I Created This Blog To Share What I Learn While Practice, But Also Because Something Strange Happened

Day 12

Still feeling sick, but found the strength to make a little excerpt of a piece by Julian Orbon: Preludio y Danza.

Need to put on new strings and new nails. Need to maintain my repertoire better 😞

42

A little bit of Orbon’s preludio. Haven’t focused on this piece in a while. I tend to be a little too bright on some notes.

I changed my strings not many days ago, but I think I already need to change them. I think that, after playing on carbon trebles for so long then switching to light ej43’s, I’m a little surprised at how fast my strings wear out not.

Tomorrow I plan to do a video where the Preludio leads into the Danza “alla attacca”.

77

This dead skin was catching on my slurs when I was playing today. I need to watch out so I can notice this kind of problem earlier and do something about it. Never really had it catch like that before.

73

Day 8

Decided to post a little slower version of Llobet’s 5th Variation on a Theme by Sor.

The right hand technique here is something I have been struggling with. The idea seems simple: you pluck one string twice, and another string once. Then repeat the pattern which result in a nice triplet. However, I have trouble making it sound clean and rhythmically clear. It’s frustrating to have trouble with such a simple concept.

I’m also usually better at playing harmonics. I have a suspicion that this set of strings is quasi faulty when it comes to playing artificial harmonics (and I long considered not even commenting on this).

44

I had not planned on posting a video on Thanksgiving Day. I really thought I’d be too tired, or busy. However, I got good bit of practice in so I thought ‘what the heck’.

This is second of Luis Milan’s six Pavans. I realize that I have been focusing entirely too much on pieces that I am not very good at yet. I think that my time between now and when I play my final doctoral recital (on January 31, g-d willing), will be better spent on making the things that I’m already good at playing even better*.

Happy Thanksgiving!

*this doesn’t mean I won’t continue to spend way too much time on increasing my speed and making the very hard stuff less difficult in my practice. I’ll just be spending more time polishing up the “easier” stuff.

45

Probably should have kept playing past the moment that the Shih Tzu ‘Abby’ brushed up against me, but it kinda tickled. Hehe. I’m dog-sitting some adorable pups.

36

Doing some metronome work with Rodrigo’s Fandango. It is easy to speed up the quarterly chords if you’re not careful. Likewise, it can be hard not to slow everything else down.

I am recording and using the metronome all on my phone here. My house is much improved since Hurricane Michael, but most things are still boxed up. One day I’ll find my metronome.

18

In this video I am addressing a left hand problem I have been having. I have to play a three note slur, followed by three plucked notes, all while holding down a note a in the lower voice in the fourth position (c#). This passage is impossible without applying a barre. The problem was: when do I put the barre down?

In order to prevent ringing while playing the slurred notes, I decided that I should wait until the slurred notes have been played, then put the barre down when I play the three plucked notes.

Now, I am playing the slurred notes too fast, but I was focusing on when to put the barre down in this mini practice session. I will play them all evenly now that I know where I should place the barre.