Now I feel suddenly not ready to record. I still am having trouble with spots in all the pieces and I'm not sure on some what picture I'm trying to create.

The Folk Song is something that needs to be played regularly in order to remember it at all.

Everything else is very close to being recording ready.  Tambourin just needs practice variations recorded. But I do know faster is better.

Fingers sore from yesterday's trills. Plus arms tired from working out. Concentration nil. Will try again after lunch.

ETA: Nope.

Tambourin - trills need to be slower and less squeaky. And I need to figure out dynamics, wow.

Rigaudon - The dynamics I decided on I like and can be added to the actual music. 

1st Arabesque  - need to go through and mark mistakes and drill those.

Folk Song - ready? possibly?  need to mark dynamics, but they're already kind of ok?

Not recording this weekend, hopefully next.  Then I will have ONE piece left. I think I'm going to skip the Italian Pavane.  Then I can re-record whatever is necessary.

Record things Wed morning, then analyze. Repeat until the weekend.

I think Tambourin, Rigaudon, First Arabesque and Folk Song I might all be ready to record. Tambourin is probably as good as it's going to get.  Everything else just needs test recording work. And I do mean work, not just "whatever".

Detail work on Arabesque. Need to do 2nd and last page.

Rigaudon - worked first 2 sections slowly. last phrase of 2nd section still needs work.  Need to work slowly on last 2 sections. With dynamics. Need to listen to recording.

First Arabesque - I may have finally deprogrammed myself for the opening triplets. 2nd and last page still need deprogramming. Need to listen to recording.

Folk Song 1 - need to listen to recording. May just need work on one arpeggio.

Giga - ?? Not sure what to do with it. Maybe just keep working it slowly up to speed.

Re-mark Rigaudon and re-record. I liked the slow version. Take elements of slow version and make fast.

Not much difference in variations on Folk Song. Just need to record?

I also have Arabesque 1 almost completely memorized. I still have one page where I have it memorized wrong from my high school years, and need to un-cement it.  I've been close to successful with the other pages. The opening thirds finally work except for my right third finger occasionally.

Folk Song I, Tambourin, and Rigaudon are all ready to be recorded 5x.

Arabesque I needs more line by line work, then recording 5x. Also compare to piano rolls.

Notes from video

Reeeaally need to learn not to lick my lips, or press them together, or do that weird fake-smile thing.
My bangs are too thick.
Look at one thing, either the music or strings, constant head turns are distracting. Basically need to know my music better.
Need to match my facial expressions and hand gestures to the music.

Practice Performance Notes

This was such a good thing to do.  I got really nervous, and I had completely forgotten everything that goes along with that, like turning bright red and then getting even more nervous because of that. And being really tense and shaky.  Maybe nervousness is like pain - you forget how bad it is and get tricked into thinking "Hey, it's not so bad!"

Things to consider:
- tie down my hair so it doesn't get caught in the sharping discs and make a really distracting "plink!" noise EVERY TIME I change a pedal.
- wear lip balm/gloss/stick/ANYTHING so I don't like my lips while playing. Not attractive.

- Make a setlist and stick to it, even if it's just the order I have my music in on the stand, with sticky tabs.
- if playing on hardwood floors, make sure I have quiet shoes.
- when I make a mistake, don't laugh. Reeeally not professional.
- I need someplace to put my music after I'm done with it.

Things that went well:
- I managed to force myself to relax a few times when I noticed I was really tensing up. I managed to do that by both physically relaxing, and asking myself why I was getting so tense since I clearly knew the pieces. Even the pieces that I didn't know well went ok.
- I relaxed more when I chatted between some of the songs.

I'm scared to watch the video recording, though.

ETA: I also forgot about the post-performing post-nervousness blah feeling. Even my eyes hurt.
ETAA: I can play for about 45 minutes before I need a break.

Doing a practice practice session was moderately helpful. I know I'm not at all prepared musically for next week's practice performance. And my camera defaulted to 2:30 video, instead of 29:00, so I got nothing useful there, either.

Things to remember: hands ON lap, stand needs to be low enough to make eye contact with people, need harp dolly to move harp, need to arrange seating?, need to ask audience for feedback on how to place music stand and harp for best results, need to rearrange my set list.  Other things: maybe wear makeup and nicer clothes. Hair up or down is fine.

My harp sounds much nicer in my living room.

