Another snow day!

The amount of work I need to do on these pieces is feeling overwhelming today and my back has a stitch in it, so I only practiced 1 hour today. Worked mostly on Bells in the Snow. Still need to do everything mentioned yesterday. Or Monday. Will maybe have another practice sesh this afternoon.

30 DtD Chaconne

30 DtD Giga. Had a thought playing lower on the strings might help the left hand in the fiddly bits. We'll see. And I can play it with the original recording that I thought was ridiculously fast.

Worked on Bells in the Snow again. I think the multiple harmonics touch off my tennis elbow.

Still not motivated to practice, so played around with Mortari's Gagliarda and Tournier's Cloches sous la Neige.

★ 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.

★ 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.

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

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. ★☺

I finished editing what I could for my album. I now know exactly what I need to work on. Or I should say, which pieces I need to work on. There are several "what to work on"s that could be applied to each piece.

I checked out "Sound In Motion" by David McGill. It explains Tabuteau's numerical method for creating "greater musical expression". Because, dayum, my playing is pretty boring.

I tried to apply the dynamic number system to one of the pieces and realized how little control I have over my fingers - I can neither play at the volume I expect, or play the same volume with the same finger consistently.

My next goal is to apply this method... methodically to Looking Glass River.

Still working on memorizing Automne.

Still working on being able to play Grey Donkeys at all.

Also, doing the scales Monthly Mastery Theme over at myharpmastery.com. Hopefully that will help with control over my fingers, or at least point me in a good direction to achieve that.

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?

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.

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.

Need to make a chart for Grey Donkeys.

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.)

Had fun yesterday trying to work Grey Donkeys back to performance level.  I was surprised and pleased at how easy it was to get it up to speed after a few minutes of intensive work (chaining). I hadn't been able to play it that fast before.

Tried to remember to concentrate on tone while working on arpeggios, but got more interested in playing fast. Was sort of successful, could definitely see improvement from last week.

Played Bells In Snow, (more like sight-read it) because I want snow. Not that I think I can make it snow by playing the harp.  Worked a little more on Prelude Intimes and Automne, both are coming along, and way more easy than what I've been working on for my album.

Bit the bullet and started working on Chaconne again, which is something that needs to be re-recorded.

Octaves with something I can't remember the name of - "Stilts" something? It's in Tiny Tales for Beginning Harpists. Or Beginners. Or something along those lines. I can't be bothered to get up and verify any of these names.

Got one more line of Automne under my belt. Played almost all of Prelude Intimes.

Tried to work on the first page of Rigaudon. I just do not know how to play that fast and loud without my fingers flying off the strings. Or wobbling.

Chords (Communion)
Automne middle section up to ♪=92.
Worked on Rigaudon since that's a piece I need to re-record.

Double notes (Idyllic Poem): Played at ♪ = 40 and it was a struggle!

Went over 2nd part of Automne, need to relearn it. Played almost all of Prelude Intimes. Flagged on very last page.

Got two more lines crossed off Prelude 4.

Played Prelude 2 and Arabesque 1 just because I can now.

Trills: Tambourin and (Inquietude)

Old tune review: Automne

Got more measures of Prelude 4 knocked out, and moved on to lines. All lines of 1st and 3rd page done. Second page needs measure and line work.

Trying to relearn Solfeggeitto by KPE Bach and I'm getting now that it's just the same pattern repeated in different keys. I also need to play it more evenly. Do I need to make a practice sheet?

Also trying to work on the problem measures in Automne on 2nd page. Not sure why the transition from line to line is so difficult to have stick in my head. Got tired trying to play it 5x well and let myself not work on it as hard as I could have.

Got Dennis O'Halloran's book of piano solos and wrote in a lot of pedal changes.