Yes. And No.

Yes, I still play the piano. And no, I'm not going to start piano blogging again. The only reason I'm creating this post is to add a link to my new blog, Scorpion Arts and my new website, ScorpionArts.com If anyone still has this linked and accidentally clicks it, feel free to stop by the site or blog. Art and piano are not totally unrelated.

Keeping My Baby (Grand)

After much soul searching, and due in part to my existential recommittment to piano over just about everything else, I have decided not to sell the Yamaha. If I could only have one piano, it would not be the Yamaha; it would be the Walter. Now that I've had the two of them together for five months, there's no question that I've gravitated to the Walter. I probably play it 60% of the time with the other 40% divided between the grand and the digital, but each has its purpose, and would cause a void if sold.

The Walter is my nuts and bolts practice piano. I use it for learning new songs, for drills, and for most reading practice. The grand is more of a pseudo performance piano. I play my finished pieces on it and pretend I'm doing concerts. A little sick, but fun. The digital gets most of its use on cold days (being upstairs) and when I wake up in the middle of the night and need to remember how something goes.

Anyway, as much as I'd like the extra $8 - $10K I could get for it, the Yammy will survive for at least another year. In all likelihood I'll just keep it until I either move or get desperate for cash.

I guess I finally need to update my sidebar with a picture of the Yammy.

Schumann and Reading Stuff

The Schumann work is finally paying off. For the past three weeks I've spent one week each on the first three pieces in the Album for the Young. My objective isn't to polish the pieces but to get better at reading off the page. The first piece, Melodie, didn't go well. The bass is in 8ths and follows an Alberti pattern, while the RH does some awkward moves. I was still very slow and rigid at the end of the week (even though I had previously learned the song by memory back when I took lessons). The next one, Soldier's March, was a lot easier and I could play it reasonably well by the end of the week. The one I'm on now, Humming Song, is similar to Melody, but part of it has the RH in counterpoint 8ths and part of it has the LH in counterpoint. Today I was able to play at least part of it smoothly off the page for the first time. There are only 42 pieces in the book, so that means I can spend two weeks on ten of them and still finish in a year. I'm going to do Humming Song another week and try to get it smooth enough for a recording -- that will be a first for me: recording a reading song.

The Shumann payoff is showing up on my normal "sight reading" too. I'm back to the "Big Book" which I've read through a few times now, only this time I'm very clear on my reading objective. I want to play each piece the best I can in a single sitting. IMHO, those who recommend reading/playing pieces once and moving on are giving bad advice, at least for adults. I spent over a year doing that, and learned little more than I would have by just using note recognition software. I played the songs so awkwardly that I gained very little musical skill. A better approach is to treat the pieces as if you have to perform them in the next half hour or so. I go through and make sure I understand how they should sound, write down finger numbers, do HS where needed -- in short, abandon any pretense of "prima vista" playing and go for my best play in the shortest time.

Maybe some people need to play pieces near performance level the first time, but I -- and likely most adult beginners -- will never need to do that. Unless your going pro, which I quite obviously will never do, a better goal for simple songs is to play them musically within a few tries.

Right and Wrong

Well I finally got an election prediction right. Not that there was much doubt -- it's hard to beat a female beauty queen/politician (just look at the sage Ms Palin), but impossible to beat a male Cosmo centerfold/politician. I never would have guessed health care reform would die via Ted Kennedy's seat, but it's now official.

The individual health insurance policy I pay $300 per month for will continue to be worthless for any major illness. If I get seriously ill, the insurance company will just drop me, and there will be no law to stop them. I don't know why I'm wasting my money.

I guess it's appropriate that yesterday I started a new blues song. This version of St Louis Woman by W.C Handy. I promise recordings of my other three "in progress" pieces soon. They aren't really smooth, but getting better every day.

