Yay! Forward motion is happening!
Also, I have finally worked up to 30 minutes on the bike!
I love progress wherever I can find it!
Category: Music
Good news:
20 minutes on the stationary bike
30 minutes on the piano
30 minutes on dragon diamond painting #3
Milo and Shilo gracing me and recliner footrests with sweetness.
Bad news;
We were unable to get Milo in for his shots.
Our mail is not being delivered to Christmas Valley. Many of us have medicines that only come that way.
Let’s go back to the good news.ย Duolingo surprised me today. As the audio story played in German today, I understood almost as well as I would in English. No headache.
Good/Bad: I’ve finished several books but behind on reviews.
Hope your Monday was better than mine.
“Eye movement detected. What is two plus two?”
(My favorite first lines of my favorite movie and book. Red leather, yellow leather. Take a guess?)
I wanted a cartoon to represent today. The frog, climbing out of the well, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. But this Paula Abdul video cheered me up.
Tomorrow I call the Doctor. Just finished my antibiotics but everything seems back to the beginning. At least my inner child gets to dance with the cartoon cat.
The title assumes the concept that once it’s begun it is heading for a finish. With all the projects this ADD senior starts, I never consider them lost, just resting, ya know? I’m a fan of alliteration. Besides, ‘on-going projects’ is just too cumbersome.
I’d throw in pics of my knitting and crocheting, but with only a row or two every couple of days, progress doesn’t show much. My shoulder and thumb joints have been objecting to too much yarning.
My piano time is growing. I have quite a collection of songs in the process, from starting to learn Natural Woman, through trying to memorize Music Box Dancer and Gymnopรฉdie. I think there are about 20 tunes in rotation. None perfect, but all fun for the challenge and the process.
Art Therapy and Music Therapy Bundle: by Paul Catalani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I was a music major, this was the direction I was heading. Music Therapy. That and art therapy make so much sense to me. Anything that can move your spirit and express emotions can bring the psychic mind closer to finding help.
If you want to know some basics about these theories, this is the book for you. It was a fast read. Well, listen as I used Kindle Text-to-speech. It did stir up my interests again.
I picked this one up in 2015; I’m only just now getting to reading and reviewing it. Sorry. I was worth the read, though.
Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing by Molly Gebrian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I started this book a while back. I loved the aspect that it was written by a musician who minored in neuroscience.
Wait! Let me start over. When I was a kid, my mom would make me play a piece ten times. I never could keep track. She gave me ten buttons. Each play moved a button to the other side of the piano. Soon it wasn’t just a song but portions of songs. Trouble spots. The yelling from the kitchen for me to play it again, ten more times. I hated it. As soon as I could, I quit lessons. But by then I was a teen busy with a teen’s life.
So the first concept Molly Gebrian suggested took that even farther. Ten times perfectly.
I’ve been back to playing piano for about a year and a half. I started back by telling myself it had to be fun, or I’d get back to fiddling around with the recorder, Uke, or violin. They didn’t hold the psychological pull over me that piano had. I’ve ‘played’ up to forty minutes, even an hour, of FUN. Then I started reading this book. Yes, I had begun to work on bits, but I wanted to.
I put the book aside. But months later I decided it was the right concept. I may hate it, but I think Mom and Molly were right. But I will have to work up to it. It will still need to be fun. I’m a retired 76-year-old. Working hard is from the past.
The rest of the book had marvelous ideas I want to start to institute in my playing. In fact, I think much of it could be applied to other habits a person might want to develop in their life.
The version I have is Audible. Ms. Gebrian does her own narration. I plan to listen to this book often. There is so much I want to put into my piano fun.
As my anxiety for daily blog not done piqued, I turned off my audiobook, and decided to peek into my Spotify app. Mostly I found a mountain of podcasts I’m behind on. After getting past the peak of Mount Podcast, I walked Into the Woods.
That gave me a Stream–and a smile! How I miss my traveling music. And traveling! So it’s Into the Woods!
What have I been focusing on this week?
Because of my arm/shoulder pain, I am not knitting or crocheting so much. That means lots of games on my tablets, I like the escaping blocks type games. Any suggestions while healing?
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