Sped up LGR 4 clicks - seems ok, but run through again.

3 more notes in Prelude 3.

Field recording

LGR is up to a speed I can play it comfortably, the dynamics are close to being ready, and then I can start speeding it up.  I need to figure out how not to thunk the first notes in each measure in the ff section.

Berceuse still needs technical work at slow speed.

Prelude 3 - chaining seems to have worked. I now know why I couldn't play it before. It's going to be hard work to get it right, as I have to undo all the previous incorrect work I've cemented in my hands. Question is: do I want to?


I've been wanting to do field recordings and lamenting forgetting to take my microphone with me on walks and rides on several occasions.  And nowhere was that more apparent today than while stopped on my bicycle at a red light. The Greek Orthodox Church right next to me started chiming away.
So I need to find some way, pronto, to:
+ attach microphone to my bike
+ make it wind-proof
+ make it water-proof (especially today!)
+ record with small files that still sound good

Prelude 3 - 3 more notes learned in 20 minutes. It will take 20 more days.  However, gave myself a blister and De Quervain's acted up again, so I can't set a final goal yet. Just a goal to take 20 mintues of practice time to learn 3 notes per day when I can.

Worked a teensy bit on dynamics, of LGR, but didn't want to make blister worse. Need to set goals for LGR and Berceuse, as well.

Weird, now my right thumb tendons hurt and my left hand feels fine, however that was the one that hurt during practice.

Play it again, and again, and again...

After reading some tips from Practiceopedia, I was inspired to work on the problem spot in Prelude 3 again, this time using "chaining".  I learned 3 notes! It only took 20 minutes! /sarcasm. So it will take a very long time, and may not ever happen, but just doing it for sh*ts and g*ggles.

Worked on LGR dynamics.

Not enough hours in the day.

Berceuse - Worked on dynamics, breaths, caesuras, and tenuto on 3rd page. Oops, excuse me. Caesurae. I think I've got it how I want it, for the most part. I think muffling completely would be too jarring.

I moved a couple pedal changes because they are right in the middle of a quiet part. 

Need to work on the A♭ G♮ pedal change - it's really loud!

Railroad tracks

Thanks to one of the lovely members of yahoo's harplist, I now know the the double slash (\\) marking in Berceuse is a caesura.
Caesura - (/siːˈʒjʊərə/ or /sɪˈʒʊrə/; alternative spellings are cæsura and cesura) is a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition. In musical notation, caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. --from Wikipedia.

Next is to figure out if I want it to be a L.V. pause or a muffled pause.

A couple definitions I missed

Senza misura - an Italian musical term for "without meter", meaning to play without a beat, using time to measure how long it will take to play the bar. (wikipedia)
Ten. (Tenuto) - Italian, past participle of tenere, "to hold". The precise meaning of tenuto is contextual: it can mean either hold the note in question its full length (or longer, with slight rubato), or play the note slightly louder. In other words, the tenuto mark may alter either the dynamics or the duration of a note. Either way, the marking indicates that a note should receive emphasis. (Tom Gerou and Linda Lusk, Essential Dictionary of Music Notation (1996))

Berceuse - based on listening to the last page sped up, I'm adding slight pauses (denoted by commas, although I could denote with "ten." or birds eyes on the note to hold) to make the phrases stand out in what I think is a better way.

Wish I could play for hours more, but am limited by my endurance. :(

Warmup with (Flight).
LGR - Left hand is flowing and has dynamic separate from right hand. sounds good sped up.
Everything aches.

Some definitions

As I'm working on dynamics, I'm playing much louder and consequently gotten the skin on the pads of my fingers to that really squeaky point that comes just as blisters are forming.  Here's proof. Ow.

I forgot yesterday when I analyzed my pieces that I didn't know what the composer was asking for. So here is a vocabulary list:
Maestoso - ma·es·to·so  (mäs-ts, -z) adv. & adj. Music In a majestic and stately manner. Used chiefly as a direction. [Italian, from maestà, majesty, greatness]
Poco accel. (poco accelerando) - go faster little by little
Sempre - sem·pre  (smpr)adv. Music In the same manner throughout. Used chiefly as a direction.[Italian, always, from Latin semper]
Conto - a monetary unit in Portugese? Ah. Lento. Italian for WRITE LEGIBLY.
Cantando - Singing style. ?
Più moto - more motion.
Più agitato - more agitated, with implied quickness.
Velocissiomo - very fast, very quick, very speedy.
There are also some commas and double slashes (\\) at the ends of some measures. Commas denote a breath mark for singers. Double slash = ?

