Jubilation!

Still no pictures or recordings, I fear, but there is much jubilation in the LisaRealm of Pianodom, as the post title implies.

Well, perhaps jubilation is to active of a word (though it's also the title of the duet that I hope to record both halves of, then overlay - but that's beside the point). Mostly there is just lots of happy contentment. I've been playing very nearly every day, and I'm quickly discovering that once I sit down I'm pretty much incapable of getting up again for an hour. I suspect it would be even longer than an hour, but that's about the point at which my back can't take it anymore. Reading music is coming back to me at an impressive rate, but I discovered this last week that I have absolutely zero recollection of how to determine what key a piece is in. How embarrassing. I'll be remedying that in the next couple of days so that I can properly practice my scales - though it pains me to admit it, it really does make it easier to transition between pieces. Sigh, I say!

Where was I - ah yes, happy contentment and progress. Let's see. I've gone from working dedicatedly on The Cuckoo and Solfeggietto whilst playing around with Bloody Tears and The Piano to just working on the former two and a Chopin prelude that I've had stuck in my head. I'm making really good progress on all of them - a couple of days on the prelude and I've got it flowing pretty well, though there are some trickier chords that I need to practice. Solfeggietto is, of course, fantastically entertaining to work on, and I already have it memorized though I'm still sticking with the music until I have the bits of it that don't follow the overall pattern worked out. The Cuckoo is coming along the slowest of the three, if only because I keep working on it last,which means I'm starting to get a little stiff and don't feel like drilling the parts that need drilling. Maybe tonight I'll start there instead of with the prelude.

Points of interest and amusement: Have I mentioned I need a metronome? Because I really do. Solfeggietto and The Cuckoo just BEG to have the fun parts played faster than the hard parts and I don't have enough Will Power without mechanical intervention. How about mentioning that I had entirely forgotten about the concept of trills before I started working on The Cuckoo? The first time I played through it my fingers just sort of did a trill from memory, and I thought "Oh Yeah! THAT's what the little squiggle means..." I'm a little alarmed at how quickly my brainmeats broke down in the last 6 years.

Finally, on recordings of pieces that I've mastered: this will have to wait a little longer, I'm afraid. I've had a couple of good suggestions for audio editing software, and I have a site to look into for embedding MP3s with a little player (thanks to Daniel Light, Teacher of Amazement mentioned in the last post). What I lack is any sort of good equipment to record - I'm thinking I'll just hit up a music equipment store and see what they say. Finally, as the gentlemen I bought the piano from warned, my lovely Mason & Hamlin is already in need of tuning. They suggest waiting 3-5 weeks after moving it into the house so it can adjust to the floor, the temperature, the humidity, etc, which means I have a few more weeks to go.