Blogger now seems not to require titles anymore. Maybe they got complaints.

Just played a little today.

I can certainly tell the difference in my recording of Zarabanda vs previous pieces because I pretty much know it cold (despite not being able to memorize it?) and there are so few things that need fixing.

Wobbly thumbs! I think they're getting stronger. May need to do chaining on first page btwn chord change measures. Or may need to just get even stronger.

Chaconne is coming along quickly. I think I may have tried to learn it at some point before.

I may edit some things today if I can get everyday life stuff done.

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? @#$&*(%

Tendons

There are two different pinch grips and one hurts my thumb. Arabesque 2 - hammered more into my head.

And now blogger apparently requires a title for all posts. :P

My album! Well, more of an EP, really.

While I've not been practicing, I've been getting stuff together for an album, and here it is!

Zarabanda - There are just a couple lines that don't make sense to me, so I'm ready to record. I need to remember to sing the latter-measure eighth notes while playing. So I guess that's what I'll practice today since the rain is making too much background noise.  After yoga, though, since I can barely sit up straight right now. :P

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.

2nd Arabesque - having problems concentrating - didn't eat enough of the right stuff after bike ride, but managed to figure out a much easier way to play measure 15 that saved me a lot of practice time.

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.

Knocked out 2nd Arabesque. Next need to speed it up and add dynamics. I will have massive callouses after learning this.
My thumbs continue to be intermittently painful.

2nd Arabesque's slides are giving me blisters, but I'll take that any day over a painful thumb joint.

I think I'm going to try learning the other version of 1st Arabesque.

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.

I started 2nd Arabesque. I may try 1st Arabesque as I have another version whose fingerings I'll try and see if it makes a difference with the learned bad rhythm in my hands.

What's circling the bathtub drain of my mind

Should I stop playing the two Folk Songs, which I absolutely love, yet seem to be destroying my thumb joints and start on the next piece, which is First Arabesque by Debussy, which I learned in high school WRONG and which has resisted repeated attempts by me to  unlearn and relearn properly, which would probably lead to frustration, or skip First Arabesque also and move on to the next next piece and be disappointed about it? OR, I could replace First Arabesque with Second Arabesque, which is in an entirely different book. *marge noise*

My right thumb is back to hurting just as much as it was. I guess I really can't squeeze my hand into the uncommonly tiny upper register of my harp. So good-bye to Folk Song 2, and possibly 1.

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

Tiny harp torques thumb

I think part of the reason my rt hand is hurting is because my harp is so narrow in the upper registers I can't get my hand comfortably on the strings and end up torquing my thumb.

Therefore, I need to relearn Folk Song 2 with new hand positions.

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.

Harmonics are killing me!

I think I figured out what's wrong with my thumb joints: the ligaments at the base of my thumbs are slightly sprained or strained from harmonics. I have been neglecting my hand strengthening exercises, so yes, my muscles were weakened and allowed my thumbs to twist too much when plucking the harmonics in the two pieces I'm working on. And I played an exercise for kicks that was nothing but harmonics. So yeah. Need to stop that for a while.  I'm relieved, though, that they've been hurting long enough that it's time to apply heat - as opposed to the immediate 24-48 hr post injury icing that I skipped - because warm hands are such a luxury for me! And I've been doing my exercises again and they seem to be helping.

Sources:
http://black-rose227.deviantart.com/art/Anatomy-of-the-Hand-and-Wrist-270462040
http://www.overtimepainrelief.com/pain-treatment/arthritis-joint-pain/ligament-pain/