Need to listen to Pavane Fuga and Folk Song before doing any more work.

Edited more of Siciliano. Est. 2 more edits before ready for mastering.

Picking a repertoire is hard: I forgot all about the mechanics of page turns - what happens if the music falls off the stand, what to do in between songs so I'm not fumbling around for an uncomfortable amount of time.

I also found I get tired and start sighing, as well as decreased engagement with the music.

I need to record and listen to everything I will be playing. Everything.

Fuga sounds best when phrasing starts quiet and slow, builds, then ends the same way. No real pauses, just breaths.

I need to play Pavane with ALL the chords slowly broken.

Working on Fuga 2 lines at a time, did 6 today. Slowly and jumping 4 clicks from 54 to 126.

Last measure of Folk Song maybe needs a slow approach, too.

Pavane chord work better when rolled more. May need to muffle some notes so pedal changes are covered. But I have to listen to the recording first to know for sure.

I'm modifying Folk Song to play single notes instead of octaves because I can't play it otherwise, due to elbow issues as well as my harp having no room in the upper registers for my huge hands.

Fuga needs constant work.

Listened to recording of Pavane.  It sounded better than I thought, but then there were other things I didn't notice, like I tend to speed up without the metronome, and don't take enough space between phrases.  I think it's a good thing I scheduled myself to record it 5x.

Sort of got another measure of Folk Song I.

I finally understood what my harp teacher had been telling me 20 years ago about placing with the 4th finger first, or aiming for the bottom note to help get the chord you actually want. Twenty. Years.

Fuga hasn't completely gone away. Tambourin made my hand twinge. Pavane fell to shit as soon as I turned on the recorder. So yay and boo.

Meeting with GA went well? I hope I gave her enough info to get started.

Hand started to go numb while playing, so put off until later. 

Meeting with GA to go over album artwork. Eep!

Slept on my arm funny and made my elbow worse. Did play a little bit and Pavane is much better than last time. Just a few chords here and there that need work.  Then to practice record, then record for real.

My hand started bothering me both in Pavane and Folk Song. So I switched to Arabesque #1, but got fatigued. I did get in a good solid hour of playing, and Pavane is halfway done, and Folk Song is close to halfway, so it's not going too badly.

Ugh. Why do allergies even exist.

Another few measures of Pavane and Folk Song I. Feeling more hopeful since accomplishing that.

Fatigued from actually practicing (yesterday) for the first time in a month. It was actually my left arm. So instead of overdoing it, I practiced maybe 20 minutes.  The Chinese Folk Song went really well. Pavane is going to need much repetition of the big chords. Much.

Kind of came up with a new schedule, I think. It's a schedule without time constraints, only the order of things is set. I'm not sure that will work, but I'm not sure I can put a timetable on when I will be injury-free.

I'm working on the two shortest pieces first - Pavane and Chinese Folk Song I.  Hopefully, I will be able to do these relatively quickly and get them recorded. Then will progressively work through more and more challenging pieces.

Thought I had lost the list I made of things I can play, but just remembered I transcribed it here.

More play-throughs of repertoire.
Opuses 7, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, Fine, Tango, 20, 23, 21, 22, 26, 28 30, 37, 35
Possibly some things from Medieval to Modern.

My elbow is getting better, but very slowly.

I need to re-record LGR.

Revising set list to things I can play with injuries:
Berceuse Flagello
Notturno Van Delden
Chinese Folk Song I Chung
Zarabanda Turina
Siciliano Bach
Gavotte and Sarabande Corelli
Fuga Cabezon
Pavane Anon
Opus (Opi? Opuses?) 7, 13, 14, 15 O'Halloran

Got all the pedal markings in O'Halloran's book.

I thought my elbow was healed, but I did something else to piss it off, so now it's hurting again.

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.

Prelud Intimes

I. Pay more attention to the space and relax on tempo.
II. RH can be quieter, it really carries over the lower strings. Pay more attention to LH melody.
III. Get quiter and slower at rits and decrescendo more evenly.
IV. Learn the notes!
V. Ok to leave out.

So I figured out what I can't do on the harp, which is very quick, loud 3-1-2 turn-arounds, which rules out Tambourin and Rigaudon until my tennis elbow is better, and pushes recording and performing off to... sometime in the future. I was pretty depressed today, probably a combination of the weather and the above, and other things.

