Played.

Made a note in class today to look into getting a copy of "The Art of Modulating: for Harpists, Pianist, and Organists" by Carlos Salzedo & Lucile Lawrence. Because we're learning modulation! I was not aware that instigating a key change with a chord change was called modulating.

I have the book. I seem to remember being told by someone years ago to get it as it is a useful reference to have. Well, it's a useful reference if you know what modulating means.

Now that I do, the final discussion of constructing glissandi is SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING. There are two kinds: harmonic and melodic. Melodic is not discussed because they are 'the domain of composition and are unlimited in number, but,[...] they have no modulating value' and now I'm curious about those.

BUT harmonic glisses are constructed on dominant 7th and 9th chords, major tonic triads with added 2nd and 6th, diminished 7th chords, and whole tone scales. Thus facilitating key and/or chord changes. Delicious!

Practice notes: still making lots of progress on Passacaille, goal of ♪=144
Practicing goes better if I do not also do all my upper body PT exercises in the morning.
**Find another time to do them.**

Up two down one 2nd meas 2nd page passacaille up to 92.

Worked on Passacaille up two down one, arms got shaky. Tried to move on to Rumba, but got discouraged.

Managed to complete melody writing assignment. Things are starting to click in to place, but this is something that takes practice and continual practice, at that.

Blogger is so effing slow!

Tried to write music, I think I need to try something simpler.

Hmmm...

Smashed my knuckles while tuning. Bandaid was distracting. You'd think after *mumble* years I would have figured out how to tune safely.

Two up one down does work, so keep using it! Except I'm overcoming a LOT of muscle memory in Rumba. Work on smooth transitions between phrases.

Today is a day I wish I could have played 3 hours or more. :(

Up one down two seems to work well except when my brains fall out of my ears.

Exercised (didn't overdo it, yay), started Rumba, continued Gavotte, played Zarabanda.

Counting helps breathing.

Exercises made for shaky arms, but fingers warmed up. Too shaky to get any noticeable work done. Still working on chord + octave jump in Gavotte.

Gavotte felt much more comfortable in my hands, but only had 30 min to play, so not sure if I can play it up to speed.

Music theory homework - changing from dominant 7ths to a different key is interesting.

Played a little of Tango, Gavotte, Clementi stuff (still not interested), and Donkeys.

Need to practice hand position and placing in Gavotte. Almost blister stopped playing.

Scrapped the classical, can't seem to deal with it.

Polishing Gavotte.

Heater acquired, calibrating mostly completed, ideal harp-playing temperature achieved.

Feeling like I need a vacation from everything; played through Donkeys, Six Pieces, looked at Dances.

No practicing today; it is just too cold without a heater. So I guess getting one is the goal for tomorrow. Not that I need to spend time studying or anything.

I'm also having problems with dominant 7ths. We were analyzing a song in theory and one of the markings was D7. Everyone seemed to know that's a G chord. wtf. It's clearly marked as a D. I asked for clarification and am still completely confused. And a C7 is actually an F chord? Because it's a dominant 7th it's automatically a V (dominant) chord? If that's so, is there an even more confusing way it could be written? And why did some people automatically know this?

Counting while playing takes practice. It's also a really good way to remember to breathe.

Need to work on cleaning up #2 (scales and placing) and working problem spots in #3.

PLayed: moved on to next Clementi.

Must get a new heater soon, cold hands do not make for easy playing.

And finally a cheesy sounding harp version of something I wrote for class:



Which google will apparently let no one see, including me. Whatever, it's late, I don't have time to play with this.

I spent a good part of the morning cleaning up a couple stacks of music that have been sitting around since last *cough*October*cough*. I got all the floating pieces of paper back in their sleeves and binders, so you could say I spent the morning arranging music, haha. Now I can at least see part of the surface of my extra harp bench. And I found a post-it with "Harp Sonata op. 68 (1943)" written on it, which I figured out must be this:


But I'm not sure why the note to myself because upon hearing it, I don't see it as something I'd particularly want to learn. Or particularly like. Hrm.

Practiced: Posture and breathing (getting better).
Played: Some of the music I arranged this morning.

Things worked on: Exercises, posture, variations.
Things played through: Clementi. Passacaille by "Haendel" (that's what I was comparing my variations to; it's simplistically brilliant)

Tried to write music today. Emphasis on tried.