#practice log

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Hi! You can call me El, Lib, Libby, some variation of my username, I really don’t care. Use whatever pronouns you want with me, get creative! I identify as asexual, aro-spec, sapphic, and queer. I’m also very much in favor of reclaiming slurs, so simply know that I am a faggot and a dyke :)

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10/28/2022

taking the rest of the day off practicing today because i performed in a recital today! i took this when warming up beforehand.

I’ve been practicing every day, just haven’t been making recordings. x__X; Today, played Grieg’s Holberg Suite first movement (Praeludium) in string sectional. It’s a lively piece with some beautiful, soaring parts for first violin, and fun to play together. Didn’t sound horrible for a first readthrough. Requires a lot of bow control and finger dexterity to play up to speed, so I’ll be working on this.

✔️ Practice Days 037-046 // ❌❌ Two Missed Days

Almost halfway through the marathon, though I fully intend to continue the habit of practicing every day even once the hundred days are up.

I still can’t get over how much I love Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Blu. By the end it sounds like a crazy march and makes me think of the colorful art style of Paprika for some reason. Ahhh I just love it. Not sure what makes certain pieces stick in the brain like this, but it’s stuck. :P And I love how he and Joe Hisaishi conduct from the piano.

Practice on 10/12/2019 (1 session)

Reichert 3 at dotted crotchet = 53 (still easy, go faster next time)

5 note scale double tonguing exercise from 162-172

You will never believe what just happened to me.

So, I’m taking piano lessons through The Great Courses. It’s a video lecture series that comes with a text booklet of lesson summaries and practice exercises. It’s difficult because you have to pace yourself and be patient and not move on to the next lesson until you’ve mastered the previous lesson’s content, but it’s a good series with a really solid instructor.

I’m on Lesson Seven right now, getting ready to move on to Lesson Eight, and the thing that I’ve been working on this week is chord progressions: picking up my left hand and, without looking, setting it down someplace else and just trusting that it’s going to land on the right keys. 

The hard part is that I used to be able to do this, like, a decade ago when I was learning piano the first time, so it’s frustrating trying to relearn and not being as good as I was (I was never good, but you know what I mean). I’m definitely improving, but it’s slow going. Tonight was pretty vicious. I was trying to go slow and not make mistakes and think about where my hand was in relation to the keys as I moved through the chords and where the notes were in relation to one another. 

It was a sonic massacre. 

It was so bad that I thought, “Forget it. I have nothing to lose. I’m just going to play it as fast as I can!” 

And then it was perfect. 

Just like that. As soon as I stopped overthinking it, my hand knew where to move all on its own. I played the song back to back four times through pretty much perfectly, and I thought, “What the heck is happening? Didn’t I suck just two literal minutes ago?” I guess I finally broke the muscle memory barrier, so I wasn’t able to play at first because I was thinking about it too hard. XD

Major Practical Studies:

~ G Chromatic, 2 octaves

~Grands Exercices Journaliers de Mecanisme, Taffanel and Gaubert,

E.J. #4

G harm/mel/nat minor -> 5 minutes

E major -> 5 minutes

C harm/mel/nat minor -> 5 minutes

~Sonata No. 1 for Flute and Piano, Eric Ewazon

Mvt. 1 w/ metro. @ 74 -> 30 minutes

~ Fantaisie Pastorale Hongroise, Albert Franz Doppler

Andante -> 10 minutes

Allegro -> 25 minutes

Flute Quartet Repertoire:

~ Pavane, for four flutes, Gabriel Faure, w/ metro. @ 80 -> 5 minutes

~ Falconer, Catherine McMichael

On Seeing Castle Stalker, w/ metro. @ 78 -> 10 minutes

Snow on Ben Nevis, w/ metro. @ 112 -> 5 minutes , w/ metro. @ 120 -> 5 minutes

Aire of the Falconer, w/ metro. @ 90 -> 10 minutes

Stalcaire Reel, w/ metro. @ 72 -> 10 minutes, w/ metro @ 80 -> 10 minutes,

Wind Ensemble Repertoire:

Flute:

~ Symphony No. 5 - Finale, Dmitri Shostakovitch -> 15 minutes

Piccolo:

~ Duende, Luis Serrano Alarcon

Mvt. 1 -> 5 minutes

Mvt. 2 -> 10 minutes

Mvt. 3 -> 5 minutes

~ "The pembina highway widening 2017 - 2019, thank you for you patience", Isaac Tate -> 10 minutes

I started working on Bach’s Prelude to Suite No. 3 and my chair test cuts for Capriccio Espagnol so I can be ready for school in August. Because I haven’t been able to afford lessons this summer, I asked some of my friends from school for tips on fingerings and I’ve determined there’s 3 types of Violists: 

1. The ones who hate 2nd position and will do any string crossing they have to in order to avoid it. 

2. The ones who live and breathe by 2nd position, and will use it every chance they can (even over 3rd position). And,