The good news is, El Pelele is memorized, and I've learned the Presto movement of Haydn's "Great" E Flat sonata. The bad news is, I bruised my thumb practicing incorrectly. Have you ever bruised your fingers practicing? I've never heard of this. It crossed my mind that maybe I have diabetes and my thumb is going to fall off. I don't think that's the case, though. I think what happened was that last week I was practicing on the piano in my teacher's studio, which is a fairly new Steinway, so it's beautiful, but a little bit stiff and dull, so I was working extra hard to make it ring. I think I was pounding, because now I have a bruise on the side of the knuckle of my thumb. How embarrassing. Apparently I don't know how to play the piano. I spend all this time telling my students to play on the tips of 1 & 5, and saying, "Up, up, up!" to my students, but apparently I'm playing "down, down, down". I need to learn how to go "up, up, up"! I don't think I can just quit practicing while my thumb heals, so I've been practicing really carefully today, up on the tip of my thumb. Duh.
After I get the Presto movement memorized, I think I'll work on learning all my other recital music, and wait on memorizing anything new till I can play it all.
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You're so fantastic--I'm sad that you have a bruise, but your candor and honesty put a smile on my face. You definitely know how to play the piano. It's just that, as you ask yourself to do more technically challenging things, your technique has to change to meet the demands. I don't see technique as a static thing. Maybe there are guidelines, but no rules per se.
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