Friday 25th July

I seem to have settled into a nice little practice routine while I am off work for the Summer. I have been getting up fairly early and doing about an hour and a half of practice before breakfast - this is where most of the "real work" is getting done. I'll then come back to the keyboard several times through the day and do another few (shorter) blocks of practice.

Last night I couldn't sleep so I got up and spent about an hour from midnight starting onto my third piece - Aprad Balazs' "Trudging."

I found this piece a little trickier to get to grips with because it has lots of double-stops (not sure if that is correct terminology in piano-land) in the right hand and also has a number of accidentals and changes left hand position a few times. I just about got through the thing last night.

This morning I got started with the Balazs piece and worked it up to a modest crotchet = 50
I ran through the Dunhill's A Song of Erin, working up from crotchet = 60 to full speed (120)
I ran through the Duncombe Gavot going from crotchet = 30 up to crotchet = 60

I'm really pleased with my progress so far but I am definately starting to memorise the pieces rather than reading them. For this reason I think it will be worthwhile to learn all of the Grade One pieces rather than just the three needed for an exam. The more new pieces I work through the more reading I will have to do. I am tempted to get a copy of the Grade Two book but I don't want to rush things too much. Although I have come a long way in four days I have been going very slowly and deliberately. I really need to get myself a lesson booked too to make sure I'm not spending hours practising incorrect techniques and suchlike.

I'm in need of a break so I'm going to hit the tennis courts with my friend Andy - check out his blog at http://jazz-research.blogspot.com/