What made me happy today?

I just completed my 82nd read through of the complete piano works of Scott Joplin. I started this sometime around 1976 or so. I was the piano player in a military big band and there was a 'history of jazz' concert where I had to play the Maple Leaf Rag.

Not too long thereafter I started working on other rags and before I knew it I started working my way through the entire book. I'll work through the book when I don't know what to practice ... or sometimes when I get the urge to overdose on ragtime.

I just HAVE to post how happy I am.

I have spend 2 months in rehearsals for my own 'Piano Stories' (4 hands, single piano, thus the rehearsing)... I have spend 2 months (1 month prior to the beginning of the rehearsals and 1 while rehearsing) to compose those works and make them... as good as I possibly could. I spend a couple of weeks on the score, and another 2 months to correct completely silly and idiotic errors (time signatures missing, clashing of elements, wrong number of bars, etc)...

And yesterday I spent 2 hours recording and videotaping the whole set, with a wonderful pianist, named Myrto Akrivou. She actually doesn't use the Internet so she won't see this, but she's been nothing but wonderful.

And now, right before typing this post, I was editing the audio files: There was minimal editing needed: Everything with 4 takes (No. 6 was the trickies of all, and this may actually need some editing) works wonderfully! I just get to keep the last take, since it's the best and nothing else is needed. Mastering will not happen by me, so it's fine as well... And the video files are all wonderful, so I get to make some nice nifty live playing videos (so you'll get to see me play the piano in person. A real acoustic Steinway... hehe... no midi in this case).

Did I say that I'm happy? Cause I am?

And I will, eventually start sleeping again!

My son asked his girl if she would marry him and she said yes and we LOVE her.

I'll be happy when my sprained thumb is healed and I can play piano with 2 hands again rather than just left hand!

Accompanying a party of pissed 30-somethings singing christmas carols, with free booze and goulash afterwards. It's 3am and I've just got in. Fun times.

PS. Pissed = Drunk

Shura Cherkassky's Chopin preludes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1F1oo7e85E

YAY on all accounts!

Well, this was yesterday, but my teacher and I set my rep for next semester and I spent an hour or so last night doing the preliminary breakdowns of the pieces into number of measures and major sections! SO stoked on what we chose.

Today I spent a good few hours chatting with a pretty girl. That is all.

I need some of that.

But for now, it makes me happy to just have a little piano time in the midst of all this school stuff.

Yesterday I knew that the Christmas season has come to San Francisco. I tuned for a Dance-Along Nutcracker.

I'm happy, because I was able to make 3 other people happy today excluding myself. My wife, my daughter in law to be and one of my two sons.... Making other people happy by giving of ourselves, our time, volunteering or something else is wonderful too.

, since emigrating to the US, I've dropped 'pissed' (and knackered) from my vocabulary. My Yank friends tend to get confused.

Yesterday I had my piano juries and my performance of my pieces, although not the best I'v ever done, was certainly the best I've done for my piano teacher and the rest of the piano faculty at school.

I was happy that my jury is over, byt I'm not very happy that I had a mediocre performance at the jury because I got nervous(again), and unhappy that my request to get into another teacher's studio was rejected by the professor after my jury.

I woke up.

I had a mild cold, no temperature and I couldn't hear too well. I could hear the piano when I played but I couldn't hear the phone ring or hear people speaking only seeing their lips move. I eventually went to emergency and they looked at my ears and said they look damaged and clean out the ears but they only had the handheld thing they put to their eye when they look in the ears as opposed to the ear clinic which had a camera in the ears and monitor screen . I only put drops of mineral oil in my ears to clear out the wax. Well, emergency referred me to the ear clinic and today I saw the ear doctor who said my ears are not damaged and the doctors thinks there is water behind the ears is how the doctor explained and to return in a couple of months and if the ears haven't drained, they will put drains in my ears which I have had before. I was very happy I could hear every morning so I thought I was okay with everything, but when the doctor said there was no ear damage, I was extremely happy, which means I was worried, and my ears are getting better everyday. It is not easy to get new ears for Christmas.

I woke up with flu-like symptoms (probably caught something from a coughing student on Monday), but by late afternoon it was like nothing ever happened, and I was able to teach a full day's lessons.

I love my immune system.

I sight read through two Beethoven Sonata movements without much difficulty - mvt.1 of 31 no 2 and mvt. 1 of 31 no 3. HUGE feeling of success. A year ago I couldn't have even come close.

Congratulations! What changed to allow you to do this this year that you couldn't do this last year? In other words, what did you do to get to this point?

Consistent piano practice? Exposure to more works? Being asked with an hours notice to accompany singers for auditions/performance/other things that forced my sight reading to get better? Being given larger amounts of music to learn in shorter periods of time? Being around musicians who are far better than me and being forced to step up to their level? Not 100% sure what it was! I assume it was just a combination of all of that! I'm just SO happy about it! Sight reading has always been my downfall because I was taught for 8+ years by ear and didn't learn to read till about 5 years ago. Hopefully in another year I won't have to be embarrassed when asked to sight read in class [of course, in a year I won't have class to be in any longer....]

Was able to play the first 3 measures of Chopin op.25 no.6 FULL SPEED perfectly, just one time though...something weird about this piece, it gives me such a rush.

A big dividend payment! Plus a really worn out old upright that over the years, I have managed to make sound almost decent.

HOLY I can play the right hand of op.25 no.6 almost full speed (minus the few spots I don't really have memorized)...Spent less than 4 hours on it so far, I'm pretty pleased with this.

After having only worked on my new rep since Friday, I can play the first two and a half pages of Chopin 25 no 1 at a near performance tempo with pretty accurate musical competence [If I take it to about 3/4 speed I can bring out everything], I can play hands separate, at tempo, for the first two pages of 10 no 4 and hands together at speed for the first 8-10 measures, and I learned to entire first movement of Beethoven 27 no 1! Quite a productive weekend, .

Listening to Kylie Minogue singing "Shocked" . . well, ya did ask . . .

Surfing on a crisp California winter morning with great friends, beautiful waves, and we were in the water before the sun broke the horizon. Always a good start to a day!

Bloody he** man, some of us can but dream . . . Rain on, harvest moon . . (asterix denote automatically altered letters! lol)

. Perks of living on the on the south west coast of the United States! Sometimes location is everything.

Also I'm getting my piano tuned today, so it'll be like having an old friend back! And the tech that came gave me more reason I should strongly consider replacing my piano with a grand, so it looks like it's about time to have another conversation with my parents about logistics of doing that. We'll see how it goes, .