But! I just remembered I delivered Zarabanda to my engineer for final editing and prettifying, so that's something.

Oh, and I thought of some advice for myself: the whole "polishing a piece" process is new to me, so it's probably going to take the same amount of time and concentration to get that process faster as it did to figure out how to learn pieces faster, ie a LOT.

My tennis elbow has turned into a hand problem now, too. My elbow hurts less.

Trying to play Tambourin with my eyes closed to see if I can get better accuracy. It's sort of working.

Memorizing Fuga is easier than expected, but it goes out of my memory quickly.

I figured I'd do a little work on Pavane, since I pretty much already know it, and get that out of the way recording-wise, but I need to be organized about my work in order to undo the bad version of the chords in my hands that was cemented there in my younger days.

Rigaudon is actually close to ready to record, too.  It would be great to get all those out of the way, then I'd only have two pieces left, and whatever redo's I want.

Upon reviewing the video of me, I mostly look very surprised to see music in front of me.  I need to relax my jaw and lips - maybe wear lipstick a few times as a reminder. I also need to pay more attention to the harp and the notes I'm playing - lean into them. I don't know how else to describe it. Ugh, no fake smiling, either.

Next time aim camera to get hands and move light more toward front.

Came up with a set list, finally, but I need to add about 10 minutes.

Also, video recorded myself. It is sobering.

Spent many hours today and yesterday timing pieces, and I still have not come up with a set list. I'm so done with counting measures and calculating beats and times.

Figured out I can use my recorder as a microphone (duh!) and get immediate feedback.

Went through all the music that I own today - not playing everything - to see what I might or might not want to perform.  It's quite the spectrum. So instead of making a setlist today, I've just sifted through everything.  I'll do some mulling next Friday?

Meh.

Worked trouble spots in Fuga to bottom of 2nd page.

Gave myself blisters trying to get one measure of Arabesque 2.

Ran through exercises looking for repertoire - some Boscha might be good? Or Pozzoli?

Need to mark problem spots in Fuga and work on them.

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.

Forgot about the whole "callus peeling off after a break" thing. Super.

The other thing about coming back to the harp after a break is trying to sit up straight and how tiring that is.

Took the first tape line off my fiddle.

Sick all of last week. A week + was too long to let pieces go, too, so no recording this past weekend. Hands are really stiff.  I'm disappointed and not looking forward to having to work Fuga and Tambourin back up.

Fiddle, on the other hand, was good to let go for a week. Things fell into place much more easily. Pinky slides were working. Regular slides were working.

It was a Christmas carol kind of day.

I think I've said this before, but I will probably need to record Tambourin at 96 because I just can't physically play certain parts of it faster, and it sounds weird when played fast and slow.

Did record Fuga and Tambourin, but not Tambourin slowly, so I'll need to do that. Need to listen before next practice.

Fuga is pretty much ready, I think, but it would probably sounds best if I memorized it.

I think I can start working on the next two pieces, Rigaudon and Giga.

Maybe recording next Saturday.

Getting closer to having Fuga sound melodic. Listening to the recording I made yesterday with each successive time having more pauses and changes in tempo was an eye opener. I just need to get it to the point it's something I want to listen to.

I need to figure out how to get trills in Tambourin the same EVERY time.

Worked on Arabesque 2 again and certain parts are making more sense. Maybe this is how I have to learn challenging pieces - intensive work with a break of a few months, then more intensive work?  It gets done in the same amount of time, but takes less effort?

Recorded Fuga and Tambourin. Need to listen before next practice. I thought I would be ready to record tomorrow, but I'm not.

Last fiddle class was last night. So sad. I hope I can keep up with it by meeting with classmates in the future.

One of those days where nothing is working so it's better just not to practice and cement something weird into the pieces.  I tried to work on Arabesque 2, Fuga, and Tambourin.

Took a break from the normal stuff and worked on 2nd Arabesque. Chaining worked really well with that and I was able to get almost one line smooth. Also worked on the 2nd movement of Marionettes. One more line learned with chaining on that piece, too.

Tambourin - Still working on trouble spots.

Fuga- Simply played through a couple times. It's sounding a lot better, I think. Still some problem spots. Need to record it and see what it really sounds like.

Played through several other things just to keep them in my hands.

One spot on my bow seems to not hold rosin, so I'm getting no sound out of that spot on my bow. Very disconcerting.