Inches and Sinches

My three "new" pieces - I Will, Georgia on my Mind, and the deadly Number 13 - are progressing by inches. Never, even in my earliest days, have I gone this long without moving a piece to "finished" status. The first to move should be Georgia, since it's by far the easiest -- just a fancied-up version of a song from my sight reading that piqued my interest, but I'm more interested in getting I Will ready in time for the recital, so that's where I putting the most effort. Thirteen actually is close to recordable, but it's much slower than I'd like and I'm very inconsistent with it. I honestly believe it will be six months before I can play it on the fly like 8, 1, and 4. I won't wait that long to record though. My goal is to record all three by Feb 15, then pick the best for the recital.

***

Even though my political predictions have a poor record, I'm pretty certain about this one: Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate election, and health care reform dies. The Dems don't have the balls to kill the filibuster and pass HCR with 51 votes. Worse, the Dems don't understand that the filibuster is actually already dead. It died a few years ago when the Repugs found a credible way to kill it with 51 votes. It only survived back then because the issue -- circuit judges -- wasn't a big enough deal to pull the plug over. It won't last six months into the next Repug majority.

Oh where...

Oh where should my little blog go?

Sorry to anyone who's commented and didn't get a reply. I haven't even looked at my poor little blog in a couple of weeks. I still practice every day, and I haven't gone on a bender or anything, but I'm not really motivated to verbalize every little nuance of my development anymore. Plus I've made a conscious decision to stop ranting about non-piano topics -- there's enough noise and hate in the world -- so I haven't had much to say.

I'm planning to pop in to Piano World in February for the next recital, but I don't know what I'll play. It's probably going to be either the Beatles' I Will or Ray Charles' Georgia On My Mind. There's a remote chance I'll do Invention #13, but I doubt it. It's all I can do to get through that at a crawl with no mistakes. I doubt it will be crisp enough in a month.

One thing I've started doing differently this year is I've added "non-prima vista" reading to my practice routine. Right now I have to memorize pieces before I can play them with any confidence. Most things I play off the page are halting and error-filled. So in addition to my daily sight reading of new material I'm working through the Schumann Album for the Young (young, ha!) taking one piece a week and just playing it off the page a few times daily. There are 42 pieces, so that will take most of the year, then maybe I'll go back and polish up a few that I like best.

Anyway, I know my blog is withering away but I guess it's not dead yet. Hope all is well with my occasional readers!

The New Best Thing

I haven't posted for about a month, so here's an update on my piano fantasy life. Yesterday possibly the best thing anyone's ever said about my playing was said to me.

As I've mentioned, I go to our local Guitar Center regularly to play their DPs. They have a nice little room that's isolated from all the wanna-be shredders cranking on their Fender Squires, so most of the time you can play in relative peace, but still have a few people coming in and out to provide practice playing in front of people.

Yesterday it was very slow despite being Christmas time. I played for about an hour on a YDP 140 and was really hitting a groove. I played 3 or 4 songs in a row nearly perfectly, then started Don't Know Why and a sales guy walked in. I glanced over at him and, of course, flubbed. I made some comment to the effect that I can play fine until I know someone is listening. Then he said, "Oh, it sounds great. I thought someone left a demo on."

Ok, maybe he was just BS-ing, being a sales guy and all, but he walked away after that, so I believe he really did think I was the demo. Anyway, it gave me a pretty nifty ego boost.

Unfortunately not all is roses and cookie dough. I'm still not finished with Invention #13, and I Will is proving much harder than I thought. 13 is memorized and gelling, but the white key arpeggio inversions are still giving me trouble. I suspect it will be a few more weeks before I'm ready to record.

As for I Will, the version I'm doing is mostly open chords that hold a 10th in the LH and the melody in 6ths in the RH. Plus there's a lot of wide separation that makes it hard for a hopeless key-looker like me. As with #13, I'm having to learn whole new skills to do it smoothly. I've modified fingering a couple of times and still don't even have the whole thing memorized. It's very likely I'll be working on it for months before I record it.