Fri 45 min

10 min - Bach Prelude #4 m 70-75. V e r y slowly with a variety of drones, as intonation was most tricky, as was deciphering all of the accidentals.

10 min - Mooney TP Bk 1, Pattern 3 daily warmups, The Battle Hymn of the Republic (repeated from yesterday just because I like it - intonation was much better today), Fisher's Hornpipe (fun broken chord barriolage bowing, should work this up to speed), and The Piper of Dundee. This is the last piece in this pattern, and I didn't get to the D.S. before the beeper. I'll probably spend another day on this pattern, just to work a little more on the 2-3 stretch.

10 min - Started reading Suzuki Bk 3 today. Extension and harmonic tonalizations, Schubert Berceuse, Moon Over the Ruined Castle tonalization in 3d pos'n - g minor (didn't realize this piece shows up in so many variations), d minor 2 octave scales, natural, harmonic, and melodic, Lully Gavotte, backward and forward extension exercises, Boccherini Minuet. Reading these a little under tempo and trying out all of the suggested fingerings.

10 min - Switched excerpts today. I found 3 pages of Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 ('Pathetique') in Rose vol 3. Spent the 10 minutes just slopping through it, noticing the keys - the base is B minor. There are some tricky fast finger patterns, chromatic bits, not too high (for the most part), and the section in B major, which come to think of it, shouldn't be that much more difficult than the rest in B minor - must not get freaked out by the number of sharps in the key signature. A couple of pretty cello melodies to look forward to. Next: I need a recording.

Break: 20 min

5 min - scales. This week I got a new scale book, by Wells Cunningham of YouTube "Impossible Duet" fame. He uses the Galamian scale pattern with accelerations as the basis for his core scale exercise, plus arpeggios and thirds octaves. One scale / 2 pages, and purportedly 30-45 min to thoroughly work 1 scale. It's kind of a dumbed down Yampolsky with more instructions, so I am looking forward to using it to organize my scale practice. Today I started with C MAJ, qu = 40, and did the acceleration exercises through sextuplets. Not ready to do 32nd notes yet. I planned on playing 5 more minutes, but got interrupted. Just as well - don't want to add too much too fast while I'm still building back up.

In case you haven't seen it, Wells Cunningham playing the Handel-Halvorson Passacaglia for cello and violin: