Date: 01 May 2009
Practice Time: 1 Hour
Material Practiced:
Scales: Review of C-Major 2-Octave Scale, Contrary Motion, Motion in 3rds & 6ths, Triads, Cadences, 2-Octave Single-handed Arpeggios, and Dominant 7th Arpeggios. Also began work on 2-Octave B-Major Scale, along with Contrary Motion at 60 BPM.
Time Spent: 30 Min.
Hanon: Review of Exercises 1&2 @ 60 BPM.
Time Spent: 15 Min.
Pieces: Cold Practice of Bach Anh. 119
Comments: First of all I would like to thank all of my friends for their support on Facebook and otherwise in my recovery process!
I’m still taking it easy, limiting my practice time to about 1 hour. Today I’m not going to practice so that’ll give me an opportunity to rest my hands. I began my session with a “cold” opening – which means I played a piece straight from memory without warming up. The purpose of this is to be prepared to play anything without the need to warm up. A musician should expect to do this a lot – to be called upon to play without being given an adequate amount of time to warm up. So I was able to play BWV Anh. 119 from memory without any mistakes, which was good.
I then began to work on my scales. I started with a review of C-Major, and it turns out in these months I’ve lost a lot of speed, but I still remember the patterns so I was able to build up my speed rather quickly since I didn’t have to relearn the finger patterns. So right now I can probably play around 60-70% of my maximum velocity.
Since my recovery is still in its early stages, I thought this would give me a chance to try something new. According to Chang, Chopin taught his students to play the B-major scale before the C-major scale. This seems counter-intuitive because the B-major scale uses all the black keys, which would make it seem like a relatively difficult scale. But according to Chang, this is not the case due to a few reasons: first, the black keys let you play with your fingers straight, whereas with the C-major scale you have to curl your fingers. Secondly, the motion of the thumb is in sync when playing the B-major scale, and the transitions happen at the same time in both the left and right hands, where as this is not the case in the C-major scale. Thirdly, the B-major scale lets the player practice the “thumb-over” motion, which is used to play fast passages during which one must use the thumb to reposition the hand.
So I decided to go straight to the B-major scale rather than review the G-Major and D-major scales. It was very interesting, indeed, I had to keep my fingers straight and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. contrary motion, though of course, was still pretty challenging since the thumb transitions aren’t in sync. Since I don’t have a teacher yet, I’m still don’t know for sure how the “correct” thumb-over motion is supposed to feel like, but the motion I felt was definitely different from the one I used on the C-major scale.
I closed my session with some Hanon, which was much like practicing the C-major scale, since I noticed that I still remembered the finger patterns, but I couldn’t play as fast as I had previously. So I kept the speed at 60 BPM, which is around 56% of the recommended maximum speed.
As for the condition of my hands, there was no pain, which was good. I did notice a little soreness in my right hand which probably came from fatigue. So, that’s why I’m taking the day off today. I don’t feel any of that soreness now, so I’m probably recovering, which is good.
Today is a double-post, so I’ll include the previous day’s practice below:
Date: 30 April 2009
Practice Time: 1 Hour
Material Practiced:
Scales: Review of C-Major 2-Octave Scale, Contrary Motion, Motion in 3rds and 6ths, Triads, Cadences, 2-Octave Arpeggios, and Dominant 7th Arpeggios.
Time Spent: 15 Minutes
Hanon: Review of Exercise 1
Time Spent: 15 Minutes
Pieces: Review of BWV Anh. 119 – Polonaise
Time Spent: 30 Minutes
Comments: So, this was the first day back to practicing. It was pretty much an impulsive choice, as after class was over I thought to myself, “Hey, I feel like practicing today!” So, I headed over to the music building, got myself a practice room, and started practicing scales. I didn’t bring my metronome with me so I guess my tempo was around 60 BPM. I played considerably slower, though I noticed that a lot of my muscle memory remained. I also reviewed my Hanon, and I made sure to keep it slow so I wouldn’t over exert myself. I also reviewed the Polonaise, which to my surprise, I still had memorized.
My hands felt pretty good, no pain, but my fingers still lock a little, but that doesn’t interfere with my playing, really. The main thing I’m worried about is just getting my confidence back, which I hope will come with time.