Lesson 5/07/03

I’m quite liking the new book. In some ways it’s much more of a challenge than the old one. For the most part, I’m unfamiliar with the pieces in the new book, which might make it sound less fun, but that means that I have the challenge of figuring out how a piece is supposed to sound based on the written music. And it can be a challenge, but I feel so good when I figure it out, and it sounds good. The Emperor’s Waltz Theme was a good example of that. I’m still going to be working on Hornpipe — trying to play a bit faster and slur the right notes, but I’m also moving on to the next lesson, which involves The Nutcracker Suite Dance.

I still play a few pieces here and there out of the old one, and I have a book of 50’s songs that I’m trying to play out of. It gives me a chance to practice reading the notes without having to figure out the rhythm at the same time.

Two things: 1) Remember that an accidental (a note that gets changed (sharped, flatted or naturalled) from how it should be played in the given key) is only held through the measure that it is “changed” in. This holds unless it is tied to a note in the next measure. 2) I’ve been hearing a weird kind of resonance or something when I play low C and C#. When I asked about it, Fred said that my embouchure looked beautiful, so it probably wasn’t that, but to also think about pulling back on the mouth piece, or watching to make sure that my fingers aren’t accidentally touching extra keys.