This week's lesson went pretty well. I spent the last two weeks working on my musicality - mixing crescendos and accenting notes to add some texture to the music as apposed to simply droning through the notes. My teacher liked what I did with the Spanish Capricho I've been studying for the last few months, though he and I both noticed I that I had a tendency to speed up the tempo when building up on the emphasis to certain measures. He wants me to continue with my ideas, but try and maintain a consistent tempo as I add the emphasis.
We began work on another capricho a couple of weeks ago, but I ran into a stumbling block when I found what looked like an E# in the music. The problem is, there's no E# in music, so I had no idea how to play the note. My teacher kindly reminded me that E# is simply a half step up from E, otherwise known as F. So, when I see an E#, I need to play an F.
D'oh!
Such is part of why knowing theory can be invaluable when learning to play music.
Now that I've got that out of the way, I'm confident I'll have an easier time learning the rest of the piece. I am, however, going to face the biggest challenge I've had yet, later on in that same capricho: - the last 3/4 of the piece contains several patterns that invert on themselves over several measures. My hand is going to be all over the fretboard.
FUN!
:D
These last few weeks have been incredibly difficult for me, in terms of putting any practice time in. With my wife in the hospital, I've been feeling too mentally drained to even think about my studies. When I told my teacher how I've been feeling, he suggested I think of practice as a method of unwinding, relieving my stress and just enjoying playing. Since I'm not under any pressure to perform for anyone, I'm free to have as much fun as I want. So far, it seems to be working. Instead of focusing on making significant progress with my studies each week, I'm just taking whatever time I need to enjoy playing. My teacher says that, the more fun I can put into playing, the more progress I'll continue making naturally.
I like that.