Only played 15 min. Hard to play longer when tired.  Did work through a problem spot in 3rd line.

Difficult to stay within 1/2 hour. 

Another thing that helps with practicing - taking frequent breaks. Like, really frequent - every 10 minutes.

Thumb swelling a little more, but not in joint, so that's good?

1/2 hour - Worked on Prelude 3. Getting speed up to ♪=200 line by line.  Thumb still appears ok.

1/2 hour - muscles and finger pads hurt, but not joints - thumb joint still seems unswollen.

Tried playing for 1/2 hour. With all the arranging and tuning, ended up being 10 minutes.  My thumb joint initially hurt when I bent it after plucking a string.  However, that went away about 5 minutes into playing. However, however, that could be due to my usual "pain in hands goes away when I play". 

I tried closing my thumb more like the left one, ie not aiming the tip of my thumb at the 1st finger knuckle, but the thumb knuckle to 1st finger 1st phalanx/knuckle area.  Kind of like when you make a fist puppet.

I am hoping that I am not just paranoid and that the cyst does not look bigger after playing.

So my goal is to play 1/2 hour every day for a week then bump that up gradually as I get back into shape. I will not be playing Prelude 1 again, though, that's for sure.

Thanks to Ed Galchick, I now have non-hopping pedals!

Now if this stupid cyst would just go away...

Getting my harp looked at (again) tomorrow and hopefully getting my pedals back in perfect working order.

Playing aggravates the cyst in my thumb, so I'm taking another unwanted vacation from playing.  Awesome.

Listening to Prelude 1 I need to fix the following things:
+Faster sounds better
+Arhythmic section in tempo
+1st gliss smoother

I read the surprising news on a medical website that smashing a cyst with a heavy book "could, in fact, cause further injury."

Not playing today, just continuing to listen to the multiple recordings. So far, faster sounds better.

So far, not so much useable recordings. There's bits and pieces, though.

The cyst does weird things to the feeling in my thumb - kind of painful but kind of numb at the same time, and it's translated to a different place than the actual cyst.  But despite that, I recorded again hoping to get something useful this time.

My body decided it needed an extra challenge in learning the new way to play Prelude 1 and I now have a ganglion cyst in my right thumb joint. Yeehaw.

All signs point to my harp actually having less tension on it.  Whew.

From http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/tension.htm
A few things should be apparent from the formula:
1. Everything else being the same, pitch increases as tension increases;
2. Everything else being the same, tension increases as scale length increases;
3. Everything else being the same, tension increases as unit weight increases, thus a heavier gage string will be under greater tension as a lighter one of the same length tuned to the same note;

This is not tension as in how it feels to play - that is referred to as compliance of the string, and that is the subjective "these strings feel tight and are more difficult to play" feeling the musician gets.

Worked on Prelude 1. Again. The good thing is I have it completely memorized with the old finger markings, and it seems to be translating well to my new finger patterns.  I have a feeling, though, that it will be like visiting a foreign country and speaking a different language.  The first couple days it will be fine due to severe concentration on wrapping your head around a different way of communicating. But then the third day will be completely bonkers - your mind can't figure out if you're speaking the new language or your native tongue - and you end up saying things like "s'il vous пожалуйста". 

We'll see how it goes.

Also, I got a tension chart from Bow Brand and their string lengths are almost FOUR INCHES longer than mine (up to 1" in the upper registers).  I'm thinking this will have a severe effect on the amount of ft/lbs pulling on my soundboard.  As well as on my fingers!

I had a revelation tonight that Prelude 1 can be played much more easily and less buzzy using 21 in the LH and 21 in the RH, instead of 2 in the LH and 421 in the RH like it's marked.  This is astonishing and depressing at the same time: astonishing - who the heck is this fingering for and why wasn't it just written 21? depressing - I will have to relearn the entire thing.  Yes, I could just keep playing it the same way, but my brain is already saying, "Yes! This is so much easier," and I can also already play it about a squinty billion times faster.

The stuff I recorded... whenever I recorded last, is not really usable. I think if I can relearn it, I can finally get it recorded.  How many months have I been working on this?

Recorded many many takes of Prelude 1. Hopefully, there's something usable. Wasn't really in the mood to play and had a hard time getting enough focus.

No hand cramping, yay! 

Stress makes for bad practicing.

I'm reading "Moonwalking with Einstein" by Joshua Foer in hopes of improving my memory and memorization. And maybe I'll finally memorize Zarabanda.

I tracked down Mabelle a little further along her timeline and found that, unfortunately, she died on 14 Mar 1915 in East Providence, Providence, RI.

I do finally have a list of all of her husbands:
Married Willie E. Kittridge on 31 Dec 1884 when she was fourteen
Married Harry A. Childs on 12 Apr 1895,
and married Henry L. Jacobs sometime in the early 1900s

She doesn't appear to have had any children.

Coincidentally, her grandmother was also married three times.   Her mother was married just twice, first to Charles/Chas W. Lynn, (who may or may not have been in prison!), divorced in Windham Co, CT, then to Charles W. Barker.  Her mother's sister Julia F. (Knapping) Dadmun died in 1884 and step sister Anna (Balcom) Arbuckle died in 1871.  Julia F's husband died in 1907, but they left a child named May Belle.  May Belle was a soprano in the Boston area from at least 1899-1908. That name must have had some significance for that family! 

So Mabelle had the following last names over the course of her life: Lynn, Knapping, Barker, Kittridge, Childs, and Jacobs. Whew!


Mabelle and Henry lived in East Providence, Providence, RI, and are listed there on the 1910 census.  Interesting thing: the other members of their household are Raymond L Kirzman 28yo M from CT, and Kamichika  23yo M who emigrated from Japan in 1907.  I wonder what the story behind that is!

Now I'm curious what happened to my harp!  Was she still playing when she moved to Rhode Island? Did she sell it before then?  Did her husband Henry sell it when she died?  Did they keep it in the family? Did Kamichika take up the harp?

What happened to it?

It seems the modification I made to Prelude 1 fingering made a huge difference in my hand cramping up. And my hands have already seemed to memorize it, so yay! I hope to record it soon.

One of my lovely coworkers who is a little nuts (in a good way!) for genealogy found a little more information about HMLC.  On the 1880 census, she is 12 years old (which makes her born in 1868/7, which means she lied on her marriage certificate? Tsk, tsk!) and living with her parents Charles W. Barker, 42, a policeman, wife Sarah E. Barker, 33, and Mother-in-law Julie A. Balcome, 52.  Mabelle is listed as "Mabel H".

So, so far, I have her with the last names of: Childs, Barker, Knapping, and Kittridge.  What did she go by after getting divorced? I wonder...  And I just noticed her marriage to Harry A. Childs was his first and her second.

And, of course, I got sucked in to looking for more info. Her mother died in 1903 at the age of 55 (Mabelle would have been either  34, 35, or 36) from interstitial nephritis, or kidney failure, and was living at 11 Murray Ave.  Sarah's maiden name was Knapping. Charles is listed on the 1910 census as widowed and living with Robert and Carrie Macmillan at 5 Benefit St, however Mabelle is not listed.  However, however, that's the same address Mabelle is listed under in the Worcester Directory in 1906 and '07. Hmm...  Did she get remarried in 1907? Did she DIE?  Augh!

Worked on Prelude 1 muscle memory.