1,000 Days of Piano - Day 48: Progress

I practiced my way all the way to the eleventh piece of Book 2. I only have the Beethoven Sonatina to polish and the Bartok Children at Play to learn. With focus, diligence, and detachment, I can finish learning the book by the end of the month.
I was going to title this post Flawed, because my timer went off on the middle of my performance. I also experienced a moment of visible confusion at the end of the first section. However, I’m choosing to focus on the positive.

It is such a challenge to get a performance worth posting. It doesn’t have to be flawless, but the music needs to flow. I choose the most confident performance, rather than the one that most approaches perfection. It works best when I relax into the dance of making music. Capturing my most confident playing requires a magic combination of mental presence and release of extraneous thought. The only notes that matter are the ones under my fingers.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 47: Learning Not to Play by Ear

As I focus on learning much of the beginning Suzuki piano repertoire, I’m realizing how much of it I never learned as a child and how many pieces I always wanted to learn but never got assigned. Many of these pieces are classic piano student repertoire, whether the lessons are traditional or Suzuki.
I had an excellent teacher growing up, traditional of course. She was impressed by my ability to learn music by ear, so much so that she wouldn’t assign me pieces I’d heard in group lessons. She assigned me pieces I’d never heard so I’d be forced to read the music. It was a deft strategy, and as I got older and more advanced it became less of an issue.

I learned to read music, and I learned to play well. I can’t help thinking, however, that I would have learned much more naturally and organically if I’d had Suzuki piano lessons instead of traditional. This is not necessarily a productive train of thought. Few piano teachers were trained in and using the Suzuki philosophy when I was a child. I would have been among the first Suzuki piano students in my area had my parents found me such a teacher. It is also not part of my philosophy to look back on my life with regret. I am convinced that my journey as a musician and teacher is unfolding beautifully...even if I’m the one doing the convincing. That said, here is a piece I wish I’d learned as a child—or at least a piece I’m glad to be learning now.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 46: Risk

In the Suzuki Book 2 the Bach minuets (BWV 822) contain notes that they can be played as one piece in A B A form—G minor-G major-G minor. Since I’m focusing on Book 2, I thought I’d try it. It works, as I knew it would. It gave me the opportunity to spend more time in front of the camera. For me, that’s frightening.

I’ve always suffered from nerves when performing. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t major in music. I thought I didn’t want it badly enough to endure the anxiety. In my naïveté, I imagined I could achieve my version of success without making that kind of emotional sacrifice. I was wrong.
Anything worth doing requires you to put yourself out there and take an emotional risk. Responsibility, accountability, criticism and critique, fear of failure, fear of harm—these are the monsters we face when we undertake any worthy endeavor. Our ability to face these demons is at the heart of the adventure of life.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 45: Sweet and Simple

I appreciate the sweet simplicity of the folk tunes in Book 1. The first book of the Suzuki repertoire is for the beginning pianist. It is designed to increase keyboard skills gradually, but each piece is a milestone. Long, Long Ago gives the budding musician a chance to play both dominant and dominant seventh chords. The plain dominant chord rings with the beauty of stacked thirds while the added seventh gives a richer and spicier flavor to the harmonies. The melody also gives the beginning pianist a chance to try spanning a larger interval (a fifth) between the first and second fingers (thumb and forefinger). It is so gratifying to teach the Book 1 repertoire, even if my current methods are traditional rather than Suzuki. The students have such a sense of accomplishment when they get to the hands together pieces. They are confident and full of the joy of music. My work doesn’t get much better than that.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 44: Little Waltz

I like to think Little Waltz by Cornelius Gurlitt is about a daydream. A young girl at her first party is waltzing with a boy she’s known since childhood. She’s wearing her best dress, and the boy is looking unusually fine, but she views the whole affair in the harsh light of reality tinged with adolescent angst. In the first section of the piece (in B minor), she and her partner are awkward and nervous. She spills lemonade on her gown, and he steps on her toes. She gives herself up a a lovely daydream as the music modulates to F-sharp major. She is older, more confident, and her dress is covered with a filmy lace. Her partner is likewise transformed, and together they glide trough the dance with magically perfect steps...until, with the return of the first theme, she comes waltzing back to earth. They make it to the end of the dance, after which they exchange nervous smiles.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 43: Accepting Imperfection

