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Finding time to play over Thanksgiving break may not be a BIG accomplishment but it feels like one. I'm enjoying playing again and working each piece in blocks/chunks and BELIEVING (I mean REALLY) believing I can get them up to speed. Let's do Christmas music now. :-)

Week 89 & 90: I took a week off from piano to attend my father's funeral. The trip and the service went about as well as can be expected. I perform Up to the Mountain on my Clarke brand tin whistle. It is a performance of a lifetime. All my musical training, friendships, mentors, audiences are rolled into the energy for that one performance. I give the eulogy then play the short tune on the whistle.

I got to practice Up to the Mountain, at my church coffee house the night before I got on the airplane for the funeral. I told the audience that I was going to perform that same tune at the funeral and there was an audible gasp. The love and support from my church friends there, and then friends and family at the wake and funeral are of great comfort to me. I also do two piano pieces prior to the wind instruments at the coffee house. I stumble through my last two recital pieces, my original, Avenue D, and a cover of A Thousand Years, on a Baldwin grand piano.

The crowd is supportive and gives nice applause, despite my stumbles. I think I hear whispering while I am playing and find it distracting. I am tempted to say something, but that would only break my concentration even more. So even with two recitals and seven months on the first piece, I am still not quite ready for prime time. Despite having performed dozens if not a hundred times live.

I have been reading the thread and am always impressed, and interested in each person's progress, or perhaps lack of progress. Funerals have a way of creating perspective. Enjoy the journey.

I'm sorry to hear about your loss SandTiger. Yours is a very poignant post. Keep plugging way.

Condolences on your loss Sand Tiger, I lost my mother two years ago in Dec and I miss her greatly. "Funerals have a way of creating perspective" is so very true.

Condolences, SandTiger...
One year ago. I had just gotten back from So. Cal. for my father's funeral.

Sand Tiger, my sympathies on your loss. I am glad you had the comfort and support of so many good souls.

Sand Tiger, I'm sorry to hear of your loss and send you loving thoughts and prayers for healing. The love and emotion your music conveyed was a gift for all those you shared it with and I'm glad they gave you support and comfort.

Sand Tiger,
I am so sorry to hear of your grief. If we believe God's promise of eternal life with Him through Christ; we haven't really lost them but are only separated until we join them again. Our God is faithful to perform what He has promised.

Sand Tiger, I am very sorry to hear of your loss. It is wonderful that you were able to give the gift of music for the service. I am glad that you had the comfort of so many friends.

I am in Missouri from Thanksgiving through Christmas visiting with my Mother and brother. I am fortunate in that I am playing a really nice digital piano here, a Kawai CA65. I really like it! So, I am able to keep up my practice during my visit. I get up very early (I am on Swiss time anyway) and practice with headphones for a couple of hours before my Mom wakes up. That way my practicing does not interfere with my visit. So, I have continued to play every single day, and with any luck will have a perfect MOYD this year. I play Christmas carols for the family in the evening as well. So, it is a win-win!

So sorry to hear your news, Sand Tiger.
Our thoughts are with you.

CarlosCC, SwissMS, Ragdoll, CasinItaly, ATallGuyNH, EarlofMar, RNaple, WiseBuff and all the other regulars on AOTW and PianoWorld,

Thank you for your kind words and well wishes, the sentiments are appreciated.

Sand Tiger, my condolences on your loss. My mother passed in November five years ago, and I think of her every day. She gave me a childhood filled with music, and I was very happy that I’d taken up piano shortly before her death and was able to play a bit for her at her last birthday party.

You showed great presence of mind to play at your father’s funeral, and I’m sure those in attendance took comfort in your final gift to him.

I'm so sorry to hear of you loss, Sand Tiger.
I think that playing at the funeral has been a comfort for you, a way to say goodbye to your father.

I can play my Beethoven bagatelle all through no glitches consistently now. From cold. Almost from memory. I'm still scared to shut the book. It won't take much longer. It is so freeing to get to this point.
My Chopin is still a challenge though I can relax and enjoy playing the first three pages. Probably another month to really finish off, especially with holiday visiting ahead. I played it great after our trip to Mexico earlier but then promptly made every mistake possible the next day!
I'm beginning to 'feel' the rhythmn of my Bop goes the Weasle riff and it's fun to try something so different.
Why do my fingers keep wandering off of the walking bass line! I find some of the twist and turns so counterintuitive and stumble around all over the place yet what is easier than one note at a time!
Fun for the holidays my teacher found some neat arrangement of the classic tunes you hear endlessly. NOT 'Jingle bells' again was what I had to say but in 6/8 time with a bit of a riff line going, it's fun!
Got out Claire de Lune for a re-learn after 40+ years - that's quite a break and not so many grey cells left!
Lesson tomorrow so hope I can show some progress.

I bought a book of Christmas tunes and I use it for sight reading.
I had my piano tuned.
I feel I made progress on my Mozart. This is a neverending story, because the trickiest parts will take a lot of time!
I have the notes right in the easiest Song without words (op. 30 n.3), now I must work a lot to pull out the melody from the right hand chords.

Lesson next week, maybe we will choose something new...

[quote Sand tiger][/quote]
Funerals have a way of creating perspective. Enjoy the journey.

So very true. My condolences, along with so many other virtual friends.It touches us all.

Good work, Palmpirate. It's always a pleasure to be able to report progress. Torquenale, keep up the good work with the Mozart. Btw, I love the idea of using Christmas music for sight-reading. I very much need to add regular sight-reading exercises to my daily practice, and knowing what the music is *supposed* to sound like could be helpful. Besides ... tis the season. Glad to hear you had your piano tuned. It's always more fun to play afterwards, isn't it?

My achievement for the week might sound a bit backwards, but I've given up preparing Chopin's Waltz in A Minor (posth) for my piano teacher's Dec. 14 party and am back to a piece I was working on earlier, the lovely Smile, composed by Charlie Chaplin. In a nutshell, I realized last weekend that I simply could not get the Chopin in hand in time to do it any kind of justice. I don't regret a minute spent on the piece, which I will continue to develop. I told my teacher I'll play it at her next party. That gives me until May, lol.

Everything's a learning experience.

LOL. Torquenale, please stop writing my posts for me

Last summer somebody recommended "Christmastime for All" as good sightreading material, so I picked it up and forgot about it. Then a while back my teacher asked if I had any material for 1 week toss-offs (that we do just for reading value). So I've been essentially sightreading these for the last month and having a ball doing it.

AND ... <<======= me too!

Oh, and my tuner is due next week

Made a recording of the Sick Doll to see if it's ready for the Ecco Fatte Café.. Unfortunately it sounds very imperfect. (Also recordingwise, lots of noise and cracks, suppose a good microphone is a better idea then using my videocamera)
Still very far from the goal playing it like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GyGr-ovhYU

Luckily I don't have to post it before April (Tchaikovsky recital), also noticed that playing it for a videocamera makes it just as bad as playing for my teacher.. (I think I play better when he's not there ;))

Ok Achievement time: Played the first couple of pieces of my new "Classics to Moderns" book from D. Agay)
Händel - Gavotte and some other stuff.
Fun book.

All thanks by the way for you congratulations! It is a busy time here

Sand Tiger, All the best with your loss..