[The Lesson]

[Overview]

This week I learned the pentatonic scale in a new key and a key I was already familiar with. We started off learning the new key, C major, and finished with G major. When I first started playing this instrument it seemed like learning to play in new new keys was such a chore. In the first key I learned, D major, I was already struggling with figuring out which notes were what, and how to get a reasonable sounding intonation. It seemed like it’d be impossible to ever be able to play in all twelve keys. This lesson made me feel like I am actually improving and I felt pretty proud of myself. I was able to figure out how to play the scale in the new key without much assistance from my teacher. Aside from that, we just went through the pieces I need to play for the exam and that was it.

[Practice]

[This Week’s Goals]

1. Use a drone tone every practice section, at least when practicing scale and practice etudes.
   • I tried doing this before and it really helped my intonation, so hopefully this will help my intonation in my pieces.
2. Be able to play the C major pentatonic scale and the G major scale at 90 BPM.
3. Clean up measures 5-7, 11-13, 14-16, and measures 19-22 of the second practice etude.
4. Clean up the add on measures for the second practice etude.
5. Play through the first practice etude without stopping at 70 BPM.
6. Play 弓桥泛月 (Gong Qiao Fan Yue) at 60BPM and good intonation.
7. Fix intonation of 送别 (Song Bie) and vibrato.
8. Play 好一朵茉莉花 (Hao Yi Duo Molihua) at tempo with good intonation.

[Update on Last Weeks Goal]

For the most part, I feel like I made progress towards those goals. However, I definitely need to use the drone tone, or some other thing to help me improve my intonation. I feel like my intonation was not consistent enough to say that I met my goals. Maybe I should relook at how I go about making these goals?