I used to think that if I planned my endeavors every step of the way down to the last detail I would be successful. I would spend hours making plans. Then I would get overwhelmed by their enormity and the inevitable deviations and detours, and then bail. I know better now. I have discovered that all I need is positive energy and enthusiasm. Positive energy and enthusiasm generate inspiration and vision, which, in turn, creates ideas and plans that are flexible enough to survive obstacles and setbacks. Attitude is everything.

I used to think that I had to execute my plans perfectly in order to be successful. If I missed one day, my plans would disintegrate. I’m learning to accept a little imperfection once in a while. With enthusiasm and inspiration mixed with a generous helping of flexibility, faith, and self-compassion, I can do anything. I know it sounds pie in the sky, but all that really means is I need to get pumped up with my game face on before I do anything. A little self pep talk goes a long way.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 42: Faith

I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I don’t know how I’m going to lighten my load while honoring the commitments I’ve made to myself and others. I only know that it is possible, and that I’m wise enough to figure it out. The only thing I know how to do is take the next steps with complete faith that the path will be revealed to me under my feet. This must be what is called “stepping out in faith.” Now where are my shoes?

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 41: Just Play

My life may be full to overflowing, and I may be feeling overwhelmed and scattered, but I can just play. Rather than dwell on my angst and frustration, I can simply tell myself that when I figure this out, it’s going to be so good. I can be grateful for the warning and appreciate the lesson.

I really enjoy Little Playmates. It’s bursting with fun, and it has the added challenge of playing with the melodies and the harmonies switching from hand to hand. I was feeling playful, so I chose this piece to perform today.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 40: Merry-Go-Round

Carl Czerny’s Allegretto 1 reminds me of a merry-go-round. I can smell the popcorn and funnel cakes, hear the tune played by a carousel organ, and see the painted horses going up and down in an endless race to nowhere. The important details of my life are slipping through my fingers as I clutch the pole anchoring my steed. Or worse, I am trapped on the inside of the machine, churning out the garish, giddy tunes that won’t stop as the wheel spins on its axis. I’ve lost my balance, my perspective, and my pipeline of inspiration has run dry.
On the other hand, my car has been serviced, my daughter has been caffeinated far beyond my better judgment, and I have just plowed dizzily through the first eight pieces of the Suzuki Book 2. My balance is as uncertain as if I’d just stepped off the a merry-go-round, but of course, I haven’t. The only reason I didn’t record myself is that I’m not sure how to link a post from YouTube to this blog, and I’m not willing to spend any time today figuring it out. I know I will sort it all out one day soon—the busyness, the technological ignorance, the general ineptitude I’m displaying with this project. But I fear that day is not today.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 39: Unsustainable

I would be embarrassed that I’m meeting myself coming and going and getting appointments mixed up, if I didn’t think it was a sign that I’m trying to do too much. But I do. While I feel a little shamefaced over my mistakes and truly apologetic for any inconveniences I’ve caused, I’m mostly just grateful for the lesson. The question is: How do I lighten my load without compromising core commitments I’ve made to myself and others? I don’t know. I only know that an answer exists, and I am confident that I will find it.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 38: Sustainable

Is chasing a challenge goal sustainable? I keep asking variations on the same theme because I keep wondering if I’m driving myself into the ground over this. The answer is emphatically no. Whenever I try, something sane and rational that looks an awful lot like laziness kicks in, and I don’t let myself overdo. The real jewel in all of this is a sense of perspective. Once I let go of unrealistic expectations,  I find that I can do more than I thought I could. Then I realize that sometimes a little bit is enough.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 37: Sight Reading

