kind of literally. I feel like I have the beginnings of a headache, and I never get headaches. I just practiced piano for an hour and a half or so. "Clare, that isn't a very long time." You're right, it isn't. I'm far from done for the day. At my piano lesson yesterday my teacher asked me how much time I'm putting into the Beethoven every day, and I said maybe an hour or an hour and a half. She told me that when she was preparing to play a concerto she practiced maybe three hours a day. Which is good. Good, good, good. I hadn't had a lesson in a few weeks, and I needed someone to crack the whip. I've realized that I need a certain amount of structure in my life, like a lesson every couple weeks, or else I don't get work done. And with this performance coming up in (hopefully) December, work needs to get done.
I say "hopefully" because Sharyn, my youth symphony director, told me that if I don't feel prepared in time for the December concert, we can push my performance of the first movement of Beethoven's first piano concerto back to the next concert in March. I would normally take the March option, but the December concert is at McIntyre Hall (REALLY nice hall, REALLY nice piano) and I'm pretty sure the March one is in some church somewhere (questionably nice, piano of questionable quality.) So I really hope I can have this learned in the next couple months.
Anyway, maybe my head hurts because I was practicing the same 6 or 8 measures over and over and over. I have realized, with the help of my piano teacher, that the only way to learn this is practicing it SLOWLY with the metronome. If I think I already have the passage down, practicing it AGAIN and AGAIN SLOWLY with the metronome.
It's a really beautiful concerto though. I'm excited to have it all learned. :)
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