Excuses, excuses

Sometimes I think that what I did INSTEAD of practicing Bach might be more interesting to narrate than the practicing itself.  Last night, for instance, I heard the author Tracy Kidder read from his newest book at my local bookstore.  I hadn't read any Kidder before yesterday, but I planned to go to the reading because I knew my parents liked Kidder's work.  I bought a copy of Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is about Dr. Paul Farmer, a young man who thinks he can do the impossible and goes to Haiti, founds a hospital, and stops at nothing to improve the lives of the people there.  It's an inspiring story, and Kidder makes it an interesting one, too.  A neat tidbit:  Farmer's close friend, Ophelia Dahl, is now the head of Partners In Health, and she spoke at the reading last night. I was one generation away from Roald Dahl!  And I saw one of the main characters in the wonderful book I'm reading.

I also played some folk music with my housemate and his girlfriend.  It was fun.  I hadn't played many of the tunes before, so I learned them by ear.  I can now pick out not just the relative pitches that make up the song but also start on the right note the first time.  I'm getting toward perfect pitch.  I know that my ear is unusually good, so it's fun to show it off and pretend to be modest.  Of course, though, it's hard not to be self-conscious and show off when you pick up a tune just like that and people are impressed. 

As for Bach:  I've practiced twice so far this week.  I haven't gotten very deeply into the Presto Double of the B-minor Partita.  I've worked on the notes of the first half pretty carefully.  That's it.  I am just going to keep going, one movement per week.  Life keeps going, and my practicing will, too.  If I ever did go a week without playing, I would not skip a movement.  But to stop for a week would risk abandoning the project, so I will try to practice every week.   

Sometimes, students go to violin lessons without practicing.  It turns out fine.  It's not like you can't play - you just can't play any better than you could the week before.  And maybe, by chance, you will play better after the week's break.   Say you performed at the low end of your abilities after practicing, then went a week without practicing, and performed again, this time at the high end of your abilities. It would appear that you'd improved, even if your average ability hadn't changed.  It's important to keep going to lessons every week, practice or not, just so that you don't give up.  For the same reason, I need to change movements every week so that I don't give up.