tonguing, clean legato, 2 practices a day

I just came from a lesson. This one was different and quite interesting. I did not play very well, kind of a combination I think, of:

• Have not worked as much on my lesson material, due to focusing on symphony material;
• Have not had a good long practice since Monday - two days since then of light practice;
• My mouth was dry - ha, it really was, and I should have asked for a drink of water;
• It has been a long time since I've had a lesson and as Jack says, that meant he couldn't correct my bad habits than snuck in.
  
• And I just was not playing that well.

What was so different, though, was that I just took it in stride. I totally botched several things we were playing as duets and I just stuck with it, picked up where I could, stayed with the music and didn't lose my place. That's a big difference than even just a few months ago.

I didn't get frustrated, didn't feel bad about myself, left light-hearted. Sometimes you just don't play too well and you always want to, particularly for your teacher, but sometimes you just don't. And that is it, and getting frustrated or down on myself helps not one whit.

Jack of course was completely cool about it. My remembrances, though, from this lesson, are: Clean tonguing, clean legato, and do my best to return to two practices a day. I would say my biggest problem continues to be not tonguing cleanly. Oh, and we did an exercise with my troublesome G: D - E - F - G - A - G - F - E - D, clean attack on each note, playing the G with a sharp second, dropping the slide for the A, precise.

So, let me set my goal for tomorrow. I'll practice at lunch tomorrow. I'll do my warm up and I'll work on the first Beeler exercise on my list, at lunch. My goal with this one is to play the tricky parts quickly enough that I can keep it in 2 and not wander into 4 with it. Ha! I just booked an hour and a half on my work calendar for lunch (I've already worked extra this week), so if I have more time, I will work on the 4th movement of the Shostakovich at lunchtime, too.

Lessons are motivating forces.