not fall apart. And give myself a blister.

Augh! Neither brain nor body wanted to practice tonight, forced an hour, now off to completely turn my brain to putty with Legend of the Seeker.

Started out great, but fell apart the more I played it. Why does that happen?

Almost got up to ♪=176. Remember, it's not a race against the metronome, you're playing with it, not trying to beat it.

Set up appointment for PT for hand. yays.

Quick run through scales, 30 sec.

Same stuff as yesterday, but thumb didn't hurt while playing.

Scales, problem spots (one of many) in (Flight). Thumb really hurting. Guess I'll be starting PT for that soon.

Worked on Bochsa. Another allegro ma non troppo. Thanks.

Quick check through (Flight). Some of the notes are still there.

Pozzoli had a few scale-y things in it. A few more lines of Bochsa learned, sort of. Got it up to ♪=132, sort of.

I am so tired of scales. But my thumb seems to be getting gradually better. I performed a cursory search of my music to see if anything else scale-y could be found. Need to do a more thorough search. *sigh*

Boscha and Salzedo.

50 minutes

15 minutes to keep limber, but hands don't seem to be working at all. Slightly looser now.

No practicing today: too tired from bike ride home through snow. Shoulders and back and sides too sore.

Still recovering from not practicing for x number of days.

Took a few days off because lt thumb increasingly painful. Made the realization at work today that I'm picking things up with my lt hand completely differently than with my rt. My rt thumb stopped hurting ages ago. When I concentrate on hold my lt thumb the same as my rt, it doesn't hurt. And the same thing goes for scales. I already altered my lt thumb position so it doesn't hurt when I play a while ago, and I realized today it is mirroring my rt thumb position more closely. Need to concentrate on that!

Hard to come back to scales after almost a week off. Or playing at all, really.

More scales. Scaly scales.

So I can play (Flight) around ♩=104, but I'm not sure because it is SO FAST. I can't hear myself with the metronome. I know it's at least over ♪=200. It is also going to take a lot of work, concentration, and strength to get the whole thing to that level. But I can do it.

Rt thumb non-existent when going up scales because of lack of pressure. Pulling with elbow to go up, but need to push to get thumb pressure?

Lt thumb is weak when going down.

Both are due to the different arm angles which exert different pressure at different times. It's all physics! Or dynamics of materials movement. Or something.

R thumb is non-existent, which is why the L hand is behind.

Visualizing playing scales at work today may have helped with actual playing of scales? Need to really focus on finger strength when playing for evenness.

Never, ever, tune harp in all ♯'s.

E V E R.

Ha! Judy Loman does not play (flight) at ♩ = 152! Ha, ha, haha, ha!

I take that as permission I do not have to, either.

Worked on right hand, as needed. Right hand is so very sloppy. Don't forget to do nerve stretches.

And relax your jaw, for cripes sake!

Left hand is apparently not uneven, the right hand is, which is making the left hand sound uneven. Left hand alone = fine. Right hand alone = no so much. I think we know what we need to work on. *nods*

Between needle felting and blister from yesterday's lengthy practice, I could only play ½ hour. *grumble* Wanted so much to play more.

Woohoo! Another 1 + hour practice. I guess I will just work on scales, give my hands a chance to heal (the right one is already 100% better yay), and not sweat it.

More work on scales. Can't manage to get the left hand even. 3rd and 4th are more dominant the faster I play. Is it because I start late or early and am rushing? Maybe need to play really loudly to strengthen fingers, then play quietly?

This is the kind of piece you really need contiguous hours to learn. Or I do.

No practicing today, either. Managed to sit directly on my thumb joint while jumping into bed last night. Also, home sick-ish.

I do not understand how I do these things.

No practicing for me as I spent the whole day cooking. Yay. And did something to my thumb in the process.

Meant to practice ½ hour, ended up playing over an hour. Thumbs hurt, but not while playing carefully, and not playing harmonics in left hand.

I guess I will continue with (flight) until my thumbs are better, then decide what other pieces to learn.

No practice.

