Day 42 continued - More from the Single Reed day

I only managed 170 minutes of practise this week, my worst yet, although I didn't count the performance time in with that. I was hoping it would be plain sailing now until the exam day but with the new orchestra piece and a decision to be made about Rondo I still have some serious work to do. I may need to encourage some more sponsors for the next two weeks as I will need some motivation to practise even more. At the single reed event I met up with several other grade-1-a-bees including Maurice, co-organiser and pianist-extraordinaire as he was accompanying Jim in two of the sessions. He told us that many of the horn students met up for a 'Split-a-thon' where they played their pieces and tried to split as few notes as possible, or at least split less notes than those they managed to play spot on. Those tackling brass and bowed strings seem to have it harder and fellow clarinettist Heather who is learning the violin said she found it hard to get a decent performance first time through as it takes time finding the pitch and remembering where to move to. It's not just the physical warm up which is important but the mental preparation matters too. Also present amongst the participants was Barbara M, my sponsor from Day 24. I did know that Barbara had been getting into work and reading the latest blog before starting any work, something that my Mum is also doing. This amused me as my very first post mentions procrastination, something I suffer from every so often! One day last week I didn't get the blog posted until 10am the following morning so poor Barbara had to sit at her desk without doing any work until I got around to reporting my practise! I'll try and do better this week!