January 1, 2020--Practice Blog

I have not put up a blog post in a couple days due to being on vacation. My wife and I traveled to the southern US to visit some friends and my in laws. While it was good to see everyone, it is great to be home. I am trying to hit the ground running as I have at least four concerts coming up in the next five months.

We got out of the house fairly late this morning. The dryer cord flared up and now the dryer is not functioning. Being the first day of the year, most repair stores are closed. We get to wait until tomorrow. I went to the church to practice four about an hour and a half. My wife and I then spent the next two hours shopping for necessities and frivolities before returning home. I practiced about an hour on the piano before dinner (steak, Macaroni and cheese, and yellow squash). This evening, I am going to take it easy as tomorrow will be busy.

On the organ, I worked pretty heavily on the New Years preludes (BWV 613-15) from the Orgelbuchlein as they will be the center of a concert I am planning for January 18. I also plan on playing all of the Orgelbuchlein over the course of this year. I finished my practice with Vierne's Finale from the First Symphony, one of the pieces for the AAGO certification program.

On the piano, I worked entirely on Chopin's Op. 10 No. 3 and 4. I have been trying to get No. 4 memorized. Today's session involved me slowly raising the tempo for memory starting with the last page and moving backwards. Tomorrow, i will complete the process with the first three pages. With No. 3, I have played it before but a long time ago. My fingers remember a large portion of it, but the bravura passage in the middle is the most difficult both technically and for memory. Today, I spent about a half hour working through that passage.