aching fingers

I did my third flute duet performance Wed. night--performing with my flute teacher at a local church dinner.  I was nervous, especially initially when I made some mistakes, but kept going.  She also sprung some additional duets on me that we practiced a few times before we performed.  Part of me wanted to say I couldn't do it, but I took the chance and did fine with the new pieces.  In fact I made fewer mistakes than with the other pieces, which had been practicing for weeks.  I know they say perfornance gets easier the more you do it, so I'm taking the opportunities my teacher is offering me--even though part of me would like to say no.

Recently my fingers have begun to ache more, including while playing the flute.  It's the latest potential setback--the first was my neck, which has been hurting since about March.  And my left jaw, which sometimes locks and won't open.  Yesterday I finally took some Aleve, because the pain was interfering with my playing.  But I really don't want to have to take painkillers every day.  So I'm going to start exploring options for coping with arthritis pain.  I made an appointment for an introductory Alexander Technique session next week, and am seeing a rheumatologist the week after.  I've been assuming that I have osteo- not rheumatoid arthritis, but I've decided it's worth seeing a specialist given how quickly I'm feeling pain in so many places fingers, wrist, knee, feet, neck, jaw).  Not to mention the 5ish pound weight loss.  And the nails that keep splitting no matter what I do or try.  I'm guessing she'll have me do a bunch of blood work, which means a second appointment since doing the blood work likely will require fasting.   Maybe I'll call ahead and see if I should fast.  (At my appointment a few months ago with my GP, who only works in the afternoon, they asked me if I had fasted.  Are they kidding?  I'm not sure I could make it until 9am, let alone 2pm without eating.)

Shelter Dog

They found her running around in a local park--she was dirty but otherwise in good condition, according to the card they kept on file.  They estimated her age at about 3 months.  Their policy is to hold stray dogs for a week before they will let them be adopted.  My son had already picked a name for the dog he had begged us to get--Raven.  So we figured we needed to find a black dog.  We went back an forth about whether to get a puppy or an older dog.  An older dog might have all sorts of habits and may have been in a difficult situation.  Like the 1-year old black lab we saw at one shelter, where the card said the family had brought it to the shelter because it had "killed the family rabbit".  More than we could handle, we thought; especially since we had a cat.

So here was a little black puppy stray--looked like a black lab, but they said she was probably some sort of mix.  My son played with her, and wanted us to get her.  I told him we would have to wait a week to see if the owners came to claim her.  They told us she wasn't wearing a collar when we found her; in their experience dogs without collars are less likely to be claimed by owners.  So we'll never know how she ended up at that park.  But we decided her middle name would be "Barcroft" after the park where she was found.  We'll never know if she was mistreated, neglected or abused.  Or whether she was just too much for someone to handle.  We can believe the latter--she was energetic, anxious, territorial, willful and intelligent, and we struggled to train her.  More like she trained us.

Walking with her

I took the walk that I had been wanting to take, but avoiding until I thought I could handle it.  One of her favorite walks with me, and one we often did in the afternoon--especially when it wasn't too hot or too cold.  A day like today.  So I set out to follow that path, and to try to feel her spirit walking with me.  I could see her as I walked down the long street, and remember my instructions as I tried to get her to "go" near the street instead of on people's lawns.  I saw the spots she liked the best, and could hear myself talking to her.  I didn't always enjoy the walk, because one part is up an increadibly long, steep street.  She would walk up that street very slowly.  I used to think it was because she thought I couldn't go any faster.  Now I think maybe she couldn't go any faster.  That it was getting harder and harder for her to move, and more taxing for her heart, but she didn't want to let us know.  She wanted to keep going; couldn't slow herself down even though it might have prolonged her life.  It's as if she wanted to live a certain way--with lots of energy and, yes, aggression against anything she thought might endanger her family.  So she burned herself out trying.

I sometimes imagine her spirit running free--no leashes, no collars, no fences, no crates.  I'd like to believe that spirits and souls live on.  I'm not sure I believe it, but I'd like to.

