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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.

The Darkness that Followed Hurricane Michael

Earlier this month, the southeastern United States was struck by Hurricane Michael. After the category 4 storm made landfall on Oct. 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael proceeded to knock out power for at least 2.5 million customers across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. 

In this data visualization, you can clearly see where the lights were taken out in Panama City, Florida. A team of our scientists from Goddard Space Flight Center processed and corrected the raw data to filter out stray light from the Moon, fires, airglow, and any other sources that are not electric lights. They also removed atmosphere interference from dust, haze, and clouds. 

In the visualization above, you can see a natural view of the night lights—and a step of the filtering process in an effort to clean up some of the cloud cover. The line through the middle is the path Hurricane Michael took. 

Although the damage was severe, tens of thousands of electric power industry workers from all over the country—and even Canada—worked together to restore power to the affected areas. Most of the power was restored by Oct. 15, but some people still need to wait a little longer for the power grids to be rebuilt. Read more here. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

I worked on this Llobet variation a lot with the metronome today. I have an issue with clicking on this variation. Playing with p and i rapidly and consecutively on the 2nd string seems to bring about clicking. I have noticed that if I play with a lighter feel on the trebles this problem is lessened.

The boxes and plastic in the background are there because my home is still being repaired after it was damaged by Hurricane Michael, nearly a year ago on October 10. Despite living in a torn up world, I still have to practice, and I believe the challenge of making a video most days of the week will help me keep to focus on my practice.

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Patching this minuetto by Francisco Tárrega. Says to play the entire piece with pizz. It’s so tempting to play normally.

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My second week of learning the Carnaval de Venicia. This is how the 5th variation is coming along. I had been playing all of the portamentos, but decided to take a couple out just before this recording. Still undecided about adding back some in, or talking more out.

Day 11

Feeling kind of sick, like I’m coming down with something. I hope this is not the case, but I really feel very weak and my throat is a little bit sore.

This is an excerpt from Harold Blanchard’s Innocent Meandering. I only listened once, and the recording itself seemed a little bit buzzy, as if I had distortion turned on or something. Maybe one day I’ll learn how to make a better recording with this telephone.

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Final variation on Milan’s sixth pavan by Joaquin Nin-Culmell.

I’m less than half pleased with this recording, but, given the duties I have taken on lately, that’s all I had time for today.

Enjoy my suffering. Lol

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This is the Danza from Julian Orbon’s Preludio y Danza. I like that my ‘a’ finger stays at the back of the design for much of the clip.

I’m participating in the 4th Florida Guitar Festival and Competition this weekend. I’m playing in the recreational round. I’ve never heard of a recreational round before this. I LOVE the idea.

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Believe it or not, this is one of the variations I actually feel better about. It needs to feel 20x better, but that’s the point of this blog. Documenting progress.

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Meant to post this one last night. Still been a little too busy to mane a decent video. In the moving-back-to-school process. Stressed.