[The Lesson]

[Overview]

At the beginning of the lesson we went through all of the previous songs we learned. Although I didn’t remember how to play any of the old songs, I did notice that my fingers are getting more used to playing. After a few times going over each piece, I could play them with no major issues so that’s good. A little progress is still progress I guess. We started a new song today that kind of introduced 撮(cuo). Keeping it simple, 撮(cuo) is playing an octave using 勾(gou) or plucking towards your body with the middle finger, and 托 (tuo) or plucking away from your body with the thumb. From my understanding, strictly speaking, 撮(cuo) can only be called that when you pluck two strings at the same time. So in this piece I didn’t ever have to technically play 撮(cuo) but, it’s like a broken 撮(cuo), the same way we call arpeggios broken chords. After this week, I think we will start working on pieces in the exam book, so I’m pretty excited about that.

[Technique]

It’s really annoying when you first start to learn to play a new instrument. You’re eager to do everything perfect from the beginning, at least for me. It’s frustrating as hell to spend work on some technique or some piece just to have your teacher tell you it’s all wrong. That’s kind of what I feel like working on my hand shape for this damn instrument. At first the problem was with me not lifting my hand enough so that I could use my thumb to play correctly. Then it became my wrist was too concave. This week my wrist is too convex. Although it’s aggravating I feel that I’m getting used to the instrument so I can be more receptive to her corrections.

Outside of the hand shape issue we worked on playing 撮(cuo) today. I practiced that by myself before she taught it officially in the lesson this week, so we didn’t need to spend a lot of time on it.

[Repertoire]

This week we worked on 在北京的金山上(On Top of Beijing’s Golden Mountain).

[Practice]

[This Week’s Goals]

I have only two goals for this week. One of my goals is to develop a good hand shape, and the other is to be able to play through this new piece with no mistakes even if it’s at a slow tempo.