Music Practice April 22

I came home from the Kiwanis Challenge class full of adrenalin, so I decided to play some more music. I got out Geronimo and worked on the "little fugue" which I love. I worked on all the fast runs and hard parts, slowing them down and working out the patterns. I still cannot play the second last set, which alternates from from high C to high D at the tempo, but I did work on it slowed down. I also played the music on the piano, and I found that I pretty well knew the whole song already, I could hear all my parts in my head.
I also worked on the rhythms too, there are a few places where the rhythms are not just straight 16ths or 8ths, and I also worked on the rhythms where it changes from 16th to 8ths or vice versa, becuase I tend to have problems with those parts. Sometimes I play the 8ths like 16ths if I'm not careful. So I slowed down the rhythms and counted them out, and then I played them over and over so I wouldn't forget next time I played that part.
I really love Little Fugue so much!!

Music Practice April 18th

I wanted to transpose the section at 196 in Light Eternal for efer, so I got out both my clarintes and played through to figure out the transposition. It's not really practicing, per se, but I did play them a bit, and it was great to work on teh transposing stuff we learned in class. Playign two clarinets and the piano has really helped me with this transposing stuff.

Music Practice April15

I played for 45 minutes today. I worked on the scales and the study we were working on in class yesterday. I find it very difficult to learn music in a loud environment, since I have to be able to hear myself play. I spent a lot of time working on the 4 scales and the 3rds, especially in figuring out the fingerings. By the end of the practice I could play up and down the major scales without tripping, but I still need to speed them up a bit. The 3rds and minor scales need more work. I also mainly worked on the notes in the study, since we don't normally play with so many flats. The chromatic scales are coming along very well, but I find I cannot learn them from the book, I like to play them memorized with my eyes shut :)))

Music Practice 14

On Saturday morning we went to Belle Air and and picked up some more Eb reeds, 3 1/2's actually. When I got home I tried playing on one of them, and worked on long notes and tuning with the new reed. I think I also did some tonging and fingering exercises. I also ran through my test sections a couple of times. I probably played for about half an hour. It will be nice to have the same hardness of reeds on both clarinets, it will make the switching back and forth a lot easier.

Music Practice 15

This morning I practiced my two eight bar sections of Holst for about 20 minutes before school. I did some long notes to warm up, and then I basically reviewed the music, since I had it ready fro Friday's class, but I needed to solidify it in my head again. I also worked on tuning again.

Last Honour band Practice :(

Today we played Rumble in class, and it felt like a walk in the park compared to honour band stuff. I've learned so much in one weekend.
So, I ran through Slavia one more time tonight, and I decided to try playing some of the sections very fast. There is one very fast section of about 20 bars of eighth notes, so I played them as fast as I could, and I experienced a tired tongue for the first time. Normally my fingers get sore first, but this section doesn't have much note movement, and it is very staccato. I'm feeling much more confident about my performance tonight, I'm just scared now that I might take off with the notes.
I will practice my sections for the test Friday tonight. I haven't picked the easy one, but I know what is the hardest part of the song for me, from section A to section B. All the rest are medium hard, except maybe movement 2 going from A. I play that part a lot since I love it so much.