Practice Log

As a piano teacher, I need to be always thinking sort of backwards. Any good teacher needs to be able to do that, actually, to think like the student to elucidate things in the best possible way. Sometimes, during lessons, I'm finding that memories from when I was a 6-year-old piano student, memories I thought had basically evaporated, are still lurking somewhere in my head, down a dusty corridor behind some old coats, more intact than I thought. It's really fun when that happens, but I wish I had more control over it and that it weren't just an automatic response to an outside trigger. When I was really little I used to always swear that I would never ever ever forget what it was like to be a kid. It's scary how hard it's getting to keep that promise.

Anyway, I want to start keeping kind of a record of things that go on when I practice now, as a 22-year-old piano student, to make it easy to stir up those memories when I get further down the road and hopefully am teaching people like myself.

As for today, URERJGHUEIRPHGHGHHZXCDF tendonitis. I'm pretty confident it's gone, but the tension  that started showing up before it got so bad I sought out professional help still creeps up too frequently and it's really starting to piss me off. It's hard not having regular lessons, but it also forces me to really think for myself. I am constantly focusing on how my arms feel when I play. This may or may not be a good thing--am I overthinking it again? Do I need Sarno? No, I don't think so. Today was a little challenging, but I spent a long time warming up (which I never used to do ever), I was very gentle at first, and I didn't have any pain or stiffness later. Also, I think this is crucial: I've been focusing on where the pressure comes from when I push down on the keys. I really think my fingers simply haven't been strengthened enough and I've been trying to make up for it by using quick bursts of power from my wrists/elbows/tendons, especially for the weaker fingers, 4 and 5. But when I started spending a few minutes every practice session doing some finger pressing exercises--isolating a finger by holding every other finger down on a key and then pressing very gently but firmly with that finger down onto a key repeatedly (slowly)--things have been improving greatly. But it's as much a mental as a physical exercise. It takes so much mental power to change where the strength is coming from, since I'm so used to compensating for my fingers' weakness by engaging other muscle groups. I've even been thinking about it while I type during my internship (9-5 in front of a computer takes a toll). It's slow going, and I just hope 1) I've pinpointed the problem correctly and 2) I will have the patience not to rush it and fall back into the same trap. It's like an embouchure change for a brass player--a long tedious process that makes you feel like a piece of shit because you're forcing yourself to play below what you know your technical and musical abilities are in order to eventually increase those abilities (and in my case in order to avoid physical pain).

Something cool: I decided to try filming my hands while I played with my Canon Powershot, and it wasn't bad quality considering the camera's not really made to produce quality audio recordings. I positioned it from different angles, and it really made me see/hear things about my playing I wouldn't have been able to otherwise, and provided a new way to discipline myself without a teacher around.