One Last One....

well updates have not been as regular as originally anticipated but that's ok, still here........I actually haven't been playing as much lately since my right wrist has been giving me problems. Hurt it this winter while snowboarding and with the consistent 2 - 3 hrs/day, it reinjured itself....oh and I missed last satuday, so my daily streak ended at a little over 10 weeks consecutive, not too shabby.....but yeah, hopefully august will prove to be a better updating month, shouldn't be too hard, if I write once a week in august I'll beat my current record of 3 entries/month hahaa.......

hope that as you're reading this you're doing well.....

zak

just barely made it....

well i'm now fifty something days into my streak of playing everyday, and just narrowly escaped the demise of this streak. I left tuesday morning headed to madison, wi for job interview purposes. I made sure and played a quick song before I left with every intention of keeping the streak alive.....after some serious travelling, I returned home weds. night at about 1145, and after taking out my contacts and gettin my bags indoors, I sat down at the piano at 11:53pm, phew, just made it.......

progress still coming along nicely, just learned O Sole Mio! and a quick version of Jericho.......recordings coming soon, really, they are....

zak

finally got it right!

sooo...it's been a while since I last wrote. Still been practicing every day, tho some more than others. Still moving through my Alfred's book (just finished little brown jug [not the best song ever] and started Chiapanecas), but that's not the big deal here.....

the big deal is I started learning a song two weeks ago called Arctic Night by Gilbert DeBenedetti.....I really liked the way it sounded and thought I had a shot at it, and finally after two weeks of daily practice, I just played it correctly without making any mistakes for the first time.....played it at the right tempo with the right dynamics, played it just as I wanted to.....I had to learn this song, from the beginning, measure by measure, note by note, and each tiny piece was at the limits of my skill level.....but I made it.....

the funny thing is: I finally played it correctly after I took the sheet music off of the piano, and just played it from memory....I could just focus on hearing the right sounds internally, rather than focusing any energy on reading off the sheet.......

side note: I had put the whole recording thing on hold because I wanted to get this song down before I started recording, but I have the 50ft. RCA cable now, should be up 'n running shortly........the only point of contention with that is I'm flying out to Wisconsin this week for a job interview.....

i'll keep you posted.

zak