Thursday's Notes

Was sooo tired all day as a result of my Jaleo salt-induced coma from last night. Apparently the DC location is better than the Crystal City one, but I don't know if I want to even try that out. Each dish was saltier than the other. ONE dish saved the meal - the simplest appetizer on the menu. Pan de Tomate - Bread with tomato smushed and smeared all over it. That was delicious. And that's all I should have ordered.

Today's Progress:

Chopin Op.17 #2 - 100% MEMORIZED!!!
Chopin Op.17 #3 - 1.33/2 pages or 67%
Ravel Waltz #2 - 2.2/2.6 pages or 85%
Ginastera mvt 1 - 3.33/7 pages or 48%

Took a break from memorizing any more Beethoven and just reemphasized the 5th variation. The 6th looks a little scary (aka pain in the butt) so I figured I'd wait until tomorrow to start it.

Ravel gets a little more comfortable under my fingers every day, but it's definitely taking its sweet time. I've got 2 more lines left to learn of Waltz #2, so slowly but surely, I'll get there. It's more motivating for me to count progress one waltz at a time, since the whole set is 25 pages.

The 2nd Chopin mazurka in e minor is SOOOO BEAUTIFUL. I think Op.17 is my favorite set of mazurkas. There are only four in the set, so I'm almost 50% done learning the set :) Oh! And my music finally shipped from www.burtnco.com today! So I don't have to worry about downloading the other two mazurkas from the CUA library. Although I still might.

Any fun plans for the 4th? I think I'll be spending the day at the piano :-)

Yesterday's Progress

Last night I broke out of what's become my 90-day routine (of vegging on couch or reading, too tired to go anywhere) and went to Jaleo with my friend. This isn't my restaurant blog so I won't go into detail, but let me just say that I'm still recovering from the salt coma I was in after a sad set of tapas last night. Needless to say, I forgot to blog!

So! Yesterday's memory progress:

Chopin Op.17 No.2 - 1.2/2 pages or 60%
Chopin Op.17 No.3 - 1/2 pages or 50%
Ginastera mvt 1 - 3/7 pages or 43%
Ravel Waltz #2 - 1.6/2.6 pages or 62%

aaaaand....
I realized yesterday that I completely forgot about Beethoven the day before, so yesterday I did a Beethoven catch-up, plus more memory!

Beethoven Variations - 7.17/11 pages or 65% - I have memorized all of Variation #5 - this means that all I have left of the Beethoven to memorize is the last variation and the coda! Woo! (Of course this last variation/coda is longer than all the other variations.)

Hopefully my morning caffe' latte will wake me out of this salted groggy state and I will start today's practicing sooner rather than later.

WOO HOO!!!

Yippee! The Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #11 is memorized!
The picture shows me very happy, and a little tired, at the end of my practicing today.

I'm still waiting for the Polish National edition of the Chopin Mazurkas and the Durand Ravel edition. Apparently the Chopin has been ready since last week, but it's the Ravel that's holding up the mailing. Not wanting to wait any longer for the Chopin, I remembered that the Catholic University library has an online database of classical scores. I checked, and printed off Op.17 Nos. 2 and 3 of the mazurkas.
Memory Progress as of today, 6/28/11:

Liszt - 100% MEMORIZED!!!
Ginastera mvt 1 - 1.5/7 pages or 21%
Ravel Waltz #2 - 1.2/2.6 pages or 46%
Chopin Mazurka Op.17 no.2 in e minor - 0.8/2 pages or 40%
Mazurka Op.17 no.3 in A-flat Major - .33/2 pages or 17%

STILL MEMORIZED:
Ginastera mvts 2 and 4
Ravel Waltz #1

NAIL POLISH NOTES:
The Essie does not seem to stay on my nails as well as the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure did last week. I also found the Sally was easier to apply, due to the flat brush. I'll probably have to redo at least the thumbs tomorrow. (They take a beating on the piano.)

Liszt memorized in 1 more day!

Still making headway on my memorization progress!

As of today, June 27, 2011, I have memorized:

Liszt Rhapsody - 8/9 pages or 89%
Beethoven Variations - 6.5/11 pages or 59%
Ginastera 1st mvt - 2/7 pages or 29%
2nd and 4th mvts - totally memorized!
Ravel Waltz #2 - 0.6/2.6 pages or 23%

Liszt will be completely memorized tomorrow, because the last page I have to learn is almost exactly like the page I learned today! Woo!
I've started learning the 5th Beethoven variation, which is a funeral march. It's actually very fun! And even a little funny :)
Ravel Waltz #2 - it is so beautiful, and it reminded me why I chose this set of waltzes. Really lovely.
As far as my bright orange (Braziliant) nail polish goes, it's a little weird to watch my fingers on the keys. Sometimes when my hands are moving quickly, I see green. Which is weird, since there's no green nearby. Hmph, science.

