It's kind of funny but...

[1piano4joe]

I can't play the beginning.

The form is A, B, A1, Coda.

I started at the back with the Coda. These three measures took 3 days to get up to tempo. I'm guessing I needed to develop the technique for those measures but was happy that I was making progress and not hitting a wall. So far so good.

Next, I tried the A1 section. These three measures (in three days again), I managed to get up to 77% of performance tempo. Well, I'll come back to this later. I'm getting bored with this section.

The "B" section I only spent 1 day on and attained 58% of full tempo in a short amount of time compared to the other sections. Not too bad I thought to myself...I want to practice some more, why don't I try the "A" section.

The "A" section "looks" simple enough. It is 1 measure longer at 4 measures but one of the measures is very similar to one in the A1 section and another measure very similar to one in the "B" section. So, I figured, this shouldn't be so bad...right?

I only pulled off 50% of final tempo. I'm thinking my fingers were fatigued from all the repetitions/exercises I created previously. It's been only 1/2 a day of practice so maybe that's good progress.

I gradually joined section by section as they were learned. I added the A1 section to the Coda section at the slower A1 tempo (which still needs work) for a total of 6 measures. This sounds nice so I patted myself on my back.

Then I added the "B" section (which really needs some more work) at an even slower tempo but hey why not. So, I'm playing measures 5 to 13 at close to 60% final tempo. This is coming along I thought to myself.

Maybe I should just play the whole thing from the beginning, so I did, slowly at 50% tempo. Could this be good progress for only 5 days total?

Each piece I learn is different and  each one requires a different amount of time depending on previous knowledge, skills and practice method devised. I have learned over 100 Grade 1 pieces and close to 100 Grade 2's and can usually learn one at full tempo in about an hour now, where years earlier, maybe it took a week.  I really don't remember as it was so many years ago.

I'm not always certain what I can tackle and what I can't. Some pieces are starting to get kinda "hairy" (for me anyway). I don't like to murder pieces that I can't play well and I find it especially frustrating to spend so much time on a piece only to get bored with it and come back to it many years later which I have done. Hasn't everybody?

This is a Grade 5 RCM Etude called "Supernova" by Canadian composer, Nancy Telfer for those who are curious. There is maybe only one halfway decent performance of this at 104 bpm on YouTube. This piece has been removed/replaced on the more recent 2015 syllabus for whatever reason.