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50

Changed my strings and cleaned my fretboard with mineral oil today. Not pleased with this performance, but I have to move on to other pieces.

Had a lot of trouble with squeaking and intonation today. It rained a little while ago.

Practice Interruption from Hurricane Michael

In my old blog I had began this “post some of your practice everyday” challenge. I got a couple of weeks into it and we were finally able to get a work crew (227days after Hurricane Michael) to begin the demo on the house. This disrupted things because I had to move completely out of my home and help around the house moving boxes, making sure pets are safe, etc. Well, it’s day 306 and I am still displaced by Hurricane Michael, and decent available practice-time comes and goes. But, I’m still trying.

21

I have been very busy and tired lately. I really hate that it is hard to find time to practice. This is extremely frustrating. It worries me.

I am learning Luis Milan’s six Pavans. I am getting this one (no 2) under memory here. Now that I know all the notes, I’m trying to decide what to do with repeated material. In the first example I played it all in my standard default tone color. When I restarted the piece, I went more ponticello on the repeated material. I believe that less-extreme color change with more dynamic changes may be what I need. I’ll try that in a later post. Probably tomorrow.

60/100

The pizzicato variation that comes after this one gave me a lot of trouble today. Gotta fix that.

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Working on the first variation of Sor’s variations on La Folias.

Just in case you wonder about my shirt in this video and the last one, my shirt was washed. Today. A friend let me go to get house use her washer and dryer. I still don’t have hot water (as a result of continued recovery efforts brought on by Hurricane Michael which damaged my home over a year ago). My wardrobe is kinda limited for now.

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Memory practice/challenge. Video 1

Just trying pay through the piece without stopping, without fixing buzz notes and other things. As long as it sounds halfway decent. Only focusing on the order and sections of the piece. If it’s all pretty much in order, that is the goal.

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Working on an unusual right hand pattern. Thumb, ring finger, pinky.

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 😞

48

This is the fifth and sixth variations from Luis Milan by Joaquin Nin-Culmell. Wanted to redo the sixth one, because I was super tired when I made the recording last night.

Starting practice after you’ve already been up and doing things for 10-12 hours is hard and taxing on even hoping for decent practice.