Jan 20 (Var 3)

Hi! Thanks for reading :)

Did you know that so far I'm only playing half of this variation? There's a page turn after it and I haven't been brave enough to make it. Maybe tomorrow. The good news is, we're making progress here. The stuff I've been drilling is starting to go a lot more smoothly, although there are still plenty of stops and starts. A lot of those are for fingering rather than notes, now, which is kind of interesting to me. That means I'm playing the right note with the wrong finger, which means what I'm learning is the notes, and not the muscle movements that play those notes. That's good news, because I've definitely learned some other pieces mechanically; if I get lost in one of those, good luck finding my way back. But if it know the *notes*, then I can just pause, breathe, and start again.

Still, I'm missing those fingerings.

There's an awesome moment toward the end of this first half that I missed both times through. I'm sorry. I actually took the repeat just because I wanted another shot at that moment. I hope you notice how smoothly that last measure goes, though -- that's a little trick from Jane Bell, who taught me in college. She told me to always practice the last measure first, that way I can always finish strong. It's good advice for a piece like this, when it's *struggle struggle struggle struggle aaahhhhhh*.

Mentioning the repeats, I should probably address them. Sometimes they're optional and sometimes they aren't (i.e., sometimes Bach gives a first and second ending and sometimes it's just the repeat bar). Mr. Feltsman takes all the repeats, but he plays an octave higher the second time through (coach doesn't like that). I don't know about others, but I imaging I'll be skipping them in general. None of the variations is all that long by itself, but taken together we're talking more than an hour of music. No need to draw that out any longer than necessary. A lot of times on these recordings, I'll take a repeat if I make a mistake the first time through that I don't think I should've made; it's a chance for redemption. I'd say my redemption rate is like 50-50.

OK, enjoy! And thanks for listening :)