ouch!

Rick used to say that in his practice sessions he tries to do exercises, work on something that's a stretch and requires work, and play something beautiful. That's what I did tonight, first my warmup complete with pedals and I'm starting to get what Jack's been talking about, I can bring the flat pedal note up with my upper lip - ha! it works. Then I worked on two of the three marches for the parade. I'm working hard on these. I want to keep working hard on these and it would be great if I could memorize them.

I worked on a few of the other pieces for the marching band concert as well, and then I got out my old Bist du bei mir to sound beautiful. I thought a lot about sounding beautiful while I was working on it. My tone was not the best tonight, a little ragged, but playing on Bist du bei mir I could bend it toward beauty more than I did on the other pieces. It was nice to focus on just playing as beautifully as possible.

And I have a lesson scheduled for Thursday. Happy I am.

Oh, and an edit: The ouch! refers to my hand. It hurts. Middle finger is numb. It cramps at night. But after playing next to Jenny in the concert, I am starting to use my trigger again and now I am conflicted - do I buy a lighter instrument or try to use the bullet brace again? Decisions, decisions.