Played like crap today. Still need to finish Giga. Maybe I need to slow both down.

SNOW DAY!

30 DtD Chaconne. Exhausting work. Couldn't keep my fingers on the strings.

30 DtD Giga. Skipped 1/2 the task because I didn't think I needed it.

Ran through Tambourin and Prelude 4. And 5!

And now, possibly, a nap. 

I'm behind! I really hope we have a snow day tomorrow.

30 DtD Giga. And now I can't play it fast. I think it will be ok, though. Still a lot of detail work needed.

30 DtD Chaconne. Got the last page done. Need to finish other 5.

30 DtD Chaconne

30 DtD Giga. Had a thought playing lower on the strings might help the left hand in the fiddly bits. We'll see. And I can play it with the original recording that I thought was ridiculously fast.

Worked on Bells in the Snow again. I think the multiple harmonics touch off my tennis elbow.

Still not motivated to practice, so played around with Mortari's Gagliarda and Tournier's Cloches sous la Neige.

You say potato, I say portato

Portato  - basically the opposite of ritardo. What I do with the falling notes in Zarabanda.

So not motivated to play today. Disappointing repertoire day.

Urg. Struck down with cold/allergies/general malaise.

Marathon practice session today. Got everything done, though!

★ 30 DtD Giga. Finally finished the task I'd been working on for the past couple three days.

★ 30 DtD Chaconne. Played with recordings. Other people are playing way slower than me in some parts, and way faster in others.

I have tomorrow off with Chaconne, use the space to run through Tambourin and Prelude 4.

I think taking two weeks to work on dynamics and shading with recording is a good idea, and I think I'd like to  revise or revamp the 30 Days to Done to include much more recording and analyzing.

1/2 practice of repertoire. Will finish practicing after watching first ep of Gilmore Girls!

1/2 practice of 30 DtD Giga. Got alllmost 1/2 done - 2 tasks on first part, 1 task on 2nd. Shoulder started hurting.  Another ep of GG!

★ 30 DtD Chaconne. Got halfway through, tried to come back to it, but fingers sore. Good work!

I picked up a book today and my left thumb joint was in immediate agony. It also hurt while playing, but I was playing really well, so ...?

30 DtD Chaconne. Got through 1st 2 pages.

Steam-burned my thumb today. Awesome.

★ 30 DtD Chaconne. Made notes on how I want dynamics to sound. Listening to myself practice is excruciating.

★ 30 DtD Giga. Recorded my practice today. Hopefully not as excruciating to listen as above. It's choppy, but I can get my enthusiasm to come through in parts.

Repertoire day. I can play Tambourin once before it falls apart. Or so I think. I can pay attention to the first half of Prelude 4 and make a conscious effort to play, but the 2nd half becomes note reading.

Very brief 5 min practicing. Peeling cuticles are actually too painful to allow practicing! ugh.

30 DtD Giga. Research - The Giga I'm playing is from Opus 5, and it is Sonata no9. It was published in 1700 and Corelli was apparently key in developing the Sonata into the form it is today. This was a time of ornamentation in music, and there are different versions, one possibly written by Corelli himself. I have no idea what ornamentations are in the version I'm playing. I like this description from the CD description at Bridge Records: "often lavish and warm-hearted character of Corelli’s oeuvre".

 30 DtD Chaconne. Couldn't get it together today.

It was also I good thing I wrote on my calendar that today is repertoire day.  I played so much today my arms and hands are actually sore. That doesn't happen very often. Some of my repertoire needs work. Some of it sounds great.

Just worked on Giga today. Easy, but I can't focus well and plus have to stuff my face with pizza.

★ 30 DtD Chaconne. Detail work. Focused on trying to relax.

Info on Chaconne - "This is a really excellent pastiche of French 'galant' 18th c style, and is written with a light touch unusual in 19th c piano music. As such the outer sections require little or no pedal. It was dedicated to one Mlle. Hélène Montane. ----------------------------" Who was Hélène Montané?

More info about Durand at imslp.

"This example is dependent largely on the tonic and subdominant minor for its key feeling." - The Affective Character of the Major and Minor Modes in Music, Kate Hevner, The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Jan., 1935), pp. 103-118

Great job today! I pushed through being fatigued and got everything done.

★ 30 DtD Giga. The practice combo worked really well today - cleaned up some trouble spots.

★ 30 DtD Chaconne. Worked through trouble spots. This quickly coming back into my fingers.

★ Played through Tambourin and Prelude 4 well.

Need to do research on Chaconne.

Today was exhausting. As a result (I guess?) I was unable to keep my fingers on my strings. I did the prescribed review of Chaconne, but couldn't manage Giga.

Despite having massive headache, I managed to get all my practicing mostly done. Then I remembered I'm supposed to go through my repertoire once a week. Oh well.

★ Chaconne - Seems to be infusing my hands again.
☆ Giga - almost made it to the end, but ran out of steam. Practiced the things that are different in the 2nd ending in the 2nd half.