Work/Life Balance

I'm really glad that I have limited my teaching hours since the Summer. Having gone through some tough times and been ill for a while I decided to ease myself back into the new term by having Wednesdays off. I enjoyed this so much that I've stuck with it even when my new students all started. It means I work four busy days instead of five so I'm only a few hours down each week.

This is all part of an attempt to simplify my life and enjoy things more... it works most of the time. Although a reduction in work has some financial implications I have actually found that my life is substantially better with more time and less money (although funnily enough several things have worked in my favour financially in the last couple of months so maybe its a win/win situation after all)

Wednesday is usually a day for catching up with emails/paperwork/phone calls/planning etc so I try and get all that stuff out of the way early in order to enjoy my day off and PRACTISE!

Today:

1 Hour 45

15 minutes Study in F - concentrating on the first four bars, trying to get a nice balance between the hands, work out fingerings and 'program' the notes into my hands through repetition.

15 minutes Study in F - bars 5-8 slowly, then in tempo at crotchet=40. By the end of the 15 minutes I was playing through bars 1-8 at crotchet=40

15 minutes Study in F - Bars 1-8 at 40 bpm

Another 15 minutes Study in F

15 minutes - Top Cat at 60bpm

15 minutes Bach from 84-104 bpm

15 minutes playing through some of the stuff in the next chapter of the Jazz Piano Book