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Record and post the larghetto from Chopin's op 11 concerto, and Chopin's nocture op 9 nr 3.

1. Reading. Read something new every day, whether it is sight reading easier fare or slogging through a few measures of more advanced material, just keep reading. Continue with the Read/Sing/Play of Bach's Invention #8 as per the reading exercise suggested by one of our members.
Ran out of gas on invention 8 when recital crunch time intruded, didn't get every day but read on lots of days. Did more fake book reading/improv plus throw aways instead. Grade=B-

2. Technique. Continue working on tension and relaxed concentration/focus. Continue speed work in scales. lots of improvement, but still have a ways to go. Last year I was kind of stuck on 70bpm playing 4 notes to the beat on my scales...up to 92 now, but been stuck again for a bit and working on the underlying tension holding things back. Grade=B+

3. Practice habits. Continue MOYD at 2-3 hours a day. STOP practicing when it isn't working and do something else for a while. Reduce everything to smaller and smaller steps. GO SLOWER. I put the hours in, missing no days except travel away from home. Still have days I think are inefficient in retrospect. More focus and walk away when its not working still required. Grade=C

4. Performance. Participate in my teacher's spring recital and host pre-recital "practice session" for the adult students. Submit more things to the piano bar or ABF recitals. Jam with one of my guitar-playing buddies. Got most of these done. Could have done a few more submissions and I never got the jamming session in. Grade B+

5. Pieces. I think I may be better off not setting a time-related goal for getting to any particular piece of music.... I will get there when I'm ready. Despite my best intentions I had to constantantly check myself against setting artificial time-related limits/goals that I believe only screw up my learning process. Grade=D (I'd make it an F, but at least I'm aware that I do it)

6. New this year. I have decided to start holding on to more of my pieces and will see if I can have a little more of a repertoire at this time next year. As the pieces get harder and time invested in each longer, it seems a shame to just let them go when completed to my teacher's satisfaction. She agrees and thinks it will be good for me. A handful of jazz standards and two or three of my harder classical pieces would be a good start and something to shoot for by year-end. I'm not sure how much time I will have to give to this effort, but it will come in the evenings, which I usually reserve for "playing".
Managed to retain three classical pieces, a jazz piece I already had retained last year, plus the revival of a jazz piece from a prior year. I have found I can let them slip for a week or two and they come back easier each time. Approach and schedule for keeping up could be more organized Grade=A-

JimF

Next year.....grade D?