I listened to Tambourin. Well, it certainly sounds like it's easier to play than it really is. There are also a lot of little problem spots I'm not sure how to fix.

And I need a new printer.

Fuga - one more line learned with melody. Sort of. I have a hard time paying attention throughout an entire line.

Tambourin - recorded 3 times, need to listen before next practice and mark consistent problems.

Fuga - more measures learned with melody brought out. I think I'm on track with this one?

I listened to another version of Fuga, and tried to copy bringing out the melody, and while doing that realized that's what I whistle after I finish playing it.  Hopefully, that will make it more interesting.

The fiddle is coming along. I can get some decent sounds out of it. But not when it's raining, which may pose a problem in Portland, OR.

Wrote up a new practice schedule yesterday focusing on Fuga and Tambourin for now.

Tambourin: I still need to work on: opening trills and 2nd page trouble measure.

Fuga: Practiced opening and closing. Closing may need more work.  Next need to work on trouble spots and experimenting. Maybe alternate between left and right hand.

Got all recordings matched up from most recent recording session.

Glisses in Giga alternate.

Test recording:
Tambourin is definitely not a piece to start with when performing, it requires warm up.  Also sounds a little better fast. Ok slow, but not as interesting. Still need to work on 1st measure trills. And 2nd page turnarounds.

Rigaudon definitely sounds ok slower than indicated. It's a fun piece.

I wasn't playing Giga as fast as I thought, which could be due to recorder.  REALLY like the variations.

Fuga is going to require a lot of work not to sound boring.

Pavane Ok not muffling bass notes. Also boring.

Not surprisingly, I messed up more with the recorder on.

Fuga and Rigaudon are ready for test recording.

Rigaudon is ready for polishing at 80. I seem to have this memorized, too!

And upon further reflection, I need to learn how not to do the same thing with my mouth while playing the harp that my lovely grandmother did while she was knitting.

Video recorded myself playing last night. Not as bad as I thought, but very boooorrrrring. I got a recommendation for a performance coach, so I'm definitely keeping that in mind for later down the road.

I keep forgetting about Giga. I think maybe I need to focus on less pieces. However, worked on a couple measures today.

I am putting together the two tracks of my recording sessions and realizing I really need to clean up my playing - very buzzy.  I don't know if that means I'll need to re-record.  My chair is also very creaky and poppy. Ditto on the re-recording.

Finished one page and almost another page of Rigaudon.

Learned the remaining page of Fuga.

Tried to work on pg 2 of Tambourin, but no headway. The other two went very easily. Almost too easily.

Worked on Italian Pavane and felt I didn't really make any headway. But I probably did.

Why playing the harp is hard

I maybe should not have taken up the fiddle.

Yesterday, when I was "practicing" the fiddle¹, and thinking about how incredibly hard it was, I had an "Oh yeah? Well I used to walk 2 miles to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways" moment.

Playing violin/fiddle is really difficult. However, the harp is way harder.

I present the following arguments:

The harp is really heavy. Like, ridiculously heavy.  Sure, pianos are heavy, but they're everywhere. Chances are if you're playing piano, you don't bring your own.

And speaking of pianos, violins are so lightweight if you start to drop it, it's pretty easy to catch. If you start to drop a harp, it will take you with it, conceivably falling on said piano, which you would then have to explain away by saying you "meant to do that".

The harp has approximately a metric crap ton of strings.  The violin is set up with an economical four strings. They are also set up in 5ths making scales and transposing a snap.  The harp has pedals for that. And they require a little bit of strength to move. And you have to move them fast. Sometimes so fast you can give yourself shin splints. Or so I've heard. From my shins.

The harp requires a significant amount of finger, arm, and back strength just to pluck the strings, not to mention the foot dexterity that I mentioned above and am mentioning again.  The violin does not require any force of any kind. At all. Even though I'm trying to make it that way.

You can fudge notes on a violin. If you don't land exactly, you can move your finger slightly and achieve noteness. On the harp, the targets are anywhere from 2 mm to less than 1 mm, and you have to land that sometimes after flinging your arms over a span of two feet.

Oh, and don't even get me started on tuning. Or rather do. I certainly need a head start because harp tuning = 10 minutes, and that's IF everything's already relatively in tune. Fiddle? 2 minutes tops.