2nd week already?!?

Today was Day 9. Tomorrow will be 80 days remaining, and I can't believe that!

Today I did a lot of memory "maintenance" but also memorized more of the Liszt and Ginastera.

Liszt: 7.6/9 pages or 84%

Ginastera mvt 1: 1.55/7 pages or 22%

I took a break from memorizing more Beethoven and Ravel today, and instead just focused on becoming more comfortable with what I've already memorized. For the Beethoven, I only have Variations 5 and 6 left, so I feel pretty good about that.

I took my Fairy Teal nail polish off a couple of days ago with the intention of reapplying, but never got around to it. I think I've been feeling a little bummed the last couple days while practicing, and I'm wondering if that bright nail color wasn't actually motivating me to keep going. Well, we will find out this week with my new color, Essie's Braziliant! I almost didn't find the color but luckily spotted a special display at CVS all by itself. I'm going to paint tomorrow.

I've also chosen the color for the following week, but you'll have to wait and see. (Hint: It was an Allure readers' choice bright color.)

Confession: I still haven't read all the Ravel notes, etc in the Alfred edition. But I will... soon...

Yesterday's Post, Today.

I did practice yesterday, just wasn't up to writing about it last night.

Memory progress as of Day 8 (Saturday, June 25):

Liszt - 7/9 pages or 78%!
Ravel Waltz #1 - 100 MEMORIZED!!!
Beethoven Variations - 6/11 pages or 55%
Ginastera - Mvts 2 and 4 - still memorized!
Mvt 1 - maintained page 1 memory

One week down. (Already!!!)

Just a quick update on my progress today. I got a late start, and was feeling discouraged, but I ended up making some good progress :-)

Memory progress as of 6/24/11:

Liszt: 6.1/9 pages or 68%
Beethoven: 5.3/11 pages or 48%
Ginastera Mvt 1: 1/7 pages or 14%
Ginastera Mvt 2: 7/7 pages or 100% MEMORIZED!
Ginastera Mvt 4: MEMORIZED
Ravel Waltz 1: 2.6/3.5 pages or 74%

2 of 4 movements of Ginastera are memorized, and I finally felt somewhat comfortable playing through what I've learned of the Ravel so far. Hopefully it will get a bit easier after Waltz No.1.

You pianists that also have back trouble from practicing, any advice?

Day 6 - Still going strong!

Today was day 6 of my first week of practicing for this recital, and I think all in all it's going fairly well. I find that around 5-6pm it gets to be the beginning of the end for me each day, so I'm really trying to get as much done before then as possible. Today I started around 9:30am, after the technician came to deliver a DVR!!! Finally, I'm joining the 21st century :)

Some notes:

1. Practicing makes my back hurt. Like, a lot. I take breaks and stretch but it still hurts.
2. The first Ravel waltz is not that easy to memorize. I'm a little annoyed that I still haven't even finished one Ravel waltz yet, although to be fair I really have been focusing on the Liszt and Ginastera.
3. For some reason I was scared to start the 1st mvt of Ginastera, but I started it today, and so far it's not so bad. I'm kind of finding that's my reaction to most of the stuff of which I'm scared.
   
4. Speaking of scary, there was a small snake on my back patio today. The handyman kindly took it far, far away.
5. Yes, I have a handyman.
   
6. Those chromatic major thirds at the end of the 2nd mvt of Ginastera are nasty. I have tried several fingerings, and I think I've found the one I like, but I will be doing some research into other chromatic third passages to see if I can come up with anything else.
   

Memory progress as of today, June 23, 2011:

Liszt: 6/9 pages or 67%
Beethoven: 5/11 pages or 45%
Ginastera Mvt 1: 0.6/7 pages or 9%
Ginastera Mvt 2: 5.3/7 pages or 88%
Ginastera Mvt 4: 7/7 pages or 100%!!!
Ravel Waltz No.1 (Adelaide): 2.5/3.5 pages or 71%

Um, if you've noticed that the Chopin isn't here, that's because it should be coming in the mail any day now... It's taking its sweet time, but I'm excited because I decided to splurge and get the new Polish National Edition. I had 20% off with Burt & Co music which helped me make that decision. It's also coming with the Durand edition of the Ravel. I originally purchased the Alfred Masterwork edition of the Ravel (don't judge me!) which is actually cool because it has a ton of background info about the piece, historical context, formal analysis, various recordings, use of the sostenuto pedal, performance suggestions, programming suggestions, and an article by Walter Gieseking called "How Does One Perform Ravel's Piano Music?" Um, to be perfectly honest, I haven't read any of this stuff, except the notes about editorial fingerings. So that is what I plan to do tonight. But getting back to the Durand - I decided to order that just because I think there are a lot of marks in this score that are not original.

