Marathon transcribing of songs to get back on schedule. I finished Monkeyland, started and finished Singing Rule Brittania, and started On the Beach. Monkeyland was such a difficult song for me to figure out. I think because I deviated from my usual method and tried to get help with guitar tabs. They were not helpful at all.  I'm also learning that the songs I like the best are, disappointingly, the simplest. I egotistically thought I had sophisticated taste. Apparently not. However, I liked the more complicated songs more after I transcribed them.

I went through my music and planned out the practice sessions I need to do before the end of the month. If all goes according to schedule, I'll be ready to record at the end of the month. So far, knock on wood, my calluses are getting more robust. Hopefully they won't peel off.

I managed to get all the cells I had scheduled for my session today done in the hour I had left for BOTH pieces. It's mostly going to be work on the dynamics and getting up to speed.

Yeah, need to work on dynamics. Will outline that tomorrow.

LGR needs to be slowed down. It wasn't ready to be sped up to 100.

Ok, next thing to do is record same stuff across the room and see if my hands are still imbalanced.

But after 2 hours, my arms are tired. 

Plan for Su, Mu (ha, Munday): Work only for 1/2 hour on last measures of LGR.

Make copy of Berceuse so I can highlight the @#($*&^ pedal changes!

Then after recording plan rest of campaign. Or at least list steps to finish these pieces.

Tomorrow will be a planning session including recording and listening to LGR and Berceuse to see how to plan the "Campaign".

Reading about how to set up practice goals and steps and levels and I need to digest it all now.

Rebuilding calluses... apparently.

I think I've got too much muscle-memory/cemented wrong things in my hands to get Prelude 3. Maybe someday I will see if Practiceopedia says anything about un-cementing things. I think I will put it away again.

Worked on speeding up trouble spots in Berceuse. I couldn't even play them at regular speed! So they will require more work.

Speeding up LGR will require work on the last two lines.  The dynamics don't quite make sense, either.

Warm-up with random excerpt from (Flight).

Prelude 3 - 3 more notes

LGR - time to speed up to 100.

Berceuse - tested at 50, most is easy-peasy, but ran into trouble in faster runs.

Berceuse - dynamics ok at 40 (still not sure in a few spots), few flaws to fix marked with Xs. Mostly pedal changes. Need to bring out melody more, or might be microphone placement.

LGR - sped up to 88 and it's slightly falling apart, so need to practice Xs.

Prelude 3 - 3 more notes, sort of. Very tired and I think that affected my ability to use my fingers.

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.