Rebuttal:
As opposed (really, reeeally opposed) to the fiddle, it takes no effort to make a good sound on the harp. You can literally sneeze on it and it makes a better sound.²

And the harp is so pretty. Kind of like this if unicorn = harp and fluffy = pretty.



If I had started on the violin, I'm not sure I would have stuck with it.

Soooo.... in conclusion: fiddle = hard, and possibly worth it. Harp = harder, but definitely worth it.

QED?


<sup>1. some might say "torturing" the fiddle
2. probably not the best way to get the aeolian effect.</sup>

I had forgotten about Giga. Got a few more lines done. I think the combo of giving myself breaks in between sessions of at least one day, chaining and creeping up to speed is the best. Things just fell into place with the measures and lines I was working on today.

Fuga - Tried to work on the whole page by creeping up on the speed instead of chaining and it seemed to work better.  Is that a better way to cement lines I've already learned?  126 - 126.

Tambourin - Still really uneven - I can play a line once, then not, then again. ???

And my 2nd octave E broke. I had just replace it this past July. >:(

Things went a little better today. I still don't know how I'm going to start Rigaudon as the pages other than the first one seem to be a little easier to play. Trying to play faster seems to be the ticket to playing in time.

Violin hilarity rating on a scale of one to ten, ten being funniest: 32470830127

At least I'm amusing myself. My neighbors, probably not so much.



Rigaudon - 1st measure chaining clicked, then unclicked. I tried to play faster than the metronome and that's when it clicked. Then lost focus?  Could feel the muscle strand in my bicep I was using. Wleuagh!

Spent another inordinate amount of time on one line. This time in Italian Pavane. The 3rd and 4th finger rt hand trill is difficult on the larger gauge strings, but only if I think about that. If I think about them as one octave up, I can play it. Didn't quite get it good enough to my satisfaction.

The fiddle is still excruciating, but not as much so.

It took me and HOUR to convince my brain to focus on one line. I basically had to tell it we weren't going anywhere until I could play it 5 times perfectly. The subsequent two lines went much more quickly.

Dear Brain,

See, Brain? We do things MY WAY.

Sincerely,
Brain

I think I need to do chaining on Rigaudon note-by-note again. Either that or my muscles just get really soggy really fast in relation to this piece.  I was thinking about how I would record this and Tambourin. I think I'd have to do them in two separate sessions as they are physically demanding.

This past week was one of disappointment: I wasn't able to check off any measures. Everything had a block for me in it.

The fiddle is still going excruciatingly.

I put the marking tape on my violin and got the strap configured so I can have hands-free.

Finally got that one line in Fuga. I was having problems with just two chords right next to each other, which would make me blow the rest of the line. Usually, I would practice the connection between the two chords, but this time I practiced from the second chord to the end, and from the beginning to the first chord. Then when I put it all together, it just magically happened.

Italian Pavane - another line learned. SO EASY.

And this is all despite taking a huge chunk out of my fingernail with a cutting knife last night. It grew enough today it didn't hurt too much this afternoon. It will probably be ok by tomorrow afternoon, but it will take probably a week before it gets back past past the quick.

Tried to get more lines in Tambourin finished, but this is maybe a piece I should work on on the days I don't work out in the morning.

Same for Rigaudon.

Giga - I got 3 or 4 more lines done, as well as a couple measures of my alternate version.

Played a little of Fuga and Italian Pavane, but those still need to stew for a day.

Somewhere between yesterday and today, I cemented 2 lines of Giga.  I need to write out my variations in Finale.

Today, I got 1 line of Fuga learned that was challenging before but not now (?) and worked on another line that is really challenging, and is still challenging, and I didn't finish it.

Italian Pavane - 3 lines learned and the were fun and easy to play! Quite the surprise based on my initial impression of the piece. I need to figure out when I started this piece by looking at when I made my practice chart.

Holy crap! I started IP on 9/19. That means I learned it in a week and a half?!? A FIVE page piece?!? Da fuh?

Oh, and my fiddle class went well. I still need to get a decent strap, but I finally know how to hold it so it doesn't hurt my right shoulder, and I learned how to tighten the bow, hold the bow, and how to practice bowing with a loose wrist.

Yesterday, had a very productive practice session. I produced an almost-blister with Tambourin. And I worked on Rigaudon. I'm working line-by-line with these pieces now.

