I'm still here!

Believe it or not, I'm still alive, and we moved in last weekend. Unfortunately I have not been practicing at all. I think I've only been able to play maybe three or four times since my last post.The move was much rougher than we expected, but we survived! 

I'm over a week behind on the practice plan, but I'm going to keep plugging along. I'm going to redraw my practice plans and post that in the next few days if I can. I'm going to do my original plans for Week 2 from today until Tuesday, at which point I'll start Week Three with the second week of the Patricia George plan. Her method of working through the Taffanel-Gaubert uses 6-day practice weeks, so if I'm able to get in at least a little bit of productive practice each day, I'll be able to make up the lost time.

I was able to practice today, and it felt great. While it was certainly not smooth sailing all the way through and I didn't make it through the entire to-do list, it was a very productive practice session. I'm having to out some tension issues, especially in my left arm, and having to fight the urge to try and play faster than I need to.

Patricia George suggests working in chunks, which I found very helpful. She suggests playing short chunks (between 4 and 8 notes) with a quarter note rest between each chunk. This was very great for slowing my mind down, getting my focused on consistency of sound, smooth finger motion, and getting rid of negative tension.

More to come in the near future, hopefully including some good news!