Managed to crunch my thumb at work. Go me. But strangely, it doesn't hurt any more than it has been. Practice was ok with scales, not so much with the Clementi. I notice all my hand joints hurt when I play that. Are there alternatives? Or do I need to work up strength?

Twisted my knee while playing. I can't win.

More. Scales.

Minimal scales yesterday and today; thumbs still hurt.

If finale had a neck, I would throttle it.

Worked ½ hour on scales. (flight)

Worked more on Notturno/Finale. Whoa. Finale has a slick cross staff plug-in. I guess I don't really know what plug-ins are. A different form of macros?

Transcribing Notturno into Finale. What a program. Tried "locking" the measures to two per line, but nooOOOooo, apparently that means the measures can still move around to whatever configuration they want. And who edited the tutorials, if anyone? Hello? It's disturbing I'm able to find the mistakes in the manual and I haven't even learned the program.

Tried to play on Tuesday, did for about 30 seconds. Not at all on Wednesday. Between the pain in my jaw, ear, and hands, it was a lost cause.

If I could just send a pair of floaty hands and a set of ears to my harp...

Practiced as much as I could with blister so I could: 1) keep my fingers limber and 2) not make the blister any worse.

The blister I thought I might have is indeed a blister, so no more practicing today. Ow.

Sort of got the tricky dynamics learned? Probably will have to go through a couple more times.

Later today work on Clementi.

And I may have a blister.

Continued working on both Clementi. Will proceed that way until both learned (again). And hey, why not work on dynamics?

Can't decide between Sonatina op.36 nos 5 & 6 so I'm working on both. Got no.5 up to quarter=108. Needs to be around 180. Hahaha!

Didn't feel like working on Notturno, but played it through. Still need to work on a few spots, dynamics namely though.

Zarabanda is still sounding pretty good.

Got totally derailed by squeeing over Wil Wheaton's tweet and consequently was very late in getting started practicing.

But I did finally focus enough - got the left hand dynamics done-ish, right hand still need some work, in the dynamic-y section (the mfmpfmfmpmfpmfpmfp section, ha). Left out some notes top of pg 2 to prevent thumb joint strain, sounds ok?

Think I may have picked the Clementi I want to play, but it's triplets, and my left hand does not love those so much.

Short practice to give my muscles a rest. Worked on problem spots.

Ok, practicing almost 2 hours yesterday made a HUGE difference in what I played today. It was almost like I had learned the music yesterday. Things I had practiced were smoother! There were less mistakes!

I spent another 2 hours practicing today, but most of that was spent deciding which Clementi piece to polish since I just can't decide! <--That was a cry of anguish. So I don't know if I'll be able to repeat my results tomorrow.

But I need to figure out how I can do this on a regular basis. Seriously.

Played almost 2 hours. Slightly brain-dead.

Got clunks worked out of some pedals, need to drill the really difficult changes again.

Also, still really, really, really need to transcribe this thing.

Short practice time because of fantastically killer headache, but got one more measure learned. Two more until repeats!

Excellent practice, but then everything fell apart when I tried to put it all together.

And 'yay' for repetitions: I don't need to learn most of the last page, so I'm almost done!

Possibly have pedal changes.

No practice today, new volunteer meeting, plus aching thumb joints.

Talk about procrastination! It's true, if I want to do something, but don't really want to, I won't. I do prefer playing later at night, so that's probably a factor.

Did figure out the D♭7, just needs an earlier pedal change.

Because Finale is so intuitive, I need to start transcribing Notturno again, but this time put the document settings in before. No other Windoze program works this way, why this one?

Tricky pedals in meas 38.

15 minutes, w00t. But did work on a previously difficult measure and it seems to have finally sunk in to some degree.

Need to figure out alternate way to play D♭7 on pg 4.

I did practice today. I think.

Measure 31 out of 65 done. Yay.

No practicing tonight due to extremely sore finger pads, finger joints, and finger muscles from changing brake cables and trying to adjust my caliper brakes.

I did get them adjusted, just so's you know.

Need to work on moving the G pedal in general. Use the ball of your foot and aim laterally.

Finale is annoying me. Actually, my brain's lack of retaining the ability to use it is annoying me.

C♭ = B♮. Really!

More measures learned.