Week 3/100: Back from Holiday!

For your viewing pleasure, here is Prelude #1 from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1. I recorded this with the webcam from my laptop, haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3K8wyis5Tg

I actually lost 4 weeks from my trip to the motherland, since I also spent some time in NJ. So, there are 97 weeks remaining. When I got back, the first time playing through this piece I needed to look at the sheet music–I couldn’t remember anything. But it came back quickly enough. It probably still needs a lot of work, but I need to move on.

For want of a suitable next piece, I started working on Minuet in G dur again… There are some pieces that seem like they’re at my level, but the problem is, they’re in some ridiculous key. That is, mechanically speaking, I should have all the skills necessary to play them. But, for pieces that are not in a key I know, it takes way too long for me to search for the notes, and as a result the time to learn the piece is too long. I have come to realize that this is actually a huge problem, as this means it is uneconomic to learn the piece. It is more efficient, I believe, to start with some retardedly simple pieces in a key and work your way up–because I have been learning such retardedly simple pieces with Alfred’s, and I can see that it is actually effective. The key to quick progress is to decompose a complex task into its irreducible factors, and to solve each simple part separately before putting it back together.

Anyway, my roommate has started noodling with Moonlight Sonata (Mvt 1), so I am to race him with Minuet and… the theme from Forest Gump XD I think I could be in trouble because he really loves that piece and spends a lot of time at the piano.

Goals for Week 3:
Minuet + Forest Gump
Finish Alfred’s??? I have something like 4 pieces (that I want to play) left, and a whole bunch that needs polishing.