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I'd put it off, myself, and enjoy the birthday cake!

You might prefer to reward yourself later.

Have a great day!

Thanks Richard! You're very kind

Exactly! Writing goals down has been shown to contribute to achievement success but mostly because it helps to express in words what the goal is and because it gives something to aim for and helps us to focus.

It's not about reaching goals, it's about providing ourselves with direction, not from where we were when we set them but from where we are now to where we want to go.

Thanks for the links! This invention #6 has been much difficult to memorize than the #4. Mordents, inverted mordents, which?? ackk!

Happy Birthday Carlos! Have a great day, and I hope your "Life" goes well!

AimeeO> nice to read about your progress. As for your comment on my previous post...



No because I want that confidence where I can record anything without being nervous! In all seriousness, when things are sounding rough, I'm beginning to realize that while I know it(or think I know it), I'm not comfortable with it. That has been rather eye opening for me. [/quote]

Exactly! That is what is happening to me to -- it is a concrete reality check!

Sinophilia -- I think being harder to please is a sign of development-- You know you can do more now and you want to see it happening!

SwissMS - I enjoyed reading the details of your progress. I think the slow down and small focus is working for me too. I haven't done a lot of listening with the score for my pieces - some, but not a lot. I may increase that when I need a break from playing!

Saranoya, glad to hear you are enjoying your time on the moon. From an extremely ambitious initial plan you do seem to have made some significant steps forward. Perhaps not all that were on the list , but as you said, that's what lights the fire and gets you rolling.

Bobpickle: thanks for the links!!


CarlosCC: Happy Birthday!!!!!! Have a great day!
[video:youtube]bt7V9DaT1cM[/video]

Thanks SwissMS!!!
And Cheryl, I loved your gift! Obrigado!

É um prazer. Feliz aniversário.

Oh, happy birthday Carlos!!

To sum it up... I half succeeded and half failed with my goals for the week. I have the Bach at 80/90 bpm but the Clementi only comes right at 60. The Stravinsky... well, I've just played through the first half a few times. It's longish and fast so I'll spend another week on it.

So for the next week my goal will be to do what I didn't do this week, plus I want to make the video for my Grieg recital piece.

Why do we have goals? To focus our efforts. If we used the goals to focus our efforts then we may reach them or we may not. We can't fail on them if we use them.

And even if we don't use them to motivate ourselves or provide focus we still have made them and they're in our subconscious. Just making them and writing them down is, in fact, successfully using them.

The goal is not what matters, it's just a road sign on our journey that helps us make decisions when the road forks. The progress is what we're after. None of us knows where we're going to end up, only what route we want to follow.

So, let's not have any more talk of failure on this thread!

Congratulations, Diana, for focusing on your goals this week!

Yep, I've heard that, too.

Richard, good post!

Well, I will have to say that when I decide to do *only* focused practice it's much harder to get in 2 hours in a day Altho I knew that before, and being aware of when I'm focused and when I'm not is a huge help in actually being focused.

I do remind myself, as someone, or perhaps many someones, have said here in the ABF, when I start to practice, to know what it is I'm going to do before I actually put my hands on the keys or start to play. That alone helps with the focus - the clearing away of extraneous thoughts and focusing on the music. I try to hear what I'm going to play before I start, and recall the chord progression or patterns.

One of the most common extraneous thoughts is "how many times have I played it, and what number is this repeat?" I find myself counting many things in my head as I do them, not just at the piano, so when I'm doing fairly continuous repeats, which I do when I'm working on something besides just getting the notes right, the counting will sometimes interrupt the awareness/focus of the music. So then I know that I'm not quite settled/centered psychologically, and I need to either take a break, or pause for a moment and re-center.

So this week there were a couple of days when deep focus was less a possibility than it sometimes is. But I think, for me, that there are still things I can do that are helpful, even if I can't focus deeply on a particular problem. Playing pieces I know well, or even almost well, and just letting them express themselves, in many ways, is a great way to center and enjoy the music - to focus, in other words. The possibilities of the music are really endless.

At any rate, the new piece is ready to be trotted out at the gig Tuesday afternoon, and I'll be playing with it over the next couple of days. But I think being aware of where my focus is, and the details like knowing what I'm going to do, and just more often being focused as I practice small details, has helped a lot. I am more aware, more often, of what I'm playing, its familiarity, like it's just part of everyday life and I can just let it play itself.

It's a journey -

Cathy

Well, I had to use these daily goals over two days due to unforeseen circumstances, but that is ok. I recorded Angel, and might decide that it is "good enough" to submit to the recital for next week, even though it still needs some work. This is because I have to move on to the other recital pieces for the Grieg recital.

I'm just concerned about the volume of Angel because my digital piano records so low. I amplified it using audacity already. Is there anyone who would be willing to give it a listen by PM through a boxnet link to let me know if the volume is ok or if I need to amplify it more? Or, I suppose I could just post the link here and let anyone who wants to listen to it.

As for today's practice goals, I'll come back and post those right before I practice.

Valencia, I can help.
Just PM me.

Cathy - very interesting to read about how you centre and try to get into the music, and how you fight distractions.
I have a vague feeling that I'm starting to concentrate better when I am playing but it is not a certainty!

Richard - I liked your comments on goals and how they help even if we don't quite meet them.