I have the unfortunate tendency to take my work too seriously. Once I start a project or a task, I want to go at it with an obsessive vengeance. I usually don’t, but I want to. I attempt to gobble up so many pieces using a new technique and end up frustrating myself into taking a more balanced approach. Now I am simply taking a break from it and sight reading. Well, okay, I’m not exactly sight reading, but I am not nearly as familiar with the second movement of this Clementi sonatina as the first. I never learned it as a child, and I don’t teach it often. Playing it glasses off and nose on the score sort of feels like sight reading. It’s a chance for me to add that to the long list of skills I’m improving.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 36: Guilty

I just did a Google search for, “Why am I so hard on myself?” and every article I read was like looking in a mirror. I wanted to ask, “Why can’t I get myself together?” but Google doesn’t have an answer for that. I won’t last 1,000 days if I’m carrying around a barrel of guilt on my back. The perfectionism, self-criticism, procrastination on critical self-care won’t pave the path to success, either. Add to that, an unwillingness to accept compliments to a complete willingness to accept blame for anything that goes wrong, and I have a brick wall of negativity blocking my path.

The first thing I want to do is be hard on myself for being hard in myself. That’s a downward spiral too wide and deep to be considered. Why do I do this to myself? I’m guessing that I do it to push myself forward. If I’m hard on myself, maybe I’ll try harder to do better. Maybe a swift kick in the pants is what I need to get myself going. Like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football Lucy hold for him, I keep thinking, “This time will be different,” but it never is. 

The best I can to right now is try a little self-compassion and see if that works. 

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 35: Practical

I may have the soul of an artist—a creator, a musician, and a writer—but at some point I have to be practical. Someone has to do the dishes and the laundry and sweep the floors. Oh, I can laugh and say that what the children are for, but we all know how it is. If you want something done right, do it yourself. It’s a terrible leadership philosophy, but there’s a grain of truth in there somewhere, however microscopic. It’s the classic artists dilemma. You went to devote yourself to your craft, but, alas, you have to eat.

Brilliant are the dreamers who can spin their inspiration into gold. Some channel their creativity into that which is useful and comfortable—home baked bread, hand knitted sweaters, herb gardens, and risotto. The rest of us burn the toast while composing poetry...or in my case, bad poetry. Balance is the only answer I’ve ever found to this conundrum. And balance is as elusive to the artist as the glow of twilight before it fades into darkness or bursts into sunrise.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 34: Model T

This Bach Gigue is beautiful and brilliant and is to be played as though you’re driving a Corvette. Right now, I’m playing it like a Model T...or maybe a horse drawn carriage. If you’re wondering, a gigue is a lively dance—a jig with a French accent. This is, as I tell my students, more like a dance lesson than an actual dance. That is the kindest thing I can say about this performance. At least it didn’t fall apart.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 33: The Wild Rider, Conclusion

Dark clouds rush to smother a garish orange sunset. Lightning briefly illuminates the woman on the back of a dark gray stallion racing across the moor, her dark hair and cloak streaming behind her. She casts a furtive glance over her shoulder and urges her mount to greater speed.

As the woman on horseback races across the fields, another rider comes into view. Faster and faster the horses speed across the stormy landscape. For a moment the pursuer appears to gain ground. Then his quarry pulls away. The woman gallops into the woods at full speed, but after a moment she slows as a small cottage comes into view. Coming to a stop so abruptly that she nearly flies over the stallion’s head, she leaps from his back and bursts into

the cottage in a rapid succession of minor chords.

Now that the piece shifts into a major key, the second rider burst through the door of the cottage carrying a black satchel. The woman has lifted a crying baby from the arms of a girl. She carries the small child to the second rider, who, after a

moments observation, removes a stethoscope from the satchel. Together, the mother and the doctor tend to the baby with compresses and medicines. Then the mother, still wearing her riding cloak, lifts the baby to her shoulder and paces the room.

