Wednesday, January 02, 2008

New Year New Schedule New...

Happy New Year everyone! I got a nasty cold over the holidays, but am finally starting to feel better (although I was better for a day or two and then relapsed into a brain fog...) Starting the new year out at a really cute coffeeshop, to get myself away from the house and working online a little bit. Speaking of coffee shops, Jody and I will be playing at Beans in Woodstown NJ every second sunday this year... so if you're in the Southern NJ/northern DE area, please stop by one of those days! Their Sunday brunch is simple yet fulfilling, and the atmosphere is really great.

I've been working steadily on my Chopin Nocturne in Db... I'll be playing it from memory at my Longwood Gardens concert on February 3. This is the first time in a very long time that I'll be performing classical music from memory; I've been working with a teacher who is helping me study memorization and performance-anxiety-reduction techniques. hint... a new one for me... never correct mistakes, even in the early learning phases... just keep on playing and train your brain to keep on going no matter what... you can fix the mistakes in the next go-round. but actually, you should be playing so slowly that mistakes are never allowed to happen in the first place.

I've left my part-time job as a reference librarian... I loved the job, but my life and new home is in a place now that I can teach piano more with a much shorter commute than I had going to the library... so this week is the first week I have all this time ahead of me... feels really great. Got the christmas decorations down last night and have plans to go out more like I am right now to get some work done away from all the household chores staring at me every time I want to take a break for a cup of tea or something.

better sign off now and get working on a grant application that's due on monday... whoops! the holidays really made that deadline sneak up on me!

happy new year!
cm

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