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I wash my hands thoroughly with very warm water, which helps my hands loosen up a bit. I always have a glass of water beside the piano. I have a clock on the piano, but I use it to time how long it takes me to play a piece I'm working up -- e.g. when first starting the nocturne I just finished, it took about 15 minutes to play it. When completed and polished it took 3 1/2 minutes. So, I know I'm making progress when I'm beating the previous time recorded.

I have a bad habit -- if my brain starts to overload from too much information and not enough coordination, I get up and pace furiously for about two minutes while allowing my brain to process all it has to do. Then I go back and reinforce it. All told, I probably pace a good ten minutes during an hour's practice.

I like to work focused on just one piece per practice. If the practice was lousy, I repeat it the next day before moving on to another work.

Sometimes when my brain is completely shutting down, I just play stuff I've committed to memory so I can hear something in a finished and polished state.

Plays,

Your practice sounds *exacly* like mine, down to and including that pacing. I do a lot of that. Course, I'm smoking a half a cigarette while I'm doing it. :p :t:

I think I had a brain malfunction night before last. Yesterday I planned to just enjoy playing all my polished stuff to evaluate the freshly-tuned piano. And I forgot--as in totally blanked--things I've played without the sheets a thousand times and which I can play confidently and expressively even while thinking about other things. That has never happened to me before. I swear I blanked on every single thing without exception, a few measures in. I tried to find what was next and wasn't even close. So today I had to run through all my standard repertoire, with the sheets a couple of times and then a couple of times without, and then had to drill repeatedly on those section where I was drawing blanks yesterday. Those points were the same every time, like a scratch in an LP.

I *hate* getting old.

I keep telling you we must be related. And I'd be smoking while pacing too, except I quit six years ago. :p

I've also experienced the blankouts as you described. I believe you are the age I was when it started happening. I blame it on dwindling hormones, so what's your excuse? And by the way, don't worry about it. The blank spots will come back, and even if they don't you can patch it with the score. Muscle memory is very fragile, unfortunately.

Interesting. Did you have a teacher help you come up with routine, or did you research it on your own?

Doug

I am still in method books - I have a little book that my teacher writes in every week on the new pieces and things that I am supposed to work on. I have a stop watch and trigger the clock when I start to play and turn it off when i get up to do something. I will run through the pieces in the book that I am supposed to know (sometimes they are great, and sometimes....not so great); then I go to work on the new stuff. the stop watch was my husband's idea, when i told him i wanted to practice 10 hours a week. I work on a piece for aboout 10 minutes, then give my brain something new by playing something memorized, and a couple scales, then move into the next piece.

Cathy commented that she intends to do a warmup exercise but often forgets. That reminded me of the only practice habit that I think has been the same since the very first time I started playing.

At the end of each practice session, I always put my music sheets and books in a pile, and in order. Exercises on top, pieces in-progress in the middle and "finished" pieces on the bottom. (ok, well, when I first started, there weren't any finished pieces) That way, the next time I sit down to play, the first thing I touch are the exercise books. This way I always remind myself to start practice with the warmups.