Journal #3

Today, I recorded my piece with piano accompaniment, and there were so many problems. At first, it was horrible because the piano accompaniment was too fast. So I changed the tempo to -20, and practiced again. Another problem was rhythm and melody between bar 27 to the end. It was embarrassing because the rhythm that I had practiced was totally wrong, and I didn't know what the right melody sounds like. The last problem was the dynamics. I thought I played every accent and dynamic on the piece, but when I heard the recording, I couldn't hear any dynamics. It was really horrible. So I had to practice again, and then I spent hours again to finish my recording.

Journal #2

I started to practice the whole piece with dynamics today. But it was kind of hard to make a difference between forte and mezzo forte (from bar 19 to bar 26). And another thing that I worried about was the accent on bar 27. Like I said before, it was really hard to put an accent on the low note. So I decided to play the next note quieter than the first note that had an accent to make the first note sound louder. Also I tried to speed up my tempo, but I still couldn't play from bar 13 to bar 27 with a right speed. So I just decided to slow down piano accompaniment by using audacity. Except those problems, it was great.

Journal #1

I started to practice my piece yesterday. At first when I played the whole piece, I realized that my tonguing and the rhythm were horrible. So I decided to practice without doing staccatos and slurs just to be familiar with the melody of the piece. And then I put staccatos and slurs back. Even though I could keep the right rhythm, I still needed to work on my tonguing. And my next problem was bar 15 to 18. I couldn't play with the right tempo because it was really hard to play really high notes with slurs. So I practiced those bars really slowly without doing slurs, and after I played that part about 5 times, I could play it without making any squeaky sound. And my last problem was bar 27 to the end of the piece(I didn't do the D.S. al Fine at the time). It was really hard to put accent(sfz) on the low notes. So I decided to play that part without accent, and put it back after I can play well.

Today, I downloaded the piano accompaniment, and tried to play with the accompaniment. I was really surprised because I never played this piece like that fast. So I just decided to play the piece without accompaniment because I still needed to practice slowly. And I found out another problem today. I kept forgetting play D sharp when I played bar 31 to the end of the piece. So I circled every D sharp on the piece, so I could notice them. Except those problems, everything was okay(even though I didn't put dynamics yet).

Analysis

The time signature of this piece is two four, which means there are two beats in a measure and a quarter note gets one beat. And the tempo of the song is Allegro, which means "quick and lively". Key signature is C major, but it changes to a minor between bar 27 to 30. And there are some accidentals between bar 31 to 40.

There are three specific signs in this piece. The first one is a repeat sign which means that I have to play bar 5 to 12 twice. And the second one is D.S. al Fine. For this one, I have to go back to the place in the music designated by the sign that looks like 'S', and continue to play to the 'Fine' sign. The last one is sfz which means "a sudden strong accent". There are only two sfz signs in the piece. One is on the first note of bar 27, and the next one is also on the first note of bar 31.

The dynamic change of this piece is quite simple. At first, it starts with piano, and then it gradually gets louder through bar 13 to bar 26. And at the end of the piece, there is a decrescendo which means 'get gradually softer'. Lastly, one thing that I have to be careful about this piece is tonguing because thre are a lot of staccatos and slurs.