Wednesday’s lesson was big – we made it all the way to the end of Gavotte by Mignon, including the final pizzicato notes and finishing it off with two strummed chords (arpeggio, a word for which I had previously learned a more limited definition).  The piece is really something – as I continue to work on it I’m finding many challenges.  The biggest is returning to the major key after a section that detours into a minor sound for two lines.  It’s yet another manifestation of the difficulties I have with nailing B and B flat, amongst other notes like E flat versus fourth finger E versus open E string, or D Natural and D Sharp on the A string – the piece changes it all up all the time and keeping all the notes in tune is murder, at least to those within earshot!

I was getting hung up on being in tune a little too much for Teacher’s taste – she told me to just play it and let my worries about perfect tune go for a bit so I could work on flow and appreciating the overall feel of the piece.  That’s something we have to work on as karate students too – we can fixate on perfection to the detriment of the overall work being done.

And, for the third time, I asked teacher to show me the A minor scale.  This time she mentioned that there are really three – Natural, Melodic, and Harmonic.  I’m very confused by that.  I just read Wikipedia on the subject and I’m still very confused.  I think I want to understand it sooner than later, but I’ll save the exploration for another post.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan