Treasa's practice diary
I decided earlier this year that having spent several years working on everyone else's interest but myself, I would do something for me, something which could not be hijacked by anyone else and I decided to finish off my piano grades (I grew up in Ireland; these things are normal). I think I stopped at 5. So I looked at the various examining boards, and found ABRSM had performance grades, but I would have to do Grade 5 Theory first. So I did, and I've passed that.
I am now preparing Grade 6 Piano Performance, and I have chosen four pieces for that.
Bach - Two Part Invention in E major (777)
Mendelssohn = Gondollied in Gminor (19b)
Rebikov - Autumn Leaves No 3 Con Afflizione (I think) (F sharp minor)
Milnne - Indigo Moon (B minor)
These are my current objectives. I dip in and out of other things but for accountability, this is where we are at.
This week I am focusing on Bach and his counterpoint. It's not native to me so it is challenging.
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A very interesting repertoire. How does the study going?
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Roberto Hi Roberto, it has been a rough week for this repertoire as I wound up giving a recital on short notice and used some other music which is more or less solid. I also travelled for work this week and had a bunch of other workrelated commitments. So I fell off the wagon and need to pick up again this weekend.
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week 43 2023 (I think)
Very little piano work time this week; recital on Wednesday where none of the classical repertoire was played so that distracted me. I have another one of those on 29 November, need to decide what to play for that as I also don't have access to my own piano for two weeks. Bad planning.
The Bach continues to go slowly and one thing that fascinates me is that for the music of my own country which I play I have little to no difficulty with ornamentation.
The same cannot be said for JSB.
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Week 1 2024 (2-3 Jan)
Back hopefully to more regular practice, and also drafting notes abut it. I'm not sure whether here is the right place or whether I should put it on my own site.
Anyway, the big focus continues to be on a Bach two part invention, number 6. I'm having serious issues with the rhythm in bar 7. It's really frustrating because the rest of it is accessible enough and I don't foresee it taking forever if I can just finally get this right. I feel like it's on the edge at the moment. But I'm still very heavily dependent on working with a metronome to get it right.
I was hoping to do this exam in March but I lost a good chunk of the end of 2023 - I was away from a piano for at least half of it, and the rest of the time, work got in the way. So here we are.
Of the four exam pieces, only one is close to being ready. I got the first cleanish run through on it today (that would be the Mendelssohn). I was practising for more than 90 minutes and the irritating thing is that most of that - really most of it - was working on the one bar of Bach that I cannot get right instinctively. It means I'm tired when I come to the others - and currently I want to ensure that all 4 of the exam pieces are "touched" at least once during every practice session.
In addition to that, there are two skills I want to sort out this year. One is polyrhythms. I'm currently working on 3/2 because that's the one I think I will need soonest (it certainly will factor into the Grade 8 pieces that I do not allow myself to think about at the moment). The other is sheet music.
Anyway, today, I think I am close to fixing the Bach, god I hope I am because it is delaying everything else. And I'm close to playing the Mendelssohn cleanly which means it can go into repertoire for things like public pianos, concerts. But I need to be practising daily.
