practicing goals for 3/21 week

Goals for this week:

• Move on to C# melodic minor, #4 Bertoni
• Spot work on "Sorcels"
• Ready "Sortilege" for reading with piano on Friday
• Start re-learning "Hexen" if time
• Prep for Haydn 98 and Rach. 2nd Piano Concerto (TCO reh and concerts 3/29-4/3)
• Produce 10-20 more reed blanks
• Take bassoon for overhaul at the end of the week

IDRS recital program progress report:

Yesterday I recorded "Sorcels" and listened back. Much of this piece is ready to go, but the extended techniques need to sound more fluent and create the proper effect. I may need to re-evaluate some fingerings I've chosen.

Making the recording allowed me to judge how the piece comes off as a whole when I play it.  This was where my performance was most lacking. Along with making the extended techniques sound effortless and not distracting, I need to adjust how the pauses work in the piece to create more drama and more flow in certain sections.

Since I've got plenty of time before my first performance (May 6th in Cleveland), I can afford to let whole sections of this piece rest for a while and focus solely on little sections, doing some retooling of the technique and joining each section to what happens before and after it.

In addition, I'm going to try to improve my concept of the "big picture" with this piece by researching other music by Patrice Sciortino, if possible, and spend time with the music away from the bassoon to fine-tune my interpretation without the encumbrance of the instrument/reed, etc.

The Heckel bocal I've chosen for performing this piece worked well in the recording, but I'll still need to get a reed that favors the extreme high notes.  Several high "f"s!!