Category Archives: 31 Day Challenge

31 days of blogs that describe the life of an on-the-go pianist

Musical Pop-ups: Practice Schedules

Sometimes I’m asked to accompany one special during the course of a month. Sometimes I’m asked to accompany two or more specials during a month.

For the two or more specials, finding time to practice can be a challenge.

Remembering when I said I would practice is also a challenge.

Take yesterday, for example.

During the day, I received a text asking if I could practice that night at church. Of course, I replied. I said I would try to get there early (hence scheduling practice before the service and not after.)

Now, I was raised to keep my word. So if I say I’m going to practice, I need to be there.

Since I’m a busy person, I need all the help remembering what comes next.

To help me, I set a reminder on my phone. I set the reminder to alert me early enough so I could leave the house in time. (I live 30 minutes away from church.)

It worked and I made it to practice on time.

Also yesterday, I received a text to check my email about practice with another group. I checked my email, saw the question about practicing next week, and replied that I could practice at that time.

They replied that I will get another email with more specific practice details. Something to look forward to for next week…

How do you schedule practice times?

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Piano and Cowboy Boots

8 Replies

I’m very picky about what shoes I wear to play the piano.

Flats don’t work. Wedges don’t work.

Heels do work, but not too thin of a heel. Not too chunky either. (I’d take chunky over thin, though.)

So, this week I’m faced with a dilemma.

Our church has a special Sunday this Sunday called Fall Festival Day. It’s a day where the service is more casual and somewhat of a western theme.

It’s a day where cowboy(girl) boots are the “in” footwear. And, yes, I do own cowboy boots. And I love them.

My boots

But I’ve never played the piano in them.

I have played wearing winter boots before, and I didn’t like it. The boots were just below the knee, and when I lifted my foot for the pedal, the boot rubbed against my leg in a very weird way.

I really want to wear my boots. If I don’t wear them, I’m not sure what shoes I would wear.

Decisions, decisions.

What do you think? Would you wear cowboy boots to play the piano? Have you done it before?

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Chinese Food and Piano

4 Replies

image

I was in the Sunday morning service and knew something was wrong.

Usually, I try to have coffee and eat something somewhat substantial on Sunday morning…especially if I’m playing for the morning service. I don’t have low blood sugar, but there are times when I feel lightheaded or weak or “out of it” if I haven’t had enough to eat.

This is how I felt when I started to play for the soloist. I had already played a ten minute prelude, played for four congregational songs, and the choir special.

I didn’t remember eating. I didn’t remember what had happened up to this point in the service. All I knew was that I couldn’t focus. My head was spinning and I felt all wobbly.

During the middle of the song, my hands started playing the wrong notes. I heard the notes as if they were in a tunnel. The soloist turned and looked at me questioningly.

I tried to recover. I had to keep going. Concentrate. Focus.

Nothing was working. Where were my hands? I couldn’t even see my music.

I would never live this down…

…I stirred and opened my eyes. Where was I?

Oh, it was a dream. It didn’t really happen. I’m in bed on a Saturday morning.

Whew. Praise the Lord!

Yes, I really did have this dream Friday night/Saturday morning. It was so real.

I don’t normally remember my dreams, but this one stuck with me.

I even went and practiced the song for the soloist for the next morning. Amazing how motivation works!

I was telling this story to my sister (who didn’t believe at first that I really had that dream), and she reminded of the time when she actually experienced this in real life.

I’m very thankful it was just a dream. I’m also thankful it happened Friday night instead of Saturday night, or I might have really been freaked out.

Sunday morning (the “real” Sunday morning), I remembered to have coffee and eat something with sustenence. And, thankfully, the worship service went well, even though my arms were a little tired when I was done.

Oh…the Chinese food, you ask? Couldn’t you guess? That was my dinner Friday night. It worked almost as good as pizza.

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Sunday Lyrics: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

1 Reply

photo by http://www.pixmac.com

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Saturdays: Catch Up and Prep Up

1 Reply

Saturday is probably my favorite day of the week. Normally, I try to plan very little for Saturdays to allow myself to take a deep breath and catch up from the week.

And I have caught up today, but I haven’t really taken a deep breath until now.

With all the earlier prep in the week for my first week of piano lessons, I neglected some of my housework. (Don’t worry…my music room looked great!)

So the majority of today has been spent catching up on house-cleaning, picking up random clutter (it’s always random it seems), doing loads of laundry (yes, pun intended), and going to the grocery store.

I kept thinking of things that needed to be done, so I put them all in my iPad for me to mark “completed” once they were done. I only have six left of twenty-one!!

Some of those tasks included prepping for Sunday’s worship service. I practiced the accompaniment for a solo, put all my music in order on my iPad, and looked over the songs for any transitions/modulations.

I also need to prep a little bit for lessons next week. Thankfully, last week I did lessons plans for the entire semester, so I won’t have to do lesson plans each week. (Hurray!)

I’m going to try to relax in a little bit, then head to bed to be fully rested for tomorrow. (A horrible night’s sleep on a Saturday night makes for a miserable attempt at playing the piano.)

How have you spent your Saturday? Relaxing? Working? Playing?

However you did, I hope you enjoy(ed) it to the fullest!

