I just finished reading the book, and it's 3 hours until my lesson. I looked at the workbook, and I'm finding it daunting, especially interleaved practice and bringing a fast piece up to speed. But I now wish I had learned the Alfred's Entertainer using these practice techniques, so my performance would be more reliable. I can play it through to tempo at home, but never without mistakes. The lack of foundational solidity becomes apparent when I'm under stress. Recording it has also been unsuccessful so far because I think I haven't truly mastered it.
My approach when I first started from scratch a year ago was probably typical. I started at the beginning of the piece, played through, waited to make a mistake, spent time trying to fix that, then started at the beginning of the piece again, and repeat. Hilariously, my original method is bullet pointed in MG's workbook, on Worksheet 2 as "the common unhelpful habits," circle the ones that apply. There are 11. I did all 11 every day. There should be a trophy for that, I think.
With my 2nd piano teacher, 6 months ago or so, I asked her to discuss practice habits with me and she fired me, saying she would rather I show up, let her decide on the fly what to teach me, and I could figure out how to practice on my own. Now I feel nervous about the questions I have for my current teacher. I understand now that the 2nd teacher just wasn't the teacher I wanted, and it's good that she concluded lessons with me after 3. There's a saying, "There's a pot for every lid," so there's nothing wrong with trying out different situations for fit. But that event kinda scared me.
So today I'm going to ask a few questions and see how it goes. The first MG thing I brought in is breaking a piece into sections, numbering them, and practicing the hard sections first, with breaks. I would like to hear what she has to say about fixing a piece that just hasn't been solidly learned. Do I start over? I've memorized The Entertainer, so maybe I need to just set it aside for a month, let it fade from memory, and start over.
