Self Evaluation Troy T.

haha i finally figure this out yes!

I have come to the realization that I’m not the most productive person in the practice room on the piano. I practice as often as possible but I usually practice a lot at once rather than a little bit every day, which I realize isn’t the way to go about learning a new instrument, buts its hard for me to balance my time. Anywho so when I do practice I approach it similar to the way I practice guitar. I run scales for the first 15 to thirty minutes and practice chord progressions in both hands. I then spend a good deal of time improvising and experimenting with different voicings and extensions, mostly trying to figure out new progressions to explore and improvise on. After I improvise I move on to the studies and pieces and sometimes run scales again when I can’t focus and just need to do something with my hands. I always finish practice sessions with improvising too, sometimes I find new stuff to do while I am practicing that I can use for composing that I want to remember for later.

For the midterm I mostly used this approach except I didn’t focus on scales as much as I usually do. I was more worried about the prepared piece, Amazing Grace and Danny Boy. I practiced Danny Boy the most I thought that it sounded it better and I liked the mood better than the particular arrangement for Amazing Grace. I tried the Entertainer but found it a little confusing for both hands so I scratched that. When I practice guitar I isolate sections that are difficult for me and then build on them. I start with a measure that is giving me trouble, once I can play it three times through with few or no mistakes I add the measure before. I do the same thing, play it three times through until I’m pretty good at it, then add the measure after. This would be more beneficial to me if I practiced more regularly. Also I need to write in fingerings to help with learning the pieces, I tend to memorize music for guitar quickly but for piano when I try to memorize I always end up doing things completely wrong.