randomling | Piano week 4.

This is a day late, but never mind.

Still somewhat restless with this, and also finding it somewhat difficult to figure out how best to learn difficult pieces. I also skipped Sunday practice.

As well as the bassoon gavotte and Queen Mab, I've recently picked up a book with 15 jazz pieces. This is rather tricky, because playing jazz is tricky, but it's what I'm interested in, so it's good to have the pieces there. I'm trying to teach myself Autumn Leaves, and it's proving very difficult. I may need to work on the steps from the online piano book and see if I can break it down into steps.

I'm stumbling through the Gavotte and Queen Mab with both hands now. Probably needs more practice with hands separately to really get both lines down before I start putting them together, though. It's confusing.

I'm also working through my Classics to Moderns book, which is quite simple, to have some pieces that I find reasonably easy to learn and can play.

Week Three introduced the F Major chord and the concept of the Lead-In (which is a shortened first bar at the beginning of a piece; traditionally, whatever beats of the bar were left out are put on the end of the piece in another shortened bar).

I'm reasonable on both When the Saints and Good Evening Friends, though I think When the Saints goes into my "still practising" list. (This is where I start to miss having a teacher; self-directed learning is quite hard.

Concepts: Dotted Notes, 3/4 Time, The Tie
Pieces: Austrian Waltz, Marianne

The practice routine should probably now go like this:

Chords
C, G7, F
Pieces
When the Saints Go Marching In
Austrian Waltz
Marianne
Piece learning
Gavotte
Queen Mab
Autumn Leaves
A piece from Classics to Moderns (I shall pick one piece and learn it properly)

That will probably do me.