Tonight I have my first fiddle class so no practicing harp today.

Woohoo! I'm calling Italian Pavane learned for all intents and purposes.  There are some measures that I just cannot figure out how I'm going to play, and I skipped those on the checklist and will come back to them later, but that's how I've been learning all my other pieces, and they seem to be turning out ok.  So... modified goal achieved! It's going to take a few more months to get everything recordable, possibly 6 months?  I need to go back through my previous charts and see if I can estimate that.

Trouble concentrating. A couple measures of Italian Pavane learned. There's weird muffling going on in this piece. Was hoping to have it learned by the end of the month but seeing as how that's 2 days away, probably not going to happen.

Steam burned my finger today. Got a few measures of Italian Pavane learned before giving up in painful frustration.

Working line by line on Fuga now. Re-vamped the typical practice plan to see if measure/line/page progression goes better.

Not sure what to do about Tambourin.

I realized today that after Fuga, I just have one more piece to learn! Everything else is just polishing. Whoa. ! So I sort of am on schedule, as far as my original goal wanting to get everything done and an album released by September. Everything is almost done.

And I also realized Fuga is simply a round. The right hand leads.

Learned more of Flagello Sonata parts I and II.

Recorded Tambourin to see where I'm at, and my mind went blank as soon as the recorder went on. Is it getting worse?  I couldn't even get through the first line and I have this memorized!

From what I could hear, the trill are sounding better than last checkpoint. It doesn't have that carefree dance-y quality though. Yet. Yet? Possibly because my mind went blank and it lost continuity.

Finished note learning on Fuga.  Took me 1.5 months.  And I took a bit of a break from it because I actually forgot about it.

Worked out the embellishments I want in Giga. Now to learn them.

Worked on Fuga. A few more measures learned.

Helped a fellow harpist get her music up on bandcamp. Check it out. She has a lovely voice.

Learned pg 1s of 1st and 2nd movements of Sonata. Worked on Rigaudon transitions, almost through 2nd part. Tambourin is memorized, but still not smooth.

Tambourin and Rigaudon are ready for practice recording. I can get through Tambourin now a couple times without my hands getting tired.

Couldn't concentrate.

More of Fuga learned.

Created practice chart for movement 1 of Flagello's Sonata. It's not complicated, it's simply fast and modern. Used that as a break from Fuga when I couldn't stuff any more in my brain. It worked a little bit.

Ran through Rigaudon.

Need to find the link to the version of Giga I like.

Ordered music and got what I thought was a wrong order, but "Two Pieces for Harp" by Nicholas Flagello was renamed "Marionettes". I no longer have to travel to Paris to find it.

I spent some time playing through those.

Ran through Tambourin and Rigaudon for exercise and then changed up the rhythms for fun.

I was thinking about my recording session today and the immediate thought was, "It didn't go well as expected." However, that is not true: it didn't go as well as I fantasized.  The dream was to record each piece perfectly once. Yeah, right. I managed to play everything nearly perfectly at least a few times, so there will be some editing.  It took less time than previous sessions. So, really, it went better than expected.   And this is after chipping my tooth on a fork today and seriously doubting my eye-hand coordination. And speaking of eye-hand coordination, my workouts have made a difference in my ability to move my harp.  I practically threw it in my car, not realizing how much stronger I've gotten.  It was like having extra help from someone who knew exactly what they were doing. No arm strain or back strain. It was great!

So, Siciliano, Gavotte, and Sarabande are all recorded and I can stop working on them! Six more to go.  Eight if I re-record the two that I'm not satisfied with.

Another couple lines learned of Fuga.  I think I do like it better played sur la table.

Recording today.  Fingers crossed it goes well.  Or fingers uncrossed and all in working order.

Since Fuga sounds better on guitar, I'm wondering if I'll end up playing the whole thing sur la table. And 2x as slow!

1st page of Fuga learned. At least all the individual measures.

I seem to have gotten over the recording mind-blanking-thing that was happening with Siciliano. Either that, or it's so hot I'm delirious.

While singing/humming/la-ing Rigaudon in my head today, I realized I would like it just as well if I got rid of the 4-3-2-1 trill and substituted a grace note. So another change to cement into my hands.

Tambourin is actually at speed.  I surprised myself. I'll need to listen to a recording to see if the trills actually come out. Correction: I'll first need to record it, then listen to it.