At home I have the burl Hohner and I'm trying to practice from the book. Today I did lessons 4, 5, and 6 fairly well. It's slow. It's not perfect, but I'm picking up speed. Then I added in 7, 8, and 9 which are exercises. 9 is giving me a lot of troubles because I'm looking at fingering instead of the notes. I do not want to get in the habit of looking at the fingering. I want to see the note and know what to do. Or is that even a bad idea? Like, a middle C is push. An octave higher the C is a pull. This is in the key of C on a GC melodeon. I'm almost afraid to look at the book to see that it's all different in the key of G.
Yes, of course it's opposite. Middle C is pull and the octave above is push. Yes, that is going to be brain overload for me! This is how I'm beginning to feel!
I want to read the music on a staff because that is what is already the most comfortable for me, and it will make it easier to take other music to play. I also wonder if it will make playing cross row easier too? Possibly? I am probably full of it, but if I know it's a C and where the Cs are and in what direction of the bellows, perhaps more fluid play without tons of back and forth of the bellows will happen. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it all out!
So, the last exercise I tried was 10. And that was an actual piece of music! I can do the first line (which repeats) somewhat OK, but then the rest of the tune escapes me as I can't get it in my ear because the phrasing feels like it's landing in the wrong rhythm or something. I kept plunking it on the piano to see if I could get it in my head better.
So about the title of this post - high notes... Yesterday and today the method book is introducing and working with the rest of the C row - the higher end. I have to give the bellows much more forced air to play the upper notes. This is true on both the melodeons I have. To get the higher notes loud enough to play and hear, the bass notes get too loud. As a novice, I do not want to be playing loud. If I could, I would play with them mostly silenced so only I could hear my playing. For me it's all like worst combination - high and squeaky treble voice - hate it. Lots of mistakes - hate it. And I have to play loud, announcing my horribleness to everyone in the house - hate it.
One good thing, is that playing the basses is getting easier. Of course, they make it easier by always having it be the same rhythm and same note and chord each time, but that's actually smart, because it's teaching me to separate my hands - to have them do things independently without adding in more complications (yet) while I learn where all the notes are in the right hand.
I did practice for almost an hour today (53 minutes according to my handy dandy time keeper I just started), but my brain is just fried for the day. I was doing a lot of creative think paired with tedious work for my job today. It's funny, I like what I do, and lesson planning is fun/fulfilling, but it's a lot of detail to keep hold of in my head and it tires me after hours of it.
But, this is the good part... when I was driving home at 7 pm, I was thinking, "I just want to get home and practice a little bit." I knew, I felt/sensed that stepping away from the computer, the work, the homeschooling, etc would clear my head. I cannot think about anything else while I'm practicing. It uses my whole brain. Nothing else I do can do that for me - nothing that I enjoy, anyway.
With that said, I'm just too wiped out/tired to record anything today. Most important thing is that I practice, and that I did. So, I'm calling it good. No one needs or wants to hear another horrible day of a beginner playing anyhow!
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