Week 3 of the piano adventure

Honestly I'm mostly writing this post to kill time till Chris is asleep enough to play my piano (with headphones on thankyouverymuch ;).  He won't hear me hitting the silent keys if he's asleep but it seems he does notice if I'm doing it while he's trying to fall asleep.  The sole reason this is worth mentioning is that I'm the lightest sleeper on the planet and this - and the light of my kindle - are the only two things I've ever seen that can interrupt his zzz's.   So mostly just amuses me.  But since I am a super light sleeper, I'll also respect the ask and wait till he's out enough to not notice.  It should take about 30 seconds or so ;-P. A skill I'll forever be envious of!

*had a great pic here of a dog sleeping through everything but a treat bag, 

but Blogger has apparently decided not to allow pictures today :(*

So interestingly, when I practice at night I play for longer and get better results.   BUT - I can’t do any of the classes (my headphones can only hear one source at a time) so slightly limiting.   I'm a few days "behind" in the 20 days as a result.  Not that that actually matters at all.  The bigger risk is that if I wait till night to play, the odds that I’ll decide I’m too tired are super high.  So most of the time I practice while C is watching the news, which I - and the dogs apparently - are quite happy to avoid.

When you’re teaching riding (and I imagine most sports, maybe most things in general) there’s a point where you accept less than perfect and don’t ask for “one more time” because you know horse or rider or both are past the point of improvement and will spiral down from that point.  Could be physical or could be mental, but the results are the same and a good coach will catch it and only push for more when there’s more to be gotten.  Well I’m learning the hard way that this applies to piano too.  And I’m sure nobody’s shocked that I push past that point and then get frustrated at how quickly things deteriorate.   Ah well - at least I’m learning the signs and since the bar is at least at ground level now there are a couple things I can actually do correctly so when I hit that point I do one of those to finish with something - anything - correct and move on.  But I’m a LOT happier and more pleased w myself when I manage to self regulate and stop on a legitimate high before I cross that line. But that doesn’t happen often ;).  It’s a fine line that’s v easy to trip over and for a complete beginner everything is hard so it’s a challenge to tell if it’s hard cause it’s new or if it’s hard cause I’m burnt.  A skill that’s *almost* transferable.

While I'm almost through the 20 day program and have gotten some stuff out of it for sure, but admittedly not as much as I'd hoped, I'm just finishing week 2 of the 20 week program.  And it's painful.  It will definitely be the "what you do before the fun stuff" part of playing.  However, I was moderately amused when I flipped back through the program materials to discover it's broken into phases.  They have proper names and real info to them but they’re also labeled: Fun, Not Fun, Fun, SUPER Fun (emphasis is theirs).    Lol and I totally get why as I’m right in the middle of not fun and can say it’s aptly labeled BUT said labels give me hope for sticking it out.

Alright - time to go play now ;).