Exciting Update!

The 4th movement of the Ginastera Sonata No.1 is now fully memorized!!!

Memorization Progress

I plan on having my entire program memorized by July 18th (Happy Birthday, Mom!) One way of calculating this plan is to count the total number of pages, and then divide that by 30 to figure out the number of pages I would need to memorize each day to meet that goal. The other day I tried to count the pages, but the number was getting so high (and scary) that I stopped. But I've found my courage, and I'm going to start posting my memorization progress in terms of page numbers. I tried to create some graphs but it was way too hard, so you'll have to read the numbers and imagine the pie charts yourself.

As of today, 6/21/11 (Happy Summer btw!) I have memorized:

Liszt Rhapsody - 4 of 9 pages (44% including the coda!!!)
Beethoven Variations - 4.5 of 11 pages (41%)
Ginastera movement #2 - 4.5 of 6 pages (75%)
Ginastera movement #4 - 6 of 7 pages (86%)
Ravel Waltzes - 1.5 of 25 pages (6%)

Today was a good day, and I finished memorizing the coda of the Liszt! Learning this Rhapsody has been interesting. I've always been kind of scared of Liszt, but I'm finding it very pianistic. Pianists use this term to describe music that "fits" well under the hands - it's almost like you just put your hands on the keys and they know how to arrange themselves to play the music. Not all music written for piano is like this. It is often the case when the composer is also a great pianist.

The coda was a little confusing with the middle notes in the right hand octaves, but it's up in the old noggin now!

Nail polish update: It's starting to fray a bit at the edges and will need a touch up tomorrow. I'm honestly pretty impressed with its staying power.

So far, so good...

I got my program last week, and had a bit of time to procure the sheet music. I've been averaging about 5 hours a day so far, which I think is a great start. I've learned quickly, however, that I need to get lots of sleep right now, because memorizing makes me so tired! Yesterday I didn't accomplish much, because I was very tired, and I kind of felt like this:(I love that picture.) Needless to say, I went to bed early last night and slept 9 hours! Today I was back to being a memorizing machine! So far I've memorized parts of the Liszt, Beethoven, Ginastera and Ravel.

I've also decided to practice with painted nails. The bright polish is giving me energy! This week's color is Fairy Teal by Sally Hansen. The bright color really gave me a boost today, plus I'm doing it kind of as an experiment to see how long various polishes will last when subjected to extreme wear and tear (practicing.) After 5 hours today, it's still looking pretty good. I did also use Poshe' quick-dry top coat. (Hm, I guess I should have gone to Sally's.)

Welcome!

Hello, my name is Francesca and I am currently preparing for the final recital for my Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Piano Performance. For this final project, we DMA students are given a 70-minute program of music we have not played before, and 90 days in which to learn it, memorize it, and perform it. I'm currently on Day 3. I decided to blog about these three months because 1. I'd like to reflect on it, 2. I might like to look back on it when I'm done, and 3. I think it might be interesting for others to read. I'll try to update this blog daily but if past performance tells anything, that's probably not very likely.

You might be thinking, WHAT? NINETY days to memorize SEVENTY minutes of music? That's CRAZY! Well, you're right. It is kind of crazy, and I was terrified before I started, but now I'm looking forward to this process, and definitely excited about giving the final recital. I'm also excited about this whole process because I think I'm finally going to see what I'm capable of, since I've never really devoted myself only to the piano.

I have lots of other interests, including cooking. You can see what I've been up to in the kitchen at my food blog, The Guileless Gourmande. I wasn't sure if I would find time to cook while preparing this music, but so far, I've cooked a couple of dinners, and I find it relaxes me in the evening.

The last thing I want to share in this welcome post is the music that I'll be learning in the next 90 days. Here's my program:
Theme and Variations in F Major, Op.34 by Beethoven
Mazurkas, Op.17 by Chopin
Hungarian Rhapsody No.11 by Liszt
Sonata No.1 by Ginastera
Noble and Sentimental Waltzes by Ravel

If you want to keep up with my new posts, please "follow" me!