RB Piano Forte Chronicles

SIGH.

I seem to be ‘unlearning’ things – yesterday’s practice was less than stellar, to be sure, particularly with regards to the Bach Invention #8 (Fmaj), which seems to be getting worse as I play it more, not better.

Part of the issue is I’m sore: running this thing just strains the hell out my wrists and forearms. I can really feel it about three-fourths of the way through the piece – my hands, wrists, and arms are just fatigued. When I finally, and mercifully, get to the end, I have to break and stretch my fingers, arms, wrists – even my shoulders – before I can proceed.

I suppose the soreness is just a sign of aging – a point of physiological changes taking much longer than they did even ten years ago. I would have thought that as I approach the fourth month of this endeavor, the soreness would go away and things strengthened up.

It doesn’t seem to be happening, yet: I’m still sore

HOWEVER: To leave things on an up note (la), I’m seeing a certain amount of progress in other areas. In the Turque a la Ronde (Turkish March) from Mozart, there is a delicate run of sixteenth notes immediately following a pounding section of octaves and glissed chords. It’s a big transition – the right hand has to go from wham! wham! wham! to la-de-dah-de-dah-de-dah….

After pounding out heavy octave after heavy octave, the fingers are still stiff, and not prepared for the limberness and dexterity that is required, next.

I suspect that was the object of the exercise.

Anyway, I’m now projecting alpha waves (or is it beta waves?) directly from my brain into my fingers at the end of the pounding stanza, to get them to relax more quickly. So they can do the limberness and dexterity bit.

That actually seems to be happening, to a degree.

La.