Stubborn Brain

Today I'm breathing better and feeling much more myself overall. I had a good night's sleep; or I did until wife came in from night shift and woke me up to take care of our needy cat Gregory who was preventing her from going to sleep. You see, if Gregory wants attention he claws very loudly against his scratching toy in the bedroom. It seems his food bowl was low, which made him anxious and he wanted someone to see to it immediately. So Gregory was working his scratching post for all he was worth. I arose, groggy and mumbling, to see to this feline emergency, and soon all was well. I noticed I was much less wheezy and more energetic, and a large cup of coffee later ready to tackle the day. I went to the post office to mail some stuff and the line was out into the lobby. Oy. Not a good way to stumble into a day. I was ready for the comfort of a little piano practice.

I moved to the next section (marked section "6" in my breakdown) of Christofori and began practicing the Hands-Together parts and they came together a bit nicely. This is the section just before the first crescendo, which I'm greatly anticipating. When I make it to that point, I've passed the halfway point--and the most difficult parts, from what I can see. The rest is just repetition of earlier themes building to a second crescendo, then a wind-down to the ending.

I'm having some trouble incorporating the new fingering into section "5" however. My middle-aged brain, stubborn to accept changes, is resisting the new fingering we worked out last Friday. I've practiced it over and over and I usually play it--if I'm diligent and focused, but if I look away or am distracted for an instant, my fingers return to the old pattern. Furthermore, the new pattern seems to have nudged out memory of the latter part of the melody. I've stumbled over once-familiar phrases and passages. I've just started from ground zero and play the passages very slowly until my brain catches up. Over time habituation should kick in and everything will sort itself out.

The Entertainer is coming along too, also slowly, but it is a much more difficult piece. I have the entire first passage committed to memory and can play it very slowly Hands-Together, but I can play it. The secret really does seem to play very slowly, get the rhythms down, then allow speed to come naturally. I've learned finger patterns already that, as I recall, seemed awkward and alien when I first attempted them, and now my hands play them almost by themselves.

It just takes time for my stubborn brain to give in and become comfortable with new ideas. I sometimes see my brain as an old man sitting on a porch polishing a shotgun shaking his fist yelling "You kids get off my lawn!"