An Un-natural habit

So it has been a while since I wrote. This is turning out to be more like my journal than I expected. So practicing has been going pretty good lately. Lots of ups and downs as usual. I am in the middle of recording for my DM auditions and holy smokes. So far I have recorded the first two mvts. of Beethoven 109, and also the Chr. Fantasy and Fugue. Turns out I hate the fantasy. :( Yesterday I began rethinking my approach to it, and I think I will be much more successful if I re-record it. Turns out Dr. Shaw was right. Too different. Oh well. Today I will be recording the last mvt. of Bartok 2nd concerto. I'm sending it in for a competition in Idaho. We'll see if that goes anywhere. Not too concerned.
Now on to the good stuff. I have realized that my whole approach to learning music is completely off. The last several years of school, I realized that I am one of those people who misses notes. My teachers pointed it out, I could hear it, and I was never really happy with the accuracy of my playing. So somehow I got into the mindset that that was the most important first step to learning music. Well, its wrong. I have realized lately that you can work on the "notes" and silly details FOREVER, and never really understand the whole structure of the piece, where it is going, what it is communicating, and then, if you try to change your approach or your ideas, you have to start over on the whole notes process. BAD. As I was playing Bach for Dr. Shaw the other day, we had a discussion about this. She said to imagine a baroque building. Beautiful scrolls and detail work. Now imagine how that building was built. They did not start by carving the tiny artwork and filigree on stones, and then put them up somewhere. They had an absolute plan, and most of the building was already done before they tried to do the detail work. I have always started with the detail work. (Make sure to play every note and get a really good crescendo and Rit. ,) I never stopped to think what it had to sound like as a whole, or what purpose it served in the structure. I have been learning music this way for about 20 years now. like I said. Bad. But I really think that to revamp this part of myself will be to really make a breakthrough in my playing. I think it is the missing link to really understanding the music and making mature and wise musical decisions. So while it is kind of depressing and is going to take a TON of work to fix, I am pretty excited about it. I only wish I could have learned this 8 years ago. oh well. I'm learning it now. Off to practice.

A Natural Process

So it has been a good week at the piano. I had a really good moment in my practicing on Monday. I was trying really hard to memorize a part of the Bach Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and it seemed like no matter what i did I couldn't ever get it right. If you are familiar with the piece, the opening pages of the Fantasy is made up of a bunch of very fast passages, all very chromatic. (hence the name. :) anyways, Something that Dr. Shaw said in my lesson the week before came to my mind. She said, "my problem was that as soon as I heard it, i kind of knew it, and then my ear wouldn't let me play wrong notes." I realized my ear was taking a vacation. I decided that it might help if I sang in my head the note before I played it and relied a bit more on my ear. So I tried to sing the passage out loud from memory. As I tried this, I realized I couldn't hear exactly what the next note was in a few places and therefore couldn't even sing it. Whoops. I was relying totally on muscle memory to try to memorize and that is a hard way to do it. I learned a valuable lesson. Its funny. I'm pretty sure I should have learned this lesson years ago. And its not to say that some teachers never mentioned it, but if they did I obviously wasn't ready to hear it. Discovering small things like this for myself are what makes practicing exciting each day. Seriously, I couldn't wait to get to the piano the next day and try it again in another section and another piece. It doesn't work this slick every time I try it, but every little discovery helps. I have a great day today to practice, and I'm a bit curious what I will find out today. I'm sure you'll hear about it.

A sharp reminder

So lots of thoughts lately. I'm going to try not to use the word "feel" however in these thoughts, because Dr. Shaw said something the other day that makes sense, even if it sucks for me. I was telling her how I "felt" about the way things were going and one of my performances, and she said to me, "look, I'm going to share with you what one of my mentors shared with me. I told him how I felt and he looked at me and said, 'Karen, nobody cares how you feel, they care how you play. How did you play?' " hmmm. unfortunately that is so true. You can feel awful about a performance and people will rave about it, and you can feel amazing about a performance and no one will seem to notice it was good. the cold hard fact is, How did you actually play? so hard to judge. Moving on. So in Masterclass the other day, a super cute little sophomore girl played the Mendelssohn Concerto in Gm. Amazing. I've played the first mvt. before, but when she got to the 3rd mvt. I about hit the floor. it was inspiring. The fastest little fingers I have seen in I don't know how long. It was SO fast and so clean, its the kind of playing I've always dreamed of doing. The other thing I've been thinking about is one of my friends from high school. Her and her husband have a very successful photography business together. Its everything I think I want. Erin and Jeff spend everyday together, doing something they love doing, and at the end of the day, no one is there telling them that it isn't good enough, and that they should spend more time developing skills they should have had 10 years ago. I miss my husband. I see him usually only for the 2 hours before we go to bed everynight. So what I'm getting at is, is a Doctorate program worth it? Do I want to practice for the rest of my life only for people to constantly remind me that I'm not as I should be at my age? so many questions. I think I already know some of the answers, but writing it down seems to help sort things out. This one is getting long. But I don't think i used the word "feel". Success.

Prelude...

So I've been thinking about doing this for a while, so I think I'm finally going to give it a try. I'm not sure I'll do any better at this then, for example, writing in a journal, but its worth a shot. The purpose of this blog for me is to record the thoughts, events and accomplishments of my most elusive goal, Being a great pianist. So right now, at this point in my life, I am a second year Masters student in Piano Performance at Indiana University. This year is a pivotal year for me, as I will be auditioning for Doctoral programs, and also giving my masters recital. Normally this would be a very exciting thing, however, I had an Awful summer, as far as the piano is concerned and entered the school year So behind, that I'm still not sure I'm going to make it. Towards the end of the summer, I had what I could call an "awakening" however, and that gave me the push that I needed. That push I think came from attending the Duxbury Music Festival in July, and studying with Monique Duphil, and briefly, John Perry. It was 2 weeks of awful stress, but something about it put me back in the right frame of mind. I recently decided that I need to be recording these important musical moments so that they can come back and help me later. I have these small bits of inspiration now and then, and I often forget them too soon, and get bogged down in the everyday drudgery of 6 hours in a tiny practice room. I say drudgery of a practice room as if I don't love what I do, which couldn't be further away from the truth. I actually Adore my time in the practice room, it is just hard to see progress day to day, and after weeks of work and what feels like a barely an inch of progress, I call that drudgery. I will try to post almost daily for this beginning section, because I need some way to gage what I am accomplishing. I'm not a good writer, that talent in my family seems to have deposited itself in my older siblings, and dried up before it reached me, but I'll at least try to keep it interesting. Enjoy my world.