The baby gradually stops crying, but the doctor cannot stay. He throws his medicines and stethoscope back into his black bag and runs from the cottage, leaping onto his horse. The minor chords return, as he rides into the night to save another patient.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 32: Cultivating Inspiration

It takes mental fortitude to cultivate inspiration on a daily basis. It easy to be excited about a goal in the beginning, when the idea is shiny and new. Once the daily habit is established, inspiration sometimes goes on vacation, leaving the door unlocked so doubt can creep in. I get bored. The easy pieces feel ricky-ticky. The more advanced pieces are so daunting, especially the ones I’ve never played. Some days my fingers get tangled on the keys, the sour notes multiply, and the music breaks down. The writing feels uninspired. The prose does not entertain. And I can’t help but wonder, “Why bother?”

Any challenge goal brings on these doubts. That why I cultivate inspiration when my feelings are running high. Sometimes I choose an easier piece to include here to keep my spirits up and remind myself that I can play. I like the Czerny Study Op. 139, No. 19 for this reason. It’s not part of the Suzuki piano repertoire. It’s sufficiently challenge to keep my confidence up, and it’s familiar enough to feel easy to play. It’s my favorite warm up because of the sixteenth note runs in each hand. My family is so tired of hearing it that they make fun of it with over dramatic imitations. Still, it has stood the test of time for me, and almost always cheers me up when my inspiration is waning.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 31: Changing Habits

Whoever said, “Old habits die hard,” wasn’t kidding. STOP-PREPARE is tricky business after decades of learning to play the pieces the traditional way. The temptation to take it at least a quarter tempo measure by measure beckons, a slow siren song luring me away from a new practice. Call it irony—my impatience to learn quickly is pulling me to slow down. How tedious would it be to learn the Gigue note by note? The recording goes so fast..how will I ever keep up?

In the end I will do it my own way, using every tool in my tool box, including STOP-PREPARE. I’m supposed to be opening myself up to something new, not rigidly following a practice for which I have no training. The more I know, the more I realize how very little I know and how much I have to learn. I might as well admit to how very little I know and just learn the music as best I can. Wisdom brings patience, and patience brings acceptance. For now I must be content with where I am on the journey.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 30: Sub Goals

Today is Day 30, and it’s time to celebrate! I am amazed by how much I’ve learned. Of course, I have 970 days left, which means I have a lot of ability yet to acquire. Therefore I’m celebrating by setting a sub goal. I have chosen seven focus pieces for the next month, one from each book. I also have a review schedule that allows me to review the pieces I already know over the course of a week. My goal is to work on my focus pieces and see how much progress I make, while keeping my review pieces reasonably polished. With this focused approach, I plan to complete Book 2 by mid-October. So far, I’ve made it all the way through the first five pieces of the second book. They still need practice, but I’m looking forward to adding the Minuet in G (anonymous) to my list of daily review pieces.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 29: Focus

I’ve been a little scattered in my practice lately, straying from my original plan. It isn’t a bad thing. I’ve learned a lot and increased my repertoire tremendously. Still, there is an advantage to revisiting my original plan, testing it against my experience, evaluating it, and improving it.

I used to be fond of making elaborate, detailed plans and sticking to them to the letter, feeling a virtue in my precision. I’ve since learned that just because I set a goal and chart a path to its achievement, it doesn’t mean that I must follow it religiously. I’m free to make small and large changes as I go along, and I don’t even need to see where the path leads. As long as my focus and intention on the end goal are clear, any path I take will lead me home.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 28: Determined

I am attacking that Bach Invention as though I am determined to hunt it down and kill it, hesitation and all. Bach is like intricate knitting—one slipped stitch and the whole thing unravels. I am resurrecting it from the days I played it when I was my daughter’s age. It seemed easier then, but when I was sixteen, I didn’t have a sixteen-year-old daughter asking between seven failed takes, “Mom, can I have the phone?” With a sigh of disgust, she finally rose from her seat and stalked out in the middle of my penultimate attempt. As I was uploading the video for the second time (the first one having failed), she reappeared and asked again. She is determined.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 27: The Wild Rider, continued

Continuing my story of the Wild Rider, she has ridden across the high plain, pursued by a second rider. She has dashed into the woods, leapt from her horse, and rushed into a cottage in a rapid succession of minor chords. Now that the piece shifts into a major key, the second rider burst through the door of the cottage carrying a black satchel. The woman has lifted a crying baby from the arms of a girl. She carries the small child to the second rider, who, after a moments observation, removes a stethoscope from the satchel. The doctor has arrived in time, but can he save the baby?

