I’m slowly trying out these Book Two songs with the accompaniment tracks that came with the book.  My first foray into playing with accompaniment was Book One’s Gavotte, and with that piece I had to find the accompaniment online; I don’t have the Book One CD.  I’m still happy to be working on Gavotte daily –  I have in mind that it’s my little showpiece.  I also want to work up the Brahms Waltz like that, so I’ve begun, and it’s a real challenge.  But otherwise, I’m not too sure what I’m doing with these accompaniment tracks.

One thing I’m doing is getting faster.  Musette is a fugue-like Bach ditty, and on the accompaniment track it really moves like the wind.  I just tried it for the first time yesterday and was shocked – my first attempt resulted in not being able to find any fingerhold at all, and I just stood there and laughed at myself as the music utterly passed me by.  I took a step back from the accompaniment and just started to play the thing fast, trying to work up to the speed of the track.  I played it on my own, over and over again, as fast as I could, WAY past the boundaries of what I can do properly – it sounded terrible as the only thing I cared about was speed.  Faster, faster, faster….touch the string and move on.  Get the note half right and keep going.

20 minutes later, I was somewhat surprised to be playing it at probably double the speed I had been able to produce prior.  But I still have to double it again if I’m going to keep up with this accompaniment track!  I’m looking forward to seeing where I’m at with it today.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan