Quick Practice- It's pretty barebones.

I took a tad different of a approach today. "Let's open on the Mouth Piece" I thought. Well it certainly helps. (Though it didn't aid in warming up the instrument any faster)
And So I still had to play scales. I'm in a C minor mood this week.

As this week time seemed to be in short supply, I decided it would be best to focus on two things:

1) Prairie Songs (Because I'm abhorrent at it)
2)Something I really enjoyed playing (for the last bit)

The main point of contingency surrounding Prairie Songs is that blasted third page. Granted, the part in itself is not extremely difficult, but it is still easier said that done. For the most part I focused on that period/bit/phrase(s) at 137. Gotta' Work on those rhythms, although they seem more irregular than they actually are. I resorted to humming it out to help with the timing. But the rhythm aside, it's just a matter or range. Not even necessarily hitting the note, but hitting the note and not having it sound like a dying animal. So Tone Quality. That's something that ought to come with time, but for now I'll still have to work.

As for what I enjoyed playing it was something totally irrelevant so I'm not going to delve into any details here.

Yeah, I could use some

Time is an irrelavent thing when it comes to practice. I would assume my family will just have to deal. As far as practice goes:

Opened up on the Crusaders out of the Chorales book- I find that book entertaining. I don't know why.

His Honor, or rather the march is... actually rather easy, the main issue here is the timing when put together as well as the dynamic contrast. As a result I've taken it upon myself to focus primarily on the second strain. Confidence in playing it by myself builds up to Confidence in the actual execution I suppose. The other (big) issue would have to be the dynamics. Even an easy song can be messed up with bad dynamics.

Prairie songs song a big weak spot: the entire third pages. I need to work on dynamic contrast for the section on 37~100 as well, but the third page seems to be an overall issue here.

Chant Rituals: Overall, it's meh~ not one particular area is downright terrible, but it could use lots of work overall. Think of a rough diamond. A Very, very, very, very rough diamond. That has terrible Dynamics. But there isn't one overall difficult

Overall: Tone and Range still need more work.

Practicing: 2/2/11

Today's main focus is Solo and Ensemble (as opposed to Band Music) because that's coming up and I could use a lot of work. So in this case, my esteemed parter and I are playing the Second Praeludium & Fuga (in C minor) by J.S. Bach.

For the most part, the song individually is not so difficult, aside from the tempo and key. I tend to think that it is in E major, which is why the accidentals tend to throw me for a run. In particular I'm working on the tonging work work, as the piece consists almost entirely of sixteenth notes, which means it is very important to articulate. Resultantly, to stop this rather uniform piece (aside from some dynamic shifts) from sounding too muddy, It's overall more important to work few things that are different within the piece then to get stuck up on small portions.

On a side note, because music ought to be fun overall, I decided to take a look at the Jazz Band piece, Chameleon, which has two issues: the rhythms and the range. Being in a moderate funk tempo, I'm not really sure what to expect... and the irregular rhythms of anything vaguely jazzy tend to confuse me until i slowly go over them.

FOCUS: Measures 11-34, 53-69.

Overall, I think the range can be taken care of, but the rhythms will require more effort on my own part.