Alexander Technique

Well, we decided that I've finished Forty Little Pieces, but I did have some problems with the difficult passage during my lesson.  In fact, I had trouble with everything at my lesson--the exercises as well as the duets I've been learning, which I'll be playing Wednesday.  I'm sure some of it was nerves--a lesson is a performance, after all--but also my fingers have been feeling still.  When I googled to find out what people do when they have pain while playing, I came across a number of references to the Alexander Technique.  I had never heard of it--I thought it was some sort of flute-learning technique, like the Suzuki method.  Looking at wikipedia, I learned that it was developed by a Shakespearean actor whose voice kept wearing out.  Apparently through this technique--which seems to focus on breathing and posture--he was able to continue performing.  And it looks like it's quite popular with musicians.  When I mentioned it to my flute teacher, she said the annual flute conference offers a workshop on the Alexander Technique.  The next MidAtlantic flute conference will be in Feb. 2013.

Always attracted to new ideas, I looked at who teaches the technique in the DC area, and have contacted one to get more info.  Everything I read suggests that teachers prefer to teach one-on-one.  And they recommend that students take 30-40 lessons.  So it's going to be expensive.  I'd like to try a session or two to see if it might help.  

Made it to 80...

Yesterday I continued the same approach to practicing the difficult passage--I played the piece through 3 times, then played the passage separately several times.  After a few times I checked the metronome, and the setting was a bit slow.  So I raised it a notch and was able to play at that speed.  I thought I had set it at 72 and thus raised it to 76, but when I looked it was at 80.  So I was able to play the passage multiple times at 80.  And it didn't take as many tries to get to 80 as it had taken to get to 76 a few days earlier.  Today I played the piece 3 times, then played it with the piano accompaniment.  I noticed that I'm sometimes playing faster than 80, so I focused on being more even.  I stumbled a bit on the first time I played the passage; the second time was better.  I played the piece 3 times with the accompaniment; the third time my fingers started to fall apart.  And I can feel slight arthritic pain in my left middle finger; those right hand fingers felt stiffer and more tired today overall.  So I stopped playing with the accompaniment and went back to practicing just that passage several times.  Then I played with the accompaniment one last time--I made it through fairly well, although I could feel my fingers struggling to move.  Especially around the D (D-E-Fsharp-D).  I really have no idea how it will go at tomorrow's lesson.  I'll play the passage a few times in advance and hope that my fingers will relearn/remember the pattern.  But they also have to be able to move.  Maybe the colder weather is affecting the arthritis.  Or maybe it's starting to get worse.  I'll start googling to see if people have tips for people who have arthritis and play instruments.

When I would think about the things I wanted to do once I stopped working full time, I always imagined myself the way I was a few years ago--no muscle tears that don't fully heal, no stenosis,  no near-osteoperosis, no arthritis, few gray hairs.   It just didn't occur to me that I would actually get older--I thought it would just be a chronological age change.  Now I feel like I'm exercising in an almost desperate attempt to fight back time, as opposed to exercising to stay healthy and limber. And I'm less sure of myself--am I stretching or overstretching?  am I helping my neck and spine or making it worse? am I strengthening bones or pulling muscles?

Progress?

I'm still working on that difficult flute passage--I spent 15 minutes today just playing the offending phrase over and over again.  I told myself I was just going to focus on playing at whatever speed I was able to do it correctly.  But yesterday I couldn't resist checking the metronome to see how close I was getting to half note=80.  I went from "just curious" to seeing if I could get closer to 80.  at 72, the pace was a bit slower than I was playing, but as soon as I went to 76, my fingers couldn't keep up.  I've told myself I wouldn't try to play with the piano accompaniment (companion CD) until Thursday (the day before my next lesson).