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Friday Fun Fact: Piano Parts

1 Reply

(Sorry for the lateness of this post, but I’ve had a busy Friday. At least it’s Friday!!)

Did you know…

While a piano may seem like a simple instrument to operate, it has more than 12,000 parts, 10,000 of which are moving. The extensive number of moving parts is one reason why tuning a piano can be such an involved process.

Happy Friday!

Source: http://blog.sheetmusicplus.com/2012/06/06/top-10-little-known-facts-about-the-piano/

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

On this day…25 years ago…

4 Replies

Today’s date holds a special meaning for me.

Nope, it’s not my birthday.

Twenty-five years ago, on October 3rd, I started taking piano lessons. I was seven years old, and my mom dropped me off at my teacher’s house and watched me walk up to the door. According to my mom, I rang the doorbell then turned and waved excitedly at my mom, and sort of bounced up and down with excitement.

I don’t remember all of that, but I do remember that I was very excited about learning to play the piano. I had been wanting to learn how to play since I was five.

I would sit in church and watch the church pianists in awe, wishing that someday I could play like them.

My dad told me that if I really wanted to play the piano, I should pray for us to be able to get a piano. So, of course, I prayed with child-like faith. And on Christmas Day when I was six, I got my answer to prayer. You can see my huge smile in the picture below.

I was one very excited 6 year old!

I’m very thankful to say that twenty-five years later, I’m still playing the piano. And I’m the one now sitting at the piano with little girls looking up to me. I don’t take that responsibility for granted.

I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed playing every day of those twenty-five years. Have I ever wanted to quit? YES! Have I gotten worn out? YES! But, with the Lord’s help, I haven’t quit. And, for the majority of those twenty-five years, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I couldn’t have done any of this without the support of my parents. They never complained about paying for lessons, or driving me to the teacher’s house, or hearing the same song played over and over and over and over.

I was telling my mom the other day that this twenty-five year anniversary was coming up. She said that all the money and time that they invested was totally worth it. She never once regretted it or thought about how she could have used that money elsewhere.

Also, my sister (and my closest friend) encouraged me. Part of her “encouragement” was by playing my hard-practiced songs by ear without practicing…but that just motivated me more. She also was there when I wanted to quit and helped me keep going. (Thanks, sis!)

There have been five private piano teachers over those twenty-five years, and they all influenced me both musically and socially and spiritually.

Throughout the years, there have been numerous people (too many to count or name) that have encouraged me in my piano music.

Playing for a Cystic Fibrosis Benefit Concert in 2011

Lastly, my husband is my constant supporter. He thinks it is “so cool” that he can have a private concert anytime he wants.

Twenty-five years (yes, a quarter of a century) have come and gone, and I still love playing the piano!

Here’s to twenty-five more years!

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Musical Pop-ups

3 Replies

So yesterday was one of those days where I truly felt like an on-the-go pianist. From the time I started my day until I went to bed, I had the following “musical pop-ups”:

(in random order, unless I can get them in order)

(remember, these are not complaints; just an idea of how music follows me throughout the day)

1. Received emails with comments, notifications, likes, etc. from my recent blog posts. (I love all of these…keep them coming!)

2. Sent text to soloist for Sunday to check on music for their solo.

3. Received text back from soloist that music with recording should be emailed sometime that day.

4. Realized I needed another set of piano books for student coming that night, so I ran to the music store on lunch to grab the books. (Yay, they had them all in stock!)

5. Received emails from soloist with sheet music and audio recording.

6. Put my headphones in and listened to the recording.

7. Emailed soloist about practice.

8. Emailed driving directions to parent.

9. Prepped for lessons – filled water bottle, grabbed Listerine mint strips (love those things!), made sure pens and pencils were handy.

10. Gave three piano lessons.

11. Worked on lesson plans for upcoming students.

And all this is in addition to work, commuting to and from work, quick run to the grocery store (after lessons), putting away the groceries, eating dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, and feeding and taking care of the dogs.

But I was on such an adrenaline rush after teaching, I was glad to go to the grocery store and walk it off.

I’m looking forward to more musical pop-ups this week!

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!

Let the Fun Begin (again)

2 Replies

I’ve been teaching piano lessons for over 15 years. Now I haven’t taught for 15 years straight, but my teaching still covers a span of 15 years. And I love giving lessons. It’s fun.

For the last year or so, I took a break from teaching lessons; mainly because I got married.

Today, the fun begins (again). Tonight, I’ll start teaching piano again, and I’m very excited and nervous.

Why excited?

Because I love playing the piano. And I love to see young people want to learn to play the piano. I’m excited because teaching piano is a way that I can plant seeds in future church pianists. I won’t be around forever.

Why nervous?

Because I want to do a good job. I want to explain the concepts clearly in a way that the students can learn and want to continue learning. I want to make learning piano and music a fun experience. I want my students to love playing the piano as much as I do.

I want to be successful and help them succeed as well.

So, here we go. All the prep work has been done. Books are ready to be opened and marked in. The house has even been cleaned (thanks to my awesome husband)!

All we have to do now is let the fun begin (again)!

This post is part of a series I’m doing this month called “On-the-Go Pianist.” Click here to see all the posts!