October 31, 2019--Practice Blog

As it's Halloween, my "man of leisure" outfit made it's appearance today. I had a fairly light day as many of my activities were canceled. After a chiropractic appointment, I went up to my office to grade papers which took until lunch. I got a burger for lunch and returned to work. I practiced organ for an hour, but was having a terrible time staying awake. Ended up going home and working on some school stuff for a couple of hours followed by some piano practice. I returned to work in the late afternoon to accompany the jazz band before coming home and having a wonderful meal my wife made (noodles and sausage) and watched a kids Halloween movie.

On the organ, I spent my time learning some of the chromatic passages of Louis Vierne's Requiem Aeternam. Each measure is full of accidentals and I often have no idea what key the piece is in until the very end when it settles into G major. Neat piece, but I have to keep my wits about me and stay focused through out. I also worked on the postlude for this sunday, a prelude on Sine Nomine. It isn't as difficult as the Vierne, but it is fairly modern sounding at times.

On the piano, I practiced the choir anthem for this weekend, worked on fingering and speeding up a couple of measures of Chopin's Op. 10 no. 4, and the march in Beethoven's Op. 101. Feel pretty good about the current progress.