Wow, what a day! I definitely started the morning by getting up on the wrong side of the bed - I couldn’t sleep last night (I think the coffee I drank at noon kept me up ‘til 1:30am!) and then I was feeling fat and bloated because of what I’ve been eating lately (overall, too much salty food).

But wow, what a difference a day made. I still feel crummy physically, but pianistically, I feel terrific.

Warm-Up: Key of B Maj

I did my normal routine (finger taps, note slurs, scales, major/minor blocked and broken chords, scales in thirds, arpeggios, and Hanon), but I also added contrapuntal scales and 7th chord blocked inversions, as well as some octave exercises. At this point, I wasn’t feeling all that great overall, but I felt my playing was very supple with lots of dimensions - I felt a heightened sensitivity and could play much more delicately than even yesterday.

Fast forward a few hours (after lunch, a nap, and some other goofing off), and I have not done a single musical thing I intended to do (42nd Street, 17 Again, VCO 10th Anniversary Concert rep), but have done something much more important: I found a piano coach who seems to integrate well all the concepts I’ve been working for years to wrap my head around.

This pianist’s name is Aleksander Woronicki (http://aw4piano.info/en/info1), and I stumbled across one of his YouTube videos while searching for “thumb over vs. thumb under” scales technique. If his videos had been available 9 or 10 years ago, I would have been thrilled - it is exactly the resource I’ve been looking for. He explains things clearly and consistently and in just the past hour, I feel like I’ve made tremendous strides with minor fixes (which, at this point, is what I need - the small, subtle shifts in approach that will unleash new horizons).

For example, one of the simple but previously unarticulated concepts (to me) that he points out in fast octave work and jumps: keep the sagittal movement of the thumbs (towards and away from the body) minimal - as you move horizontally across the keyboard, make sure the thumbs stay fairly consistent in how far away they are from the fallboard.

Simple idea, and verrrrrry obvious once it’s been pointed out, but I had never once in 25+ years of playing thought to pay conscious attention to that. With that one simple tweak, I was markedly more consistent in my ability to execute large jumps of chords and octaves.

That’s just one example of the simple but insightful help that I’ve garnered from Friend Aleksander. I’m hoping to uncover a lot more pianistically over the next few months. I may even actually make myself into something of a pianist one day.

So for now, I’m using my blog as a practice log. I’m doing this because:

1. It’ll force me to keep track of how I practice, and…

2. Since I practice every day, it’ll help me build the habit of blogging!

So today, here’s what I’ve done so far:

Warm Up: Key of Gb

• Finger Taps and Note Slurs

• Scales @ 104bpm

• Block Chord Inversions @ 92

• Broken Chord Inversions @ 84

• Double Thirds @ 84

• Arpeggios @ 84

• Hanon 1 and 8 @ 104

Feeling pretty good about the progress I’ve made in the last day or two. I’m noticing that I’m more articulate in my scales, and I have an easier time getting into the minor scales. Also, I noticed that I’m having to learn a new coordination for my left hand - I think it wasn’t level before when I was practicing, which limited my speed and accuracy. I notice it especially on the broken chord inversions, which is why I had to take the met down. Curious to see how things develop from here.

Repertoire:

Worked through a lot of 42nd Street today. I have about 2 1/2 weeks before I’m going to be knee deep in it for rehearsals. I made it from numbers 5-7 (Go Into Your Dance through the end of Dames) with the metronome. I’m much slower than I’d like to be, but the metronome is rapidly increasing the quality of my playing. I actually think that, once again, I’m learning that 1) Haste makes waste, and 2) Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.