I've been working on little sections of Impromptu by Lex van Delden because I'm so sick of Giga.  I'm hoping it's a good thing that I'm "setting it aside" for a little while. Hopefully, all the dynamic and musical things will percolate and it will be perfect when I pick it back up again. 

I almost couldn't make myself play today, so I did the CBT thing of "try it for 5 minutes". I lasted longer than 5 minutes, but not by much.  I did play fiddle a little bit after that, and that was fun.  I'm still working on trying to play the notes in tune.

I also sight-read a little bit of Joaquin Turina's Tocata y Fuga arr. Nicanor Zabaleta (thank you, MultCoLib and Vassar College ILL depts) and will probably order it.  I like the pieces and they are arranged REALLY well.  I always wonder when that happens (Dewey Owens anyone?) if the arranger had the same size hands as me, or if they had really bendy fingers like me.

Played and worked on many things from Solos for the Harp Player in order to build my stamina back up and keep things in playable order.

Fuga does not sound as awesome as I thought. I'm taking too many breath breaks and speeding up too much.

Tambourin sounds better than I thought.

Recorded both, need to do that every day and really pick the parts I like and work them so they always sound that way.

This is what happens when you have pedal changes and wobbly ankles.

Weird shakiness in my left hand prevented me from learning anything new today, so just ran through all the things I've learned from Solos. My left 4th finger was missing everything. I think I'll go have a bit of a lie-down. Too bad I don't have an appropriate Victorian fainting couch, sheesh.

Worked on Siciliano. Small bits need chaining.  Then played though all the things I've learned out of Solos for the Harp Player in order to keep them in my hands.  Not too bad, I think.

Recording today.  Still don't know yet if noise is still an issue, but much more confident today.

Chaconne took six takes, and I'm moderately sure I got a good one.  Zarabanda only took two takes and I KNOW I got a good take.  It was a great feeling.  Recording is much easier when you can play flawlessly.

I'm also figuring out how to relax while playing while recording. It's a matter of awareness and forcefulness.

2 hours on the dot. Muscle endurance seems to be key as opposed to learning the notes.

(Inquietude) for trills, then 2nd Arabesque. Crappy.

(Flight) for scales, then Chaconne.  I was able to play this surprisingly fast after warming up with conditioning exercises.

Zarabanda went well, too. Just need to pay attention to ... it... while I'm playing it.  Dynamics are probably as good as they are going to get.

Tired, but not as tired as yesterday.

The recordings from Sat still sound better after getting them home and listening on a different set-up. Using two regular mics and the rear channel from a 3rd sounds good and retro (Zabaleta from the 60s). Hopefully, this will be a long term availability.

Need to listen to Zarabanda variations (Painting A Scene) I recorded today, which I promptly forgot about, and see which I like.

New recording space is much more promising.  Recordings sound so much better, despite me still playing like crap. Will practice more this week and play with recordings in audacity in prep for recording next week, as well.  I think I'll try Berceuse and have Chaconne as backup.

Played Zarabanda a few different ways to see if it made more sense. It was fun and did make a difference, but I'd need to record it to hear it. And I'm so leery of recording right now.

Got another piece of equipment for field recording, namely latex foam to wrap around the mic holder to minimize the noise of my creaky finger joints. For a buck fifty, too.

Played with FL10 and followed a tutorial that went way too fast for me, but I was actually able to make the same sounds.

ImpCap - more lines learned

Arabesque - still need to work on second trill

Chaconne - Almost. Done.  I still need to convince myself I already know line 1 on 3rd page and then learn next line and I'm done except for polishing.

I've been listening to Zarabanda and I don't like the way it came out. :(

Recorded Zarabanda

Finished arabesque 2 at 60. Almost played it at 80. Hopefully it will be a short jump from there to 100.

Recorded Zarabanda. Lots of cars today, though, and no motivation to listen to it and edit, so I may need to rerecord.  I'd much rather play around with the angry wasp I recorded. Oops, play around with the RECORDING of the angry wasp. Angry wasp can go away now. I also still don't understand one section of Zarabanda.

And serious, why does blogger all of a sudden need a title? @#$&*(%

Recorded Zarabanda again. Slight improvement. Not enough for me to have a boost of self confidence, though.  My tone is so uneven. I think if I could control my fingers, I might be a better player. /sarcasm

Working on lettering for my album and in general.

Finished polishing Zarabanda. Now just need to take out all the jarring pauses and I think I'm good to record.

Zarabanda - 1st two pages polished. Started on 3rd.

2nd Arabesque - 1st two pages almost done.

More work on Zarabanda. I think it's making sense.

More work on Arabesque 2. It's a repetitive, so I'm able to cross things off quicker, yay.

Muscles, tendons, or cysts?

My hands are better. In particular, my right thumb.  I cannot tell if it is due to:
A. Starting my physical therapy exercises back up and doing them consistently,
B. Whatever I was doing yesterday (opening a jar? I seriously can't remember) that severely torqued my thumb and made me gasp in pain, and reminded my body that that area needed some healing, or
C. Whatever I was doing yesterday possibly popped a heretofore unknown cyst in my thumb joint.

My left thumb joint has absolutely no pain, and my right thumb joint is mildly painful, and the pain is only present if I squeeze the joint hard.

So I was able to practice today a little better than I have for the past week. I've been half-heartedly playing/practicing because my head was completely not in it. I had to do the "try it for 5 minutes" trick every day, and every day I stopped after five minutes (that's five minutes in harp time, which is more like 15, due to settling in and warming up). Today was a little better, but my concentration was... laughable.

Zarabanda - I got a few phrases checked off. It's weird working in phrases because it makes so much sense and why would my brain default to doing something that made sense?

Imp Cap - one more line

Still resting my thumbs a bit, but they are definitely getting better.

I test recorded Zarabanda today and it is unsurprisingly messy. They bass sounds much better than I expected, though.

Checked off two more lines in Zarabanda review. One line each yesterday and today.

LGR - pg3 mid 80s.

Zarabanda shouldn't take too much work. FLW.

Folk Song2 needs spot work at 80.