Sliced my finger on glass, another harp string broke. Not practicing.

Arabesque 2 - Can't figure out how to speed it up and have it still sound like I want. Maybe need to record.

Chaconne - Still working on line 8.

Chaconne - This needs way more work on consistency at high speed. I need to chain and focus!

Arabesque 2 - Still can't get past the first measure, but my hands are getting slowly stronger, I think.

Going to get a mute for my violin today. :)

Sometimes it's nice to only have 10 minutes to practice, I end up focusing really specifically.  I need to find some way to translate that to my regular practice.

Also, drilling one specific area, then expecting to play it afterward all the way through doesn't work.  It's the same as practicing the same thing 2 days in a row, I think.

Besides getting my muscles wrapped around playing Arabesque 2 at 100, I still need to wrap my brain around it, as well.  Did a quick 10 min practice today, just enough for hand to be fine, but forearm and shoulder to start feeling it.

Happy Birthday to the only person that reads this besides me! :)

Holy hand cramp, Batman. Arabesque 2 at 100 is... intense.

My muscle memory from high school is kicking on Chaconne providing some interesting and fun phrasing.

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.