Patricksperanza2013's Blog

Sunday, November 15

patricksperanza2013 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:54:26 +0000

Unfortunately, I’ve been neglecting to post in my individual blog for a time… whoops. But I’m getting back into it now. I have recently returned from a trip to PASIC which was truly an inspiring experience. It really opened me up to a lot of new experiences and kind of percussion that I had really never considered or thought of before. It was a great experience.

Today, I worked through several etudes on snare drum. I also worked my way through some material on vibes. For me, vibraphone seems to be the hardest instrument to phrase correctly. I get a very choppy sound from use of the pedal and have a very difficult time keeping note connected like they are supposed to sound. I will talk to Dr. Barber about this tomorrow in my lesson and try to get some advice on how to fix this difficulty.

Overall, my practicing is going to be geared towards jury pieces now. My snare solo and multiple percussion piece are fine, but my timpani piece and especially marimba really need some work, so I will continue to refine those as time goes on.

Monday, october 12

patricksperanza2013 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:29:58 +0000

This past week, I experimented with the practice technique of using the five minute rule. I found that it works well for me for practicing on things other than my primary instrument. When preparing melodies for musicianship or practicing piano, the five minute works very well. However, I found that when practicing percussion, I focus much better in longer chunks of time. Five minutes is too short and I get distracted if I take that many breaks. I am very capable of practicing continuously in 15-30 minute time slots on most percussion instruments. I usually set bigger goals for my percussion practice sessions. This is the most effective way that works for me.

Mon, tues, wed October 5-7

patricksperanza2013 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:14:45 +0000

Monday- In my lesson today, we spent some time on Fascinating Rhythm. She explained the basic groove of the piece and when to pedal during my solo. This gave me a jump start to start preparing it for thursday’s rehearsal. After vibes, we spent a great deal of time on snare drum. I played another four Aleo etudes and the first colgrass solo. I’m moving on to the third colgrass solo now and continuing as usual in the aleo book. I played my peeler solo for her for the first time. It’s going to be challenging to keep my dynamics down far enough to match the volume of the tape. I really need to focus on that. After snare drum, we did timpani but only got through four lepak etudes before we ran out of time. Overall, it was a good lesson.

I also made recordings for the wind ensemble audition tonight. I will have to redo the timpani ones when I have time because they didn’t turn out so well, but the marimba and snare recordings sound pretty good.

Tuesday- Read through fascinating rhythm. It’s going to be a challenging piece to put together, but I’m glad I have the solo part. I spent a good amount of time today on piano. I am trying to prepare venetian boat song in time for midterms on friday.

Wednesday- I spent alot of time today working on musicianship. I used the five minute rule in my practice today which went pretty well. It’s not my favorite practice technique although I can see the benefit from it. I’m a little worried about the dictation exam tomorrow but all I can do is hope for the best.

Sunday, October 4

patricksperanza2013 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:24:00 +0000

Summing up this past week.

Tuesday- percussion ensemble and went well. My main focus on practicing this day was on snare drum. I read through several aleo etudes and colgrass number 1. Dr barber and I decided that I could work through the Aleo book fairly quickly and move on to new books to expose me to as much as possible. I’m excited to move on to the Delecluse book. The peeler solo is coming along slowly but it’ll get there.

Wednesday- continued work on snare drum and spent some time on marimba. I decided to record the first page of marimba dances for my national wind ensemble audition so I’m going to be spending a lot of time on that. I also spent time on piano today getting ready for my lesson on friday.

Thursday- In percussion ensemble, we began bucket drumming today. It went really well although I’ll have to re-write the intro to accommodate the entrance Dr Barber described. Other than that I’ve been continuing practicing marimba dances for the recording. Also working on snare and piano. Josiah and I started our work on carpe diem today. It’s going to take more work than we originally thought.

Friday- Finally got two solid run throughs of marimba dances today. We had the dress rehearsal for the prism concert today which went well. Other than that continued work on snare drum and timpani. My piano lesson went fairly well. We decided to do the first page of venetian boat song for mid-terms. I’m going to continue working on prelude as well though.

Saturday- prism concert went well. I also got some good practice time on marimba, vibes, snare, and piano today. I’m really struggling with my left hand marching snare technique. I guess its just going to take alot of time and patience to build up that area again.

Sunday- today I got a good amount of practicing in. I worked on snare drum, piano, timpani, marimba, vibes, and carpe diem. Somehow, I still feel like I’m barely keeping up with the workload though. Thank god fall break is in two weeks.

Monday, September 28

patricksperanza2013 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:39:57 +0000

Yesterday, Sunday was the first day I’ve been at school that I actually haven’t gotten in to practice. But I guess its good to make yourself take a break once in a while.

I got up this morning and practiced marimba beginning with goldenberg etudes and scales and finishing up with the duet. I returned in the afternoon to practice my jury piece and scales before theory. I also got in some time on vibes before my lesson.