Can I learn the next six measures by the end of the week? Oh, the suspense!

1,000 Days of Music - Day 26: Tired

Today I am tired. I know I left some poor woman riding through the woods to seek sanctuary in a cottage, and I’m still working through measures nine and ten of The Wild Rider. She’ll have to wait. It’s late, and I’m trying to get through my evening without burning supper. Some days it’s like this. You get the first take of the Beethoven, warts and all. Sometimes giving your best is a noble act, and sometimes just showing up is all that matters. Today, I’m just showing up. Tomorrow is another day.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 25: Who Are You?

As the woman on horseback races across the fields, another rider comes into view. Faster and faster the horses speed across the stormy landscape. For a moment the pursuer appears to gain ground. Then his quarry pulls away. The woman guides her horse into the woods at full speed, but after a moment she slows as a small cottage comes into view. Coming to a stop so abruptly that she nearly flies over the stallion’s head, she leaps from his back and bursts into the cottage.
I’ve always thought of Burgmuller’s Arabesque as a damsel-in-distress-tied-to-the-railroad-tracks kind of piece. But since the rest of the Wild Rider is slow in coming, I filled in the story music with the Arabesque.
My shift into music that tells stories leads me to an important question. Who is the audience for this blog? Who are you, who would be interested in reading this? My first answer is my students (and potential students) and their parents. My journey as a fellow student learning this repertoire informs my teaching. I share freely what I learn, whether it’s a practice technique or an emotional insight into recovering from mistakes. I do that in lessons, and I do that here.

When I ask a student, “What’s happening in this piece?” I often receive a blank stare as a reply. The answer may be, “I’m trying to play the notes without making any mistakes,” but student rarely wants to admit that. I will usually offer some suggestions. The kids are outside playing tag or hide and seek when a storm blows up. Or maybe it’s an 18th century dance party. Here in this small corner of cyberspace, I get to expand on those ideas without taking valuable instruction time.
Yet, this blog isn’t just for students and parents. It’s for anyone interested in making music, in the creative process, and in what it’s like to aim for a challenge goal. Mostly, however, this blog is for me. It keeps me honest, and if I can entertain and inspire anyone along the way, so much the better.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 24: Seismic Shift

Dark clouds rush to smother a garish orange sunset. Lightning briefly illuminates the woman on the back of a dark gray stallion racing across the moor, her dark hair and cloak streaming behind her. She casts a furtive glance over her shoulder and urges her mount to greater speed. Who is pursuing her? Where will she find refuge?

Some pieces clearly tell a story and are such fun to play because of it. Schumann’s The Wild Rider is one of them. I never played this piece as a child, but I heard it often in group lessons. I always thought of the rider to be a ruffian, a brigand, a villain. Under his cloak he hides a bag of gold, having left its owner lying slashed and bleeding in the woods. Such was the imagination of the shy schoolgirl I once was. Today, I’m playing with the story for my own amusement, turning the wild rider into a woman. I always knew the piece as The Wild Horseman, so I can be forgiven for thinking him to be a man. The Suzuki Book 3 translates the title from German as “rider,” so I am at liberty to imagine her as I please.
Does she look to the heavens and laugh as the storm opens upon her, rain streaming into her face? Or does she bow her head in determination to escape her cruel fate in such dangerous weather? As I haven’t mastered the next several measures, I will leave my readers with a cliffhanger.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 23: Pretentious

We are none of us completely authentic in our dealings with others. We all wear our social masks to some extent, even when we are hanging out wearing sweats and eating ice cream out of the tub, and anyone who pretends otherwise is doing just that—pretending.
Still, it is my intention in this blog to shun pretension and to be honest about myself and my abilities. If I am to keep this up for a thousand days, I will be recording many of these short performances wearing t-shirts and jeans (as often as I can get away with it). I will post my best take of the day, however flawed, even if my teenager is playing Smash Mouth in the background. I am not pretending to be anything other than a piano teacher who is also a student. I learn from my students, I learn from other teachers, and I learn from my own practice. As long as I’m learning and growing, I am truly living. What better way to live than with music!

1,000 Days of Music - Day 22: Romanian Waistband Dance

I played the Romanian Waistband Dance when I was demonstrating the power of slow playing. Now I’m performing it again to show the power of STOP-PREPARE. It’s a different discipline, a different practice. I taught myself to play the music at tempo, chord by chord, from front to back, and then from back to front. I can now add it to my list of pieces for daily review (it’s short) and eventually weekly review.

I don’t intend to abandon slow practice in favor of STOP-PREPARE. I am acquiring a new learning (and eventually teaching) technique. The thrill of learning is so delicious that it almost makes my previous lack of knowledge worth it.

Consider this performance to be my contribution to celebrating cultural diversity this Independence Day.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 21: Time

Time is a recurring issue when reaching for a challenge goal. I’m always worried that I won’t have enough time to “get it all done.” I’ve been through periods when I’ve obsessed about time management. I know all about 80/20, focusing on the 20 percent of the effort that generates 80 percent of the results. I’ve read about the 20-mile march, having the discipline to keep a sustainable pace. Yet I never seem to have time to accomplish everything I want to do.
Unlike money, time is a finite commodity. We all have the same twenty-four hours in every day. We may not all have cooks and maids to do some of our work for us, but we all have the same amount of time. If the amount of time we have is finite, then the feeling of not having enough must be all about perception and unrealistic expectations. I once read that time management is not about managing time but managing tasks. Maybe it’s really all about managing expectations.
For me, it’s about capturing the essence of what I want to accomplish and letting go of some fixed idea of specific results. Maybe the true challenge lies not in how much we get done each day, but how much we leave undone.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 20: Diversity

There are as many methods of teaching piano as there are teachers, but the difference between traditional methods and the Suzuki philosophy is strong enough to create two distinct groups. Today I decided to experiment with the slow practice with which I’m familiar and the STOP-PREPARE technique. The difference is much more pronounced inside my head. Playing music from a score is a completely different mental discipline from playing from memory. When I play from memory,  I look at the keys and see chord shapes. It feels much more organic to me. 

If you watch the video closely, you can see my eyes flicking between the music on the page and my fingers on the keys as I make my way slowly through the score. I get all the way through the first sixteen measures. Using STOP-PREPARE, I’m playing from memory, almost at tempo, and with more confidence...but only through seven measures. 

Which method is better? It’s not for me to say. It depends on the sensibilities on the teacher, student, and parent. With thirty years of teaching traditional piano behind me, I’m staking much of my energy and time on the Suzuki philosophy. Without even starting my teacher training, I am a better teacher and a better musician. So far, it’s been an amazing journey.

1,000 Days of Music - Day 19: STOP-PREPARE (1)

STOP-PREPARE is a learning technique that seems to be at the heart of the Suzuki teaching philosophy. In this technique, the student physically stops after playing the notes already learned and mentally prepares to play the new notes. This bridges the gap between what the student has mastered and what she is learning. It is not unlike the way I teach and learn, often crossing the bar line to prepare for learning the next measure. It is very different in that STOP-PREPARE appears to be executed at tempo.

Learning a piece at tempo is completely alien to me. After more thirty years of teaching one way, I am about to learn another. I decided to experiment on myself and learn the anonymously composed Minuet in G from J.S. Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach using STOP-PREPARE. I started with the first sixteen measures. It felt like learning how to ice skate for the first time—wobbly and uncertain. Yet, it felt oddly familiar. Not being a strong sight-reader in my youth, I used to apply my reading ability to memorizing new music right away, one measure at a time. I’ve spent my adulthood practicing reading to the point of needing to have the music in front of me whether I’d memorized a piece or not. Now I’m coming full-circle with STOP-PREPARE. Oh, I’ll continue to practice my reading. But I’ll undoubtedly find a way to use STOP-PREPARE as a metaphor for life.