SPACED OUT

Instead of one practice session of 60 to 90 minutes, I spaced today's practice out into a number of 10 or 15 minute sessions. Given what I was doing today, that helps to prevent both fatigue and boredom.

I began the day by warming up with the usual scales and arpeggios, and then attacked the left hand trill in Invention #7.

I practiced the trill in segments of increasing length.  The trill lasts 9 full beats, which feels like a month when I'm playing it.  I played it, left hand alone and then with the right hand, for one beat, then two beats, then three beats, and so on.  That really seemed to help me to play it crisply and in tempo. No increase in tempo today -- still working on getting it to be totally easy at the current tempo. Practicing the trill is intense and so short bursts of practice keep from tightening up.

For Invention #9, which I just started to learn yesterday, I ran through each hand alone, worked separately on the ornaments in the middle and at the end, and then began putting the whole thing together at about half my target tempo.  It's not a fast piece to begin with, so half tempo is quite slow.  Doing several short practices prevents boredom, and helps me to resist the temptation to start off playing it too fast or to increase the tempo prematurely.  "Allen" commented on February 13 that it's important to go slowly enough to avoid mistakes. That way, there are fewer mistakes to correct later because you prevent wrong pathways from ever appearing to begin with.

I think I'll go practice a little bit.