Practiceopedia

I discovered a new book at the library called "Practiceopedia" by Phillip Johnston.  It's available at the website Inside Music Teaching. It also seems to have fallen into that "out-of-print-charging-an-arm-and-a-leg-syndrome" over at amazon. $687.90? Really? Even the $125.50 used copies are a rip-off when you can order it direct from the source for a reasonable $39.95. 

Anyway, it had a wealth of practice tips - so many I couldn't get through them all in the time allotted, and I'm trying to incorporate some of them:
+ Analyzing the piece before you learn it - ie, what would you want a critic to say after hearing you perform it? You should have 4-6 descriptors.  I've never thought about that before in concrete terms, so I'm eager to see if it will make a difference in the finished product.  Before, I analyzed pieces as far as what key they're in and when it changes.
+Practice scales. IN TIME. And get them precise.
+Practice piece slowly, then add in dynamics at slow tempo, then speed up. This is very opposite what I was taught, and it's stressing me out, surprisingly. But, what can it hurt? (Besides my hands.) And I'm not getting the results I want using the old way so I need to try something different. You should be able to record the piece slowly, without fault, and use software to speed it up and have it sound exactly the way you want.

Lariviere - scales from ♩ = 50 - 200. Try (flight) instead - much more interesting.
LGR - Analyzed. Finger stabbed with scissors prevented serious work, and serious work is definitely needed.
Berceuse - Analyzed.

LGR sort of up to ♩=100 - worked problem spots to 100, but then couldn't play it all together.
Berceuse shakily at ♩=40.

Finally got Prelude 5 edited to the best of my ability. Let's see if I successfully uploaded it and spelled the link correctly.

Figured I'd just go ahead and commit to (re)learning Folk Song 1 since I was kind of already doing that. Got the first 2 lines to ♪=80 in order to play at d=40.

Berceuse - watch out for low E's, otherwise good to start speeding up.

LGR - quick run-through.

Have some sort of mental block against getting the rest of Prelude 5 edited. Probably because it's crap. :P

Sort of got LGR to 90. Sort of got Berceuse to 50. Played Folk Song #1 at ♪=50.

I'm writing this entry with my Bamboo tablet! My hand muscles were fatigued for some reason and didn't get any better the more I played and I didn't really feel like practicing today so just did some Bochsa etudes. To change things up l tried playing Major exercises in minor as I was as playing. My technique went to sh*t as I was figuring out if I was playing in natural minor, harmonic minor, or melodic minor. Ie. no sharps, 1# on the way up and down, or 2 sharps on the way up and none  on the way down. Also, key changes threw me for a loop because the circle of 5ths really does jack for me. I have to do the "it's the key that's a minor 3rd above" thing. It sounded more interesting, at least, and kept me more mentally engaged.

A couple of quick run-throughs today.

Got some work done on Berceuse - had to dial it back to 35, though.  I was working on the glisses and my fingers felt blistery so I stopped before going on to LGR.  But then started working on Chou Wen-Chung's Folk Songs.

Also, I've gotten page 1 of Prelude 5 finished in Audacity, however, when I sat down to start working on it again, I somehow got sucked into figuring out what Jay Z and Kanye sampled in No Church In The Wild and if I could do the same thing in Audacity. Oh, right, I was transcribing more of Real Life by Tones on Tail and got hooked by that bassline in the second half of the song, and my mind made a connection to that "Dodge commercial with the cool song".  It turns out the "bass" hook in NCITW is actually a guitar riff slowed down by about 30%.  And I figured that out after about an hour of trying to configure my computer to record itself, when the only thing I needed to do was shut down and reopen audacity after changing my settings. Urgh.

I am completely addicted to this:


My fingers are itching to learn it!

The other Flagello (Berceuse) I skipped today.

LGR - got it up to 80 mostly except for one pedal change.

little bit of LGR 1st page to 80.