Piano on the Eights: 3/12

These past eight weeks in my piano-learning odyssey were highlighted by a recital on February 10 that I played at. I was one of twenty-five students, about a quarter of us adults and all of us students of the same teacher. I played an excerpt titled Melody in F by Rubinstein. I prepared a lot for it in the days preceding the recital, and when it was time for me to go up and play in front of the audience, it seemed as if someone else was playing the piece, with me in the background! So, the recital went off pretty well for me. My son, who is a much better pianist than me, also played at the recital.

I continued practicing as usual, and am still feeling as if I am not putting in the needed time and effort to reach my full potential. I practiced on excerpts from Borodin's Polovetzian Dances, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and Joplin's The Entertainer, among others. I have begun to focus more on the "back" part of the keyboard where the black keys are. I believe that treating this section as the "starting point" for my keying, instead of as an area that I go to only when specially demanded by the printed music, will greatly facilitate my learning of the musical theory and my skill at playing.