going sideways

I posted a couple of times this year, but they went sideways, and not in a great way. I wrote two short posts and didn't notice that they went into the wrong account and were posted into a parallel universe where they didn't get any comments either. The one I keep thinking about is about my cool tip for practicing, which is "turn the tablet sideways."

Figure 1: The tablet (tabloid)

I impressed Dad with this, several years ago, by showing that a screen which showed a whole page in a reduction somewhere between full size and miniature score sized, so that he could read Ravel right off the tablet. Of course, that also meant far fewer lines visible at a time, and this was enough of a handicap, I thought, that I mostly didn't avail myself of it, except for PDFs of music that were Landscape orientated. 

Recently, though, my eyes prevailed upon my hands to turn it sideways during some tough passages, and I found a new world, actually. I didn't realize it at first, because I was trying to see it at that size and still keep scrolling while playing up to speed. Yeah, THAT COULD WORK. 

Figre 2: The tablet (landscape)

 Contrariwise, what works for me is the Zen state of having two or three lines (if squinching a little gets me more) and not leaving them. Practice those measures and keep doing them for a while. Do it until you can't hide that one error you keep making from yourself and then deal with that by (say it with me) taking the measure apart as far down as necessary to make the brain understand what happens in it. 

That means playing the hands separately. That means if you have to use both hands to play one of the hands' parts a few times, you do that, until your fingers know the exact choreography of the dance from this white key to that black key and you begin to perceive the topography of the playing field as both massive and as if viewed from far above. It's like the old saying: Practice Makes Incrementally Better.

I feel a strange excitement now when I reach to rotate the tablet to oblong view. It's like my eyes are better. It's like I don't have to rush from one measure to the next.

And, by the greatest of fortune, I find that I now enjoy playing passages over and over. I have an excuse now: I'm practicing. 

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