More Bluthner/Lilliburlero Humour

Been getting between 15 mins and an hour each day.  The dance studio where the Bluthner is located gets incredibly hot, this weather.  It's got floor to ceiling windows on one side, and despite blinds that side of the studio's like a 20x100 ft radiator.

Anyway, I've done a few scales, Hanons, etc, but mostly it's been Lilliburlero.  I had to work with the sheet music again until end of last week, but I've got it (re)committed to memory again now. I can play it over and over, mistake free. The tempo's improving, but it's still not at Marching speed yet, though it's no longer a lullaby.  But I had a brainwave this afternoon: the tune as I've learned it has become a tune of its own, with that tempo, and slight rests at points which were difficult, and even though I've mastered them, the hesitations have become embedded.

So the next stage is to listen again as I play, and make it musical.

In the bigger picture, I'm going back to the Mozart Minuette from the ABRSM Grade 1 pieces when I'm done with Lilliburlero.  And then the other two pieces for the Grade 1, still haven't decided which, yet.  I was for a while going bareback, just for crashing on learning folk tunes, but I've been thinking about this a lot, and  in the absence of a teacher I really need the structure I'll get from the Grades.

And I need to get Grade 1 before the syllabus changes, next year.  So, incentive, and a bit of a hurry up if I'm going to get back to my original Grade-a-year schedule. Well, scrub the conditional, that's what I am going to do, a Grade each year, starting in 2014, so Grade 8 in 2022.

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