a little overwhelmed

[carazymcmahon]

Long story short (if you dont want to read the 2 paragraphs below). I am transitioning from a light work load to a HUGE work load (for me atleast) and from average pieces to challenging pieces, some in verrry unfamiliar styles. How should I go about practicing these pieces? Which first, which more, etc?

I am now supposed to learn
Mozart - Concerto 20 K 466
Scarlatti - sonata K 146
Debussy - uh, the interrupted serenade one
Chopin - Etude op 25 no 12
All in less than a year.

I have a tight schedule at times with tennis season just starting and baseball preaseason conditioning/actual season after that.

If I could get some of this straightened out it would mean one less thing to figure out during my senior year. ANY advice would be great.


Some background.
I started piano lessons around 9 years ago (when I was 9). I really wanted to learn and progressed quickly the first and second year but after that second year my motivation went away. I didn't practice much and had little interest in piano music. Two years ago, this all changed when I was introduced to Chopin.

I started the Nocturne op 9 no 2 and loved it. Not technically challenging but actually interesting to listen to. Then came youtube, where I eventually found FI. It amazed me, and I was determined to learn it (please dont flame me ). I worked on it on the side on my own for about 6 months, then with my teacher for another 3 months. After festival (about 6 months ago) my teacher passed me on to the head of the piano department at the university, James Winn (he's won some awards and used to be the pianist for the NY city ballet) and I think it's a pretty huge opportunity to be able to study with him. I don't want to lose it because I don't really know how to practice.
I have asked him indirectly but more opinions always help.

[carazymcmahon]

anybody??

[hyrst]

It depends entirely on your learning style and different drives and capacities.

However, I would recommend beginning with the hardest sections of the concerto and the last movement of the Sonata - learning and memorising as much of the notes as possible.  I would spend practice time reseraching and analysing the other pieces while you are learning the notes of the mosst difficult parts.

I would then focus on either the Debussy of the Chopin - whichever you preferred - and the slower movements.  I would give either Debussy or Chopin several intensive days straight.  Keep the work you have done played while you do this, but not as a focus. 

Then spend a couple of weeks consolidating the learning of all work to that point. 

Spend a period learning the notes reamining with your pieces, or tiem focused on the reamining Debussy or Chopin. 

Reserach and deconstruct the remaining theory work while beginning to develop your concerto into a whole work.

Finally, you shoudl have several months to alternaate beteen building consistent performance tempo and voicing the melody/harmony lines of your pieces.  THis allows you to alternate focus on different  techniques every couple of days. 

Estimate your practice time per week and include any liekly interruptions or holidays over the year.  Write your self a schedule for goals and commencemtns of various tasks.  If you are  ahead, you can either relax or take advatnage to work on a different section of the project.  If you are running short on the deadlines you have set, you need to spend some extra time.

Essentially, you are looking at project management and your own learning style.  I find it best to start the most intimidating or apparently complex sections first and not to take in too many new notes or large sections without consolidating it.  I also find that it is easy to neglect analytical / historical research - which is fuundamental to playing pieces properly.  (My habits tends to be analyse a piece before I start playing it and then put the history off (which includes listening to related works), which suffers my playing and my performance is not as confident because I am hoping my neglect doesn't show.)  If you do research while you are learning notes, you can cover two tasks at once while neural learning the notes. 

Setting your own goals and  deadlines is central to project management.  Also, if there are parts you really want to learn and parts you wish you didn't have to, it can work well to do a deal with yourself to learn some of the intimidating work and reward yourself by then working on some of the fun or enjoyable work. 

Don't leave any work you have done for too long before reveiwing it properly - for me a week is about as far as I can go without deteriorating all i have done.  But, sometimes I need to leave things for a while (2 to 3 weeks) - especially if the technique is demanding or the tempo fast - because relearning can help me find the correct technique if I have learnt the notes at a slow speed or go thorugh a time when it just doesn't work.  An intense revisiting comes after leaving it, though - several days work for me.

This is a lot of stuff, hopefully helpful.  It is how I approach laarger projects.  It isn't  too specific to your pieces, but I think you need to find the exact approach based on your own needs.  Start with a general overview and then decide what is right for you.