New year struggles….

I confess that it has been a while since my last blog entry. Whilst I haven’t been writing, I have still been playing, although there has been the odd blip along the way……….

Over Christmas, I thought that practice would be easy. I was at home, with all the time in the world because there was no work. Wrong! The minute my early morning routine ended, all of a sudden, I couldn’t find time in the day to practice any more. I was far too busy doing…… well, actually, I’m not sure what!

When we came back I did make a big effort to pick things up again and get back on track with my practice. Things went well for the first couple of weeks, but then I was really busy with a number of trips, and I was ill, and all of a sudden, today, I found myself, for the first time, going to my lesson knowing that I hadn’t really done enough work. It was uncomfortable to say the least, and I won’t be repeating the experience in a hurry. Now I know how the girls feel!

In terms of progress, I am steadily moving on with my pieces, and gradually my confidence is growing. I am itching to start using the foot pedals but judging by the number of pieces left in the book, this could still be some time in the future. I am still really enjoying playing, but if I am honest, the first excitement of learning has worn off, and there have been one or two days where it has been hard to motivate myself. This isn’t helped by the continuing problems with the school organ. It is almost like it has a personality of its own. When I come in to practise in the mornings, it works fine, but every week when the teacher comes, it throws a hissy fit, and won’t switch on, which means I then have to have my lesson on the electric piano, which is most unsatisfactory. The engineer has visited twice, and can’t find anything wrong with it, as it always behaves perfectly when under scrutiny! This week’s task is to find someone who can give us a second opinion. Fingers crossed! In the mean-time, hopefully, tomorrow morning it will switch on normally, so that I can get back on top of my practice again, and put right some of the work that I didn’t do over the last couple of weeks……… I’ll let you know how it all goes.