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Day 14

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Tuesday - May 23rd, 2023 @ 5:30 pm Hours today: 4 Hours total: 61 Today I started the morning by uploading every video I have from the last two weeks onto my computer. This took painstakingly long and I wanted to cry out of frustration. Not all of them are uploaded yet but they will be by tonight. After a long while of that, I went to see Cheryl again and pick up some stuff from her. We chatted for a while about the entirety of my project and went over a few things, before I got lunch and came up to Proctor to get some final recordings. Today was by far my most frustrating day yet, especially when I was trying to get the recordings. Both the chapel and the music studio were locked when I got here and I had to ask a faculty member to let me in. The pianos in the music studio are not nearly as nice as the chapel but I had to take what I could get. I spent so long recording before I could get one that was half decent, and then I had to keep recording more just in case that good one wasn’t
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Day 13

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Monday - May 22nd, 2023 @ 4:00 pm Hours today: 4 Hours total: 57 Today I had to drive my brother to school, so I got an early start to practicing after getting a quick coffee with Helen. The two of us immediately started with practicing Vienna , by Billy Joel, since we are playing it at graduation. It went very well, considering that I haven’t been able to practice with her for two months while she was in Europe, but I definitely need to practice a bit more before Saturday. I then started working on Fantasie for a good two hours. I didn’t work on anything in particular today, just clearing up parts in preparation for recording tomorrow. I then left Proctor to go see Cheryl. I played with her for about an hour and a half, and we wrapped up the piece together, working on bits and pieces here and there to make the piece all the more better. Even though I didn’t make substantial process on anything in particular today, I put in a lot of work and I’m content. This is the chord music that I
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Day 12

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Saturday - May 20th, 2023 @ 11:00 am Hours today: 3 Hours total: 53 Today, I was planning on sleeping in but was not able to, so I just decided to start practicing and get the day done earlier. I spent the day at home again, but actually stayed focused and worked for a solid three hours. I focused a lot on the articulation of the second page and beginning of the third page. That section has accents on the first note of each set of four for the first phrase, then it switches to accents on the second note of each set of four. I’ve been having a very hard time with that, and can’t really seem to get the accent on the second notes, probably because my hands are relatively small and it’s hard for me to play forcefully with my pinky. But it definitely got a little bit better throughout the day. I wasn’t able to work on dynamics as much as I’d liked to have since my piano isn’t super capable of making any sorts of dynamics. My pedal was clicking and bothering me so I tried playing without the
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Week 2 Reflection

Saturday - May 20th @ 12:00 pm Weekly reflection 2 This week, I didn’t make quite as progress as last week, which was kind of disappointing. Much of what I’m working on now is fine details, such as tempo, dynamics, articulation, and voicing, and I’m having a harder time staying motivated when it’s harder to see the progress that I am making (since it is less significant than learning the actual notes and rhythms). That being said, I definitely worked very hard and learned how difficult it is to make a piece sound performance quality. I could definitely feel myself gaining a better understanding of the piece as a whole while working on all of the dynamics and such. I think that in the next few days, before I get my final recording, I will definitely be able to execute the piece better now that I’ve worked on the fine details. I also definitely improved my sight reading skills this week, as I tended to get bored while working on Fantasie Impromptu . Sight reading is so much fun because I
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Day 11

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Friday - May 19th, 2023 @ 3:30 pm Hours today: 4 Hours total: 50 Today I wanted to get up and grind, so I took Ray to school and went to the music studio and worked for three hours straight. I started to play Fantasie when I realized that I might actually have memorized the entire thing. I still can’t play it at performance quality, and I need to work on dynamics, articulation, and tempo, but at least I can play it all memorized. I played it through without the music; the middle section was super rough as it’s slower so less muscle memory is involved, but I was super proud of myself for being able to do it. Below is a recording of one of my memorized attempts. As you can see, there are many times where I get lost and have to really focus on where to go next. As I mentioned before, I still need the music so that I can work on dynamics and articulation, so that is what I will be working on in the next few days. Once I left the music studio, I played a little bit more when I got home bef
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Day 10

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Thursday - May 18th, 2023 @ 7:30 pm Hours today: 4 Hours total: 46 I spent the day at home, so I wasn’t quite as productive as I wasn’t super motivated to play on my crumbling piano. I worked pretty consistently for an hour on Fantasie , before going through all the sheet music I have been organizing and sight reading some fun little pieces. After making myself lunch, I repeated the same two hour cycle, working for a bit then fooling around for a bit. Even though I call it “fooling around”, sight reading is actually incredibly beneficial and I can feel myself getting much better at it just by “fooling around”. I’ve gone from sight reading simple popular tunes with easy left hand chords to being able to read easier Chopin waltzes, like Waltz in A Minor , and even parts of his Prelude in Db Major , a personal favorite of mine. I spent a little more than four hours total playing today, and even though I wasn’t quite as productive as the last few days, I still feel like I got a good amount
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Day 9

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Wedensday - May 17th, 2023 @ 3:00 pm Hours today: 7 Hours total: 42 Today, I started off my morning organizing more sheet music at home; it’s a miserable task because of the sheer amount of stuff I have to go through. I left to take my brother to school and was lucky enough to find that the chapel was unlocked for faculty meetings, so I was able to start right at 8:45 when I got here. I worked on tempo for a super long time before my right hand got tired and started to hurt. I took a break and futzed around with YouTube and tried once again to upload some videos, one was successful but the other wasn’t. I went back to work on note accuracy and then started playing some other pieces because I got bored. My new sight reading challenge for myself is Debussy’s Reverie ; it is such a beautiful piece and it’s not very difficult so I am going to try and read a little bit more of it every day. I then fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of beautiful professional performances of my favorite pieces,
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