I don't seem to progress from day to day.  Each day I start practicing the piece, it's like I'm starting from scratch with that passage.  I have to slow down to play it correctly.  So I play the piece 3 times at a tempo that's slower than I need to play the rest of the piece, but that enables me to get through the difficult passage.  Then I practice the difficult passage over and over again and maybe get to the speed I reached the day before (using the same approach).  And some days my fingers feel stiffer than others, which makes the progress more uneven.  Today was one of those days.  So I sort of got back to 76 by the end of the practice.  I got to the point where I was playing the passage worse, so I stopped.  I seem to reach a point of diminishing returns with my music practice.  What's the line between being a quitter and overdoing it with practice?  Do skilled musicians have this same problem, or are they able to train themselves to keep going until they reach their goal?  Or is it talent, or some other mysterious element that goes beyond physical (and mental) effort?

Difficult Passages

I mean this literally, although it also applies figuratively.  Certain flute passages are especially difficult for me to play fast; I've finally determined that one or two fingers on my right hand are the culprit.  One passage in particular has been very difficult for me to play at the correct speed (half note=80)--I've played the (eighth) notes over and over and over and over again.  I can play them correctly at a slower speed, but when I try to speed up to the correct tempo my fingers lose it.  The right middle finger in particular has great difficulty moving--I can actually feel the fingers trying, but not able to keep up.  And it's different from another difficulty I have, which is getting a mental block against passages that are difficult for me to learn.  Once I learn such a passage, my brain says "uh oh, here it comes, that passage you mess up on". I try to suppress these thoughts, but I'm prone to having thoughts get in my way of performance.

Today went slightly better with the difficult passage.  I stopped trying to play up to speed, and took it at a speed where I could play it correctly.  I played the entire piece 3 times through (the passage appears twice in the piece), then played the passage about 20 times.  I was able, toward the end, to pick up the speed slightly.  But I didn't get to 80; maybe 72.  So my plan for this week's practice is to take the same approach--start at a tempo where I can play the piece, then practice the passage in groupings of 5, increasing the tempo slightly as long as I'm still able to play the notes.  I don't know whether I'll be able to play up to tempo by my next lesson on Friday.

I was basing this approach on some advice I found on the internet--start at a tempo where you can play the notes correctly (they suggest q=60; I could already play a bit faster than that) and don't increase the speed until you can play the passage correctly 5 times at the slower speed.  But I'm not really trying to increase the speed--that's what seems to trip me up.  I do think it's at least as much physical as psychological in this case.

After this week, my teacher and I have agreed to move on from that piece, even if I'm not able to play at tempo.  This is my third week on this piece--Bourree by Handel, #38 in Moyse's Forty Little Pieces.
And it's the last piece--I've already done #39 and 40 (one week each for those).

So I will have finished Forty Little Pieces in about 43 weeks--I started taking flute lessons on Jan. 31, 2012.  I also finished Emil Eck's first methods book a few weeks ago, and am on my 2nd week of book 2.  And I'm just starting Faure's Sicilienne from 24 Short Concert Pieces, plus working on about 15 pieces in the Tulou for Two duet book.  I am learning quickly, but can also see my limitations.  When you start from nothing, the gains are exponential.  From here on things will get a lot more difficult, I suspect, with the gains more subtle, if there are any.

I Love Shutterfly

This past summer someone at work asked if I wanted to see photos from her trip to India.  When I walked in her office, she handed me a book with a photo of the Taj Mahal on front that looked like something you'd purchase.  I was confused momentarily--why would she show me a bunch of store-bought photos?  But as I started looking I realized they were photos she had taken, assembled in a beautiful, professional-looking book.  I had no idea you could do that--she explained that she used a web-based site called Shutterfly.  We had been to Hawaii a few months previously, and I thought using Shutterfly would be a great way to capture the photos in a real, not just virtual, album.  I had loaded the photos onto iphoto, but hadn't done anything with them.

Took some time to get the hang of Shutterfly, but I managed to create two beautiful books of our Hawaii photos.  Then I had a real brainstorm.  It's become a Christmas tradition for me to buy my son two wall