Pauls Plan to Try It Himself. For Bernhard

[Spatula]

bad dog!  No bones for you!

[00range]

I've had a question on my mind recently regarding my practice, and I thought this was a good place to voice it.

7.   Come the next day, and you simply play RH bars 1 – 2. Perfect? Move on. Not perfect? Try repeating it 6 – 7 times. Perfect? Move on. No signs of improvement? Forget about your plans for this session and repeat the session of the previous day exactly without skipping any step. Do the same for LH an HT. If LH is ok, repeat the previous session only for RH and HT, and do a different LH section. In any case, the previous day you mastered the section by following those steps, so today you will as well. Except that it will take a fraction of the time: 10 minutes instead of 35 minutes. So you still have 10 minutes to tackle the 2 new bars on the RH. Maybe you will not be able to join hands to day. But that is Ok.

Let's say one has sufficiently done all of the previous steps (outlining the piece, listening to different recordings, the investigative stage, etc...) and he finds himself at this stage. If I'm not mistaken, the purpose of this stage is to raise the section of matierial being played to a level where it can be played perfectly on the first repeat of the day after being learned, or, to be able to get this perfect rendition within the first 7 repeats.

If one is tackling a difficult, yet manageable, section and is unable, on the second, third and fourth day to play it perfectly the first go-around, but the time that it takes to get it to 7 perfect repeats is lessening (IE: 1st day takes 27 minutes, 2nd takes 27 minutes, 3rd takes 23 minutes, 4th takes 6 minutes)  is this acceptable, or should I be doing something different?

Here's the section, from Scarlatti Sonata K39, if it matters.


While I'm at it, I have to ask why this version of the score doesn't reflect the piece's key signature. The piece is in A Major, but instead of indicating that in the key signature, it appears to go around and sharp every G. Is this unusual, or is it just me? Below is a link to the piece...

https://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/compositions_b/k039.pdf

Thanks.