Feb 21, 22

Practiced for 25 minutes yesterday, 30 minutes today.

Yesterday
Worked on band rep mostly. Walked through all of Light Eternal, couldn't figure out why it didn't sound right. Turns out I had a fingering wrong after checking the whole phrase. Played through all of Light Eternal a few times, after about 3 run-throughs it was without error. Worked on Rhosemedre again, tried to focus on sounding less like a tuba, and taking Mr. Haq's advice into account. It's getting better, and I sound slightly more like a string bass, but stringing the notes together fluidly almost causes me to put no separtaion in the notes whatseover. Still working on it, its imprvoing. Walked through solo in 4th movement of Holst, I still need ot take it under tempo to get the slurring more accurate, but my speed is improving with practice. Bars 9-16 of section E in the 4th movement is difficult, and I work through it very slowly. Speed in the low range in gradually increasing, but still working on rhythm perfection at this point. Plan to continue breaking down the difficult sections and work up to playing at tempo.

Today
Scale day. Spent 25 minutes on scales, mainly chromatics on page nine. Really struggled with number 2. So much so that I wrote out the fingerings just to get used to the key signature/accidentals of the line. Worked through it very slowly, about 66 on online metronome until I nailed the fingerings. Sharps are still challenging, but with continued practice at a slow pace, I am improving and will continue to do so. Chromatic scale #1 was much easier, very little difficulty, worked up to a very fast tempo quite quickly. Broke both scales into measure-by-measure. If I made a mistake, I started over. Successful, yet tedious. Im quite pleased with the subtle improvents after a few sessions of practice, and ease with these pieces increases every day. Finished the practice with some "Stand By Me", and a few Christmas Carols just for Mr. Stevenson's sake.