I felt a little nervous going in to this lesson, but overall it went pretty well. We began on vibes working on the Zivkovic etudes, then moved on to the dampening ones in the Friedman book. Dampening is coming along pretty well, but pedaling is still gonna take some time to get used to. On marimba, we worked through some more double vertical technique before moving on to single alternating strokes for next time. We played through the first two pages of my jury piece, and then went through the goldenberg etudes and scale exercises. Overall, it was a good lesson with a lot accomplished.

After my lesson, I spent some time on the Chopin prelude on piano and group I arpeggios. Then went to grab a quick dinner before coming back for an evening practice.

I started off on timpani working through exercises and etudes in the lepak book. I read through the third movement of my timpani piece, but there was a lot I was unsure of. I’ll have alot of questions for dr. Barber at my next lesson about it. AFter timpani, I moved on to snare drum. I polished Aleo etudes 3 number 7, then sightread through number 11. I worked on Colgrass number 1 after that and my peeler piece. I finished off the night with Blue Stars exercises for auditions.

Thursday, September24

patricksperanza2013 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:22:30 +0000

I spent the morning working on Drumset out of the chapin and Lepak books. Before percussion ensemble, I got in some time on vibes working on zivkovic and friedman etudes. Percussion ensemble went well today. Pulse is finally coming along, and were consistently finishing each rehearsal early.

After percussion ensemble, I worked on the peeler snare solo and an aleo etude. The solo is starting to grow on me after originally not liking it much.

I had my night class til 7, but after that I spent about half an hour on the Blue Stars triplet roll exercise. I need to start working on doubles at forte volumes not just at piano rolls. I was little discourage by how difficult it was for me to play them well. After working on snare drum, I went to marimba. I focused on the ending of the marimba duet. Its still coming along slowly and needs alot of work.

I took a break to go see jazz at the duck then returned to practice piano for about half an hour. After piano I finished off the days practicing working on my jury piece on marimba.

Thursday, September 24

patricksperanza2013 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:39:03 +0000

As is obvious, I’ve been not exactly faultless in keeping up with my practice blog. However, this does not mean I haven’t been practicing. In fact, I’ve been practicing so much that I hardly have time to keep up with the blog. But hopefully, today’s excellent entry will make up for that.

I began my morning practice with about forty minutes on marimba. I worked through the entire Tango Suite duet, mostly focusing on the 16th note runs in the last section of the piece. After my morning classes, I returned to practice marimba for another hour working on two mallet scales and etudes from the goldenberg book. Then I worked through double vertical technique and the first two pages of Marimba Dances. After practicing marimba for the second time today, I moved to vibes where I spent a little more than half an hour on dampening and pedaling technique, the Friedman etudes, and Zivkovic etudes.

After a quick theory test, I returned to practice my timpani piece for the studio performance tonight. I worked through three etudes in the Lepak book and some cross sticking exercises before hitting the second movement of the In the Valley of the Kings. In all I spent about a half an hour on timpani.

Following my timpani practice time, I did my recording for musicianship and practiced some sight singing exercises.

After a quick dinner, we had our second studio performance night of the year. I closed the night with the timpani solo. All in all, it was a fairly good performance, and I’m happy with how it went. I have some room for improvement, but it’s a very good start to a piece I will be playing at juries.

After studio, I spent about half an hour working my snare solo for peeler. It’s coming along slowly but I’m starting to develop the feel for it. I took a break to get some food, and check emails and then continued with another half an hour spent on piano.

I signed up for blue stars auditions today, so I received the audition packet in the mail. I spent half an hour learning and rehearsing the accent tap exercise.

I finished off the day’s practicing by learning etude 3 from the Aleo book. My tentative goal is to finish the Aleo book this semester. (maybe)

Overall, today was excellent day as far as practicing goes. Approximately 5 hours of dedicated, focused practice really gives a strong sense of achievement, euphoria, and…. exhaustion. But it was a good day. Hopefully this phenomenal day of work makes up for the past week

That’s all for today

Saturday, September 12

patricksperanza2013 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:17:27 +0000

I started off practicing today on snare drum with basic eights and singles exercises. I then moved on to marimba, working on the duet, my jury piece, and other technique exercises. I read through the first and second movements of my timpani and piece, and finished practicing on snare drum with triplet roll exercises.

Friday, September 11

patricksperanza2013 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:15:54 +0000

I spent my morning working on drum set exercises from the chapin book and my phase dance part for percussion ensemble. In the afternoon, I spent an hour on marimba and some time on piano before my lesson. My piano lesson went well, and I was given new music to work on.

I finished up my day of practicing with timpani and snare drum

Thursday, September 10

patricksperanza2013 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:48:47 +0000

This morning, I began practicing on snare drum. I spent half an hour working on Eights/Singles exercises and another half hour on triplet roll exercises. My jury pieces came in the mail today. I sight read through the first movement of Marimba Dances. I also spent time on the marimba duet.

In the evening, I spent half an hour on timpani tuning and finished up with half an hour working on a 4-2-1 grid for flam accents, cheeses, flam drags, and flam fives.