DING tick tock tick DING tick tock tick DING tick tock tick

I played piano.

I thought of a couple different ways to start this blog but it was taking too long and the point of the matter is: I played piano.

I haven't in a while. A long while; in the last couple months the only songs I've played have been for accompaniment purposes, which usually involved me frantically trying to sightread Wicked and then giving up and just reading the chord symbols and playing the bass.

But tonight, I attempted to play from my classical repertoire. Real music. Bach and Mozart music (no seriously, their two pieces added up to thirteen pages of music I once had memorized).

First off, I suck. My prelude wasn't bad 'cause it was drilled into me, my fingers remember what my head's forgotten. Same for the fugue and Sonata. The waltz was messy, just ugly, fingers slipping, pedal mushing messy.

Le vent dans les ruines was funny and bad. Funny 'cause I remembered parts of the fast bits really well, like with the prelude, and bad 'cause the parts I didn't instinctively play were an awful slurry of octaves. The two studies were even worse.

In the month leading up to my exam last year, I lived these pieces. I struggled to stay afloat in the face of their hardcore classicalness, and I kinda got overwhelmed. Everything revolved around focus.

Focus. Capital F.

Not the cool, magicy hocus pocus focus but concentrate, practice, do it again. And again and again and again.

The Monday after my exam, I plopped down on the corner of my piano bench and considered playing. For the first time in months, I played without a metronome, without the pressure and the possibility of failure looming over me.

And I couldn't play.

I tried. My notes were okay but without the focus I'd stuffed myself with, the pieces couldn't--wouldn't--be played. I remember attempting the waltz and wondering where the dynamics went 'cause they sure weren't in my memory.

This evening, I was able to play the pieces--with the music directly in front of me and my eyes never leaving the page--but it was kinda hard. I remember being good at these pieces. I remember getting it right. That didn't happen tonight.

My 20th century piece was pretty awesome though. Apparently I can still play dissonance ;)

After I ran out of classical material, I played some much, much simpler sheet music and relaxed. Amidst my stacks of books, I found the music to Joe Iconis' "Blue Hair", a song I sang for an audition two years ago. It was a great audition, it's a cute--and funny--song, and even after all this time, I still like singing it. I think I'm going to learn the accompaniment better and audition with it for the talent show in January. Wow is that a relief.

Usually I struggle up to the last minute trying to pick a song--two years ago we decided to sing "Anything You Can Do" and learned the song and choreography in two days, just in time for the audition. Last year, I chose and learned "If I Were a Bell" and then switched to "See, I'm Smiling"--and then everything's rushed. This year, I have time to procrastinate!

So anyway, the heart of the matter is

I played piano.

Diminished Seventh?

Oh, and my piano exam? Got my results. I need to take a supplement for (get this): ear. The two minute exam on listening. Passed everything else, failed my ear by three marks, so that's all I need to continue with ARCT.

:)

Le Vent Dans Les Ruines is Kicking My Pasty White Ass.

I haven't been practicing enough.

For nearly a year and half I've been learning these songs, these same pieces, and that may sound crazy dull and you may be thinking a year and a half and you still can't play them? but it's not like that.

There are five pieces for my repertoire and two studies, plus ear and technique.

My first piece is a Prelude and Fugue, meaning that although it's considered one, there are two different pieces to learn. My second is a Mozart sonata which contains no less than three movements.

So five pieces becomes eight, plus two more, plus ear and technique.

I know all the repertoire well. I could perform all but one confidently right now. But you can't just perform at an RCM exam, you also have to impress. That's the tough one.

Last year, I did the exact same I've been doing this year and I should have failed. They passed me by quite a bit--I figure they could guess how well I knew the pieces even if I didn't do the best at playing them there--but I don't think I deserved it. So that's why, with my exam six weeks away, I'm sorta beginning to panic.

My last piece, the one I'm definitely not comfortable performing, is five pages of sixteenth notes, played rapidly, by Ibert.

I did the (very loose, approximate) math: it's about eight notes a second. Ibert was a cruel, cruel man.

I was late to start learning it and then procrastinated. I had all sorts of excuses. When I was supposed to be working on it the most, I was on stage every night doing Pirates of Penzance so my practice time went from borderline sufficient to nil.

Now I'm really panicking. It's a difficult piece, there's no time to think as it's ridiculously fast and I'm supposed to have three and a half pages memorized by tomorrow. I'm just shy of three right now and they're the easiest three.

And, to be honest, I should have had it all memorized several weeks ago.

Usually, I practice an hour a day during the summer. In past years, it's always been enjoyable practice because all I would be doing is learning the basics of lots of songs so that I could figure out which ones I like enough to focus on in September. That didn't happen last year, it definitely won't happen this year.

I'm going to practice at least an hour a day from now on. Really it should be two. I'm saying one for now just to make sure I do it.

Tomorrow, I begin house sitting for my old theory teacher, who's probably the gentlest, kindest most compassionate person I know, while they're away (she's doing a concert with her sister, the professional violinist, in Michigan. How cool is that!). That means that for as long as I want every day for the next ten days, I have access to her beautiful, black baby grand.

Oo!

It really is beautiful, and massive which makes it all the better.

So that's it. I wrote this because once it's in print, it'll make things more real and my practicing has to be very, very real.

An hour a day.

Easy.

Right?