Showing posts with label Grandjany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grandjany. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Goals:
Mark calendar
Try on dresses
Order pattern?
Conditioning exercises
Goldfish
Automne
30DtD Tambourin
Set Saturdays as play days?

Monday, July 4, 2016

Goals:
At least look at a calendar.
Listen to prog rock
Conditioning exercises. These are getting easier.
Goldfish. I've got most of this memorized. I think maybe I should try to build up my repertoire of easy songs.
Look at other Tiny Tales.
Do detail work on Windy Nights. It might be easier than Looking Glass River.
Pick next piece for 30DtD. Ugh. Tambourin is the winner.
Start 30DtD.
One of two remaining Automne sections.
Set up repertoire refresher schedule.
Do last repertoire activity.
Order Mortari's music?

Friday, July 1, 2016

Goals:
Write and send 2 wedding summary/contract
Reply to recording email
Put clips online
Conditioning Exercises
Goldfish - played at 50 need to listen to recording. It's not bad!
30DtD LGR - Did 2nd to last day. I still seriously mess this up.
Listen to LGR recording - didn't concentrate on whether there were consistent errors.
30Dtd LGR - last day. It is just a mess. Summary of 30DtD process: It's really hard to know that after all the work I put in it still sounds like crap. Working on the dynamic details was helpful - it helped get me over that hump in my normal learning process. This might have worked better doing one piece at a time.
Automne - finished a section and got the 1st large section to the point where I can keep playing if I mess up.
Pick days for practice perf
Read through/research Prog book

Over the past few days:
Did Conditioning Exercises
30 DtD LGR - figured out I'm still too thumk-y in the first part. played around with making that go away. Need to record and mark spots again.
Automne - got more sections done. Almost done with it!
Booked a wedding

Yesterday was a long day and I skipped any practicing.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Still having weird memory problems today. We'll see how this goes.
Goals:
Scales are done!!!
Finger mechanics - break out Conditioning Exercises?
Work on memorizing Goldfish? Need to set up a practice chart like 30DtD
30DtD LGR (final week!) - record, listen and mark. That was a lot of work. First take was awful. In general the 1st section needs to be smoother like the 3rd section. It sounds thumpy. The waveforms are also smoother in the 3rd section than the 1st. In the middle, the right hand needs to be brought out more. Also, really emphasis dynamics. There are a lot of gasps that need to be smoothed out by more confidence.
30DtD Danza? Not sure I want to continue with this.
Automne - got a few more sections sort of memorized
Look through wedding music
Set up another practice performance
1. Set list
2. Practice set list - memorized

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Goals:
Listen to Marcel Tabuteau's Lessons. Listened partway through 3B. I'm having a hard time hearing the differences. I also think voice lessons may help my playing.
Sort music.
Read Sound in Motion
Scales
Finger mechanics
30DtD LGR. I made notes in my head and now have forgotten them.
30DtD Danza
Another section of Automne

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Goals:
Go through music. I made a spreadsheet. I may add or take away things.
Scales week 3. It's hard emphasizing off beats.
finger Mechanic. I think my fingers are gradually getting more flexible and independent.
30DtD LGR. This seems to be surprisingly coming together. I need to listen to my recording and mark spots.
30DtD Danza. I'm not sure what dynamics I want. And I still need to figure out exactly what I'm doing with the left hand.
Automne. The parts I'm comfortable with sound great. Got another section marked off.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Start scales week 3
Finger mechanics
Finish up week 1 of 30DtD with Danza and LGR and start week 2. Even though there was a rest day built in, I needed more than one, apparently.
  LGR - I re-read the intro for Solos for the Harp Player, and learned (again?) that LGR was "suggested" by the Robert Louis Stevenson poem. I'm interpreting the loud part in the middle as the disruption of the water, but maybe something more profoundly darker and terrifying. Worked on smaller sections with dynamics.
  Danza - Found the wiki article about Ernesto Halffter as well as a little info about the ballet (Sonatina, 1928) Danza is from. I can't find any info about Danza de la Pastora itself.  I'm going to try to make it as light as possible. Tried working on small sections, and wasn't really able to pay attention. Went back to this and worked a little harder. It's really repetitive and I managed to get some patterns in my hands.
Try to get to one section of Automne. Got two sections done.
Decide what to do with Grey Donkeys. I think I just need to set this aside for a while.
Sort through music. May need to make a list, since most everything is in one book.


Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Goals:
Scales week 2. Bumped metronome up 4 clicks. Left hand had a little problem in the 6ths at the end turn around into 8ths.
Finger mechanics. Stretching still feels good.
30DtD LGR. Worked on one measure. I don't know why it's so difficult. I'd like to go more slowly to work on dynamics, but also want to really try to follow the schedule. Didn't get to do research in the morning, asked a ref question at work. The just isn't a lot of readily available information on Forst.
30DtD Danza. Only got to play it slowly with hands together, not separate.
Automne. I've already forgotten this. Geez.
Organize music - maybe if I hadn't started practicing an hour late, I could have gotten to this.
Tried some Bear McCreary BSG music. It didn't work too well.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Goals:
Speed up scales. Um... these need work.
Finger mechanics. I've forgotten over the years how good it feels to stretch my fingers like this. I need to do this ALL THE TIME.
30DtD Danza. I think I got all the arrangements done as far as replacing the alternating 10ths. Difficult on harp, how do they even play this on the piano.
30DtD LGR. This is a really hard freakin' piece. Worked hard on two small sections and ran out of energy. Need to do this one first tomorrow!
Section of Automne. Sort of got one?
_______________________________________________
This was another 3 hours! There is not enough time to do what I want. Also, my stamina was shot.

Section of Grey Donkeys. Didn't even get to this.

Friday, June 10, 2016

Start scales week 2. I was a little disappointed by how slowly I'm playing, however I have all week to speed up. My right thumb still gets my bicep in on the action.
Finger mechanics
Day 3 of 30DtD with LGR. I'm not sure this is the best way of reviving this. I am getting a little more familiar with it again. It's just really hard to play this one hands apart. Although maybe it'd be a really good counting exercise. Also trying numbering my dynamics. I also have problems playing separate dynamics in each hand.
Day 2 of 30DtD with Danza. I did the first and last sections. Thank goodness for music that repeats.
Work on memorizing Automne with dynamics. I went through my chart and figured out what I need to work on. Dynamics were suspiciously easy to play around with.
Work on one section of Grey Donkeys. At this point I had been practicing for almost 3 hours. And I worked on three chords instead of the six measures in that section.

All this with a headache, too.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Goals:
Finish scales week 1
Finger mechanics
30 DtD on LGR - ran out of time
30 DtD on Danza
Ran out of time (1 hr or practicing)                      
Automne section
Grey Donkeys section

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Today's goals:
Play one measure of LGR with dynamics*
Do scales exercise
Plot out memorization for Automne
Pick section of Grey Donkeys to work on and work on it - from practice chart

*Work on scale dynamics before getting disappointed trying to do this on LGR?

Achieved
Scale mechanics - right thumb is weak
Worked on section of Grey Donkeys, and wore myself out, so it was nice to have the next activity to do. Try not to do too much too soon.
Made a practice chart for Automne, divided it up, and put dates on it. I hope I can beat those dates, since I've already done a ton of work on it.
Played a few notes of LGR measure. It's hard to hear with a fan going, and today, I am not turning the fan off.

Thinking about setting up scheduled posts for daily goals and filling in the Achieved section after practicing.

Not sure gold stars are helping.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Grey Donkeys: need to chain 120bpm eight notes.

Automne: need to re-memorize 2nd section slip-ups. Need to make a practice chart for 3rd section memorization?

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Sidelined by a cold. One more phrase of Grey Donkeys learned, I think. Working on the gliss part of Automne. Need to break that down into phrases and memorize.

Prelude 2 edited.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Automne is almost all memorized, I still need to clean up the glissss ie get them more precise.

Grey Donkeys is much more difficult and much more of a workout than I remember. It is going faster than I estimated.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Out of energy today. Would rather sew. Tried to get one more phrase in Grey Donkeys learned but couldn't focus. But I'm a month ahead of schedule, so yay.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Part of Automne is memorized to the point I can play with it, not just play it. This is the good stuff.

Monday, February 29, 2016

I have the 1st section of Automne memorized with the exception of one measure, most of the 2nd section and most of the 3rd section.

I have most of Grey Donkeys memorized, but at a very slow speed.

I would like to look into what else might be easily memorized. (Rigaudon is almost there.)