Today being saturday i was able to do what i like without starting at 730!  after dealing with the cats and some email and making a big pot of tea… i made my way to the piano around 11ish.  of course the grocery delivery service came just then.  so 20 mins later, warmed up then work on the Sinfonia of the C minor Bach Partita (#2).  I had worked on this years ago; hadnt finished learning it so the first two pages are familiar but not much of the rest.  I love the grandeur of the opening section – i hear it as all brass in double choirs – and then the contrapuntal fluidity of the middle section leading into the fugal last section.  Right now my main work is learning notes and fingering and getting the patterns in my hands.  I am surprised at how much of that work from beforeis ingrained in my fingers. Lots of very careful and slow work – groups of measures each day.  I have learned the hard way; at this initial stage of learning a mistake made becomes so difficult to correct later. even though I want to rush ahead and read thru and play faster, I hold back and work slowly and deliberately; helps too in keeping my mind focused.

Its funny, i will be working on a passage, maybe repeating a pattern of notes a few times.  i am looking at the notes and realize that my thoughts are off somwhere else –  all kinds of places and memories. Bubbles floating up, bits of lessons and conversations (former teachers – voice and piano) drift in and out and mingle with current problems (how can i keep this drafty apt warm without spending a fortune on oil this winter?) and other daily issues (a particularly annoying work email exchange that started early this morning and continued thru the day) and all the things i need to do (organizing my yarn stash, sorting out the basement, caulking the windows)

Sometimes i push them away and refocus on the task at hand, sometimes i give in and follow them, then stop, refocus on the music, the notes, fingers, – what is the tempo, where am i now?   i stand and stretch, write out the "to do" or just let the annoying episode play out and then refocus to the music at hand.

Odd in a way, hearing those voices from past lessons, conjured up – things i had no idea i would remember years later – but appropriate to the task at hand… funny and weird too.  like a recording that is starting and stopping at random places, nuggets of instruction and information leaking out. i listen and heed the voices or not, then work on, wrapped in the music.

A quiet contentment comes after a day like this.