Valencia - I know Carlos said he could listen - but if you need ears for the next pieces I'm available too.

I worked on Fly Me to the Moon today and felt things were coming together better.
As was my Intermezzo in the Grieg piece - small but clear progress.

I also went on a 42km bike ride Longest ride yet this year.

A 42km bike ride??? Wow, that's great, Cheryl.

I did my record for ABF Recital. I'm #42. So my objective is done, BUT I did not lose focus on the next ABF Recital.

And yes, I was helping Valencia. The sound of the piece was just fine.

Yes CarlosCC helped me out yesterday, but thank you casinitaly for offer to help!

How is everyone doing with the focused practice?

Yesterday I submitted The Angel to the ABF quarterly recital. Now I must focus on the Grieg pieces.

1.Sailors’ Song: I think I’ll start using the metronome on this—starting with bars 26 to 32, then 33-36. So the goal is to find a tempo that I can play those through.

2.Peace of the Woods needs lots of work. I really wanted to play it well for the recital but perhaps I’ll only be able to play it at 60%. I’ve worked hard on this piece but it’s difficult. I did a practice recording of Peace of the Woods, last week, and if absolutely necessary I could submit it to the recital, but I’d like to see if I could do better. Here are some problems:

a)Need to bring out the melody and lighten up the bass.

b)Too much blurring with the pedal.

c)Bar 7, and bars 12-23, and 26-- I often hesitate before playing notes or hit wrong notes.

d)Bars 28-30—the build up to the pinnacle--this is like a tongue twister and I often get turned around with the coordination.

e)Bar 31—this is the pinnacle of the piece: there are 2 things: hitting the notes quickly enough AND hitting the right notes.

f)Bars 32-34-accuracy is sometimes an issue

That is just the first two pages. But the second half of the piece should be less problematic than the first. (I think)...

So my focused practice is to focus on all those issues and try to improve them...

My update for the week...

Grieg Trolltog, 54/3.
I started joining the hands on Tuesday. (Praying won't save you. Ed.) This was a little tricky in M22-29. The RH wanted to synchronise on the downbeat instead of the upbeat but the trolls are skipping here, not marching. This needed thinking time between each quaver for a couple of days but it's coming together now (that's one or two seconds between quavers for a couple of practise sessions not a couple of days between quavers). I did bar by bar then two bars at a time and that seemed to work.

HS has flowed this week @ 120 except M40-47 in LH (leaps up to a tenth in octaves) so these bars are being isolated and M30-70 is consequently in sections for both LH & HT but as one section for RH. I can play both pages without the score now HS & HT.

This week I'm memorising the middle section, M71-123. It divides readily into four passages and each was memorised yesterday and today so I should be without the score before the end of the week. There are no technical difficulties here.

Mon-Fri
M71-86, M87-96, M97-112 and M113-120 HT (mem.).

M40-42, M44-47 practise 2, 3 and 4 notes/octaves at a time, LH only, no time (tech.)

M22-30 one quaver per second (sync.)

M48-55 slow, not looking at keys.

Maybe not every day
M1-39, M48-70 HS @ 80, 100, 80 (accuracy)
M42-43 and M46-47 in isolation to land well on the chords.
M1-30; M30-39; M56-70 HT @ 30-60 bpm (co-ord.)
_________________________

Brahms Ballad in D minor.
It's been a hard week with all that listening but this week is listening & analysis. Ah, the variety!
_________________________

I progressed my other Grieg pieces but did no more than refresh the memory of Bach's Little Prelude in C, BWV 933, Scarlatti's K.531 and the Andante from Beethoven's sonata Op. 79. I did no more than a couple of minutes on each this week as my time has been in demand elsewhere. My repertoire piece was Traümerei and I stretched the time of the climax chord and reduced the dynamics so as not to disturb the reverie.

Valencia and Richard - I had fun looking at the scores for your Grieg pieces and seeing exactly what you are talking about.

Valencia and CarlosCC - both in the recital now ! Yippee! I look forward to hearing your pieces.

Richard - looking at your score--"the trolls are skipping, not dancing" -- I have quite an image in my mind's eye! Compared to what comes before it, the section M70-120 look comparatively "easy" (all things being relative of course!)

I first heard Traumerei in one of the ABF recitals and fell in love with it. It is definitely a goal for me to play that ... I don't know when... but I will!

I think I can try and report on my progress during last week (Monday to Sunday).
The big goals:
1) Bach Sarabande: I wanted to have the second part done HT slowly -Ok;
2) Mozart Fantasia in d minor (my crazy project): measures 21-31 and 63-70 slowly HT - ok; measures 55-62 HT faster - better but still not at tempo; measures 78-85 HS - ok; improving the first two prestos - I did but I can't quantify it and I am still so far...
Other "minor" goals were improving phrasing and dynamic and tempo in Bach's Gavotte and Polonaise, and working on the hard part of my Schumann: I did, but I can hardly see any difference. I am also working on a nice little contemporary piece (Let's Handel by Michael Proksch), and it is improving.
Big fails of the week:
1) review Invention 15: I did only the first half, and it sucks...
2) to study the score of the Sarabande in order to separate the voices as my teacher told me.

Overall, this sort of scheme really works for me because it helps me to stay focused. On the other hand, it's the only period of the year when I have much time and energy to dedicate to practice, and I can't honestly say which is the main contributor to my progress.