A Slow and Steady Progress

Over the five-day break, I was finally able to play Carlos Gardel’s “Por Una Cabeza.” Although I played slightly under the suggested tempo, I could play the slurs with ease. Hopefully one day, I will reach the recommended tempo, but for now, I am happy that I can play the song from start to finish without any major mishaps. I will continue to work on perfecting the piece and plan on preparing a performance in front of my family for feedback. I have decided to split the song into sections and repeatedly play each section until I reach the tempo since I find that the method works when I am practicing a new song on the piano.

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Additionally, I have always been intrigued by the theme song from the Phantom of the Opera because of the powerful emotion displayed in the chords. I also decided to practice the song over the break to get a feel of the emotion. The song is riddled with chromatic scales in the beginning and transitions to a more intense, higher-pitched melody. My intonation on the chromatic scale is a little off because it is hard to shift to the right note at such a fast tempo. Furthermore, I am finding it difficult to carry out the vibrato in the later half of the song. I plan on playing each note in the chromatic scale as a quarter note and slowly putting the notes together as I fully grasp the tempo.

I have learned that it is easier to start slow on sections of a piece and gradually increase the tempo rather than playing the entire song at a slower pace and increasing the tempo. Additionally, I have learned that although the chromatic scale is easy to play on its own, when putting it into context, it is difficult to play each note in tune. For myself, I noticed that I tend to be overconfident when approaching a song, which explains the lazy attitude I have towards each of the songs. I also noticed that it is hard for me to vibrato because I have been maintaining the same incorrect posture for 7 years. I plan on implementing some posture exercises throughout the following week to break the habit.

Next week, I am going to work on improving the current songs because I have a lot of assignments coming up, making it very difficult to start practicing new songs. I plan on sending recordings to some of my orchestra friends for feedback and possibly picking out a simple song for a duet.