Piano Practice

Ever since I was in first grade, I have played the piano.  Currently, I practice for an hour every day to prepare for recitals.  I give both group and solo recitals three to four times a year.  The solo recitals are usually between 45 minutes and an hour long.  I have to admit that practicing is not my favorite thing to do.  I can usually think of many other things that I would rather be doing than practicing.  However, I have found that the result of practicing is very rewarding.  When I play for groups at senior citizen centers or groups in the community or even just family and friends, I can feel my practicing paying off.  I think that the benefits really exposed themselves to me when I was preforming at a senior citizen center one time.  At first, I just could not wait for the recital to be over with so that I could go out and do other things, but when I started playing a piece called, The Girl from Ipanema, the senior citizens began singing along, without any prompting.  They were all laughing and seemed to have a good time.  That is when I began to really think about the benefits of playing the piano.  Yes, it took a lot of time away from other things that I may rather be doing, but I realized that it was worth it.  Since I mainly play at senior citizen centers, the people I usually play for do not usually have the chance to go out and do things that they may want to do.  Most are stuck in the centers.  One lady even came up to me after one of the performances and told me that she had been looking forward to it all week.  I remember thinking how sad it was that someone only had an hour of someone playing the piano to look forward to all week.  Even though I still do not enjoy the hour I spend practicing a day, I know that it is worth it to help make someone's week more enjoyable.  I am constantly branching out and learning new pieces to play.  I have found that I have a strength for jazz pieces and so I began playing many jazz pieces like: New Orleans Blues and Jazz Suite.  I also have found that classical pieces are harder for me because I am not very good at really counting everything and making sure that it is on the correct beat.  So I challenged myself to play Mozart's Sonata in A Minor, which is a piece that can go on for around half an hour.  I have been working with this piece for close to a year now, and while I may want to tear it up sometimes, when I think about it, I know that I have made a lot of improvement and it really has come along well.  My counting skills have gotten better and I know that that also helps me with my other pieces.