Monday practice session.

I am out of bed and making coffee on a Monday at 6:00 am.  I am preparing to sit my tush down on the piano bench and get some serious work done.  For the first time in my life I am embracing the ritual of making coffee in the morning. Thanks to Lauren I now have my own little coffee maker, and I drink it out of the mug Melissa gave me years ago.  Thanks sisters.

You can make a cup too.  Decaf is totally an option.  And by the way, that Splenda Nectresse is amazing.

Meet my little sister Lauren if you haven't already.

Lauren and Melissa, the 2 greatest sisters a girl could ask for and two of my very best friends in the entire world.

I am feeling particularly overwhelmed by practicing today.  I recently have found myself in a dither.  My program that I need to play is bigger then anything I have ever played before.  Particularly the Liszt piece I am working on called "Vallee D'Obermann" and the 3rd movement of the Beethoven Sonata in F Major Opus 10 No. 2.  I am to a point where if things don't start coming together then I will need to select new pieces to play.  Playing a program that I can feel proud of is the most important thing to me, not when I get it done or how hard the pieces are.  

It is amazing the process that one must go through in order to effectively perform a piece of music.  One of the biggest challenges for me is developing my own musical ideas then trying to express them the same way I hear it in my head.  I am struggling to match the sound that I want in the Liszt because the technic required is above my playing level.  Last week as I practiced I felt pain in my right arm.  Bad, very bad.  I am under pressure to perform frequently (each Thursday at 11:30 during studio class).  This performance opportunity is really good, but only if I approach it correctly.  I have been pushing through the entire piece no matter how it feels, just to get from the start to the finish.  This is never, ever something I would encourage a student to do.  It is amazing how I find myself falling into the same traps I try to encourage my students to avoid.  My goal for my practice this morning is for it to stay calm, organized, and controlled with a clear focus of what I am trying to do each time a key goes down.  The amount of focus necessary for this type of practicing is intense!  Wish me luck...