Practice Log #9: Perpetual Motion in D Major

Why did I stop doing these logs?
I started them again last week and I forgot how MUCH more I can accomplish in a shorter time frame. And I always get great epiphanies! Probably because I have to really focus on a specific technique.

Last week I discovered I could finally move my pointer finger to help control my bowing. My teacher had said that was what the pointer finger is supposed to do during one of my early lessons, but it finally clicked and I was able to do it! Yaay!! :). I think my right hand finally discovered how to use my thumb as a fulcrum point so that my pointer finger is able to move around a bit.

In retrospect, if I hadn't taken a break from my logs I could have finished two of my method books I was doing on the side! ...darn... Well, I guess, I won't be skipping practice logs for a long period of time any more!

I've also had to cut back on my practice time so I've had to be more efficient in my practice. I work full time and was going to take a full class load (4 classes), and play the cello for fun, but that didn't work out ...totally burning the candle at both ends! :(. So I decided to take 2 classes and practice cello instead while working full time.


Perpetual Motion in D Major:
My attempt of more articulation in bowing. I recorded this after my lesson so I didn't get to work on the things we went over during the lesson.

I'm not ready yet to try double bowing, but I think I figured out how to do the single "preparation bowing" before the double bowing for this piece. I'll record the double bowing and Perpetual Motion in G Major next week or the following week.

I watched a video of my teacher when he was 5 years old playing Perpetual Motion with doubles during his first recital and it was so freakin' ADORABLE!
I'm really tempted to post his video...


My Practice Log:

6 Keys to Achieving Excellence from the blog: http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-keys-to-being-excellent-at.html. Excerpt below:

1. Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.
2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.
3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.
4. Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.
5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.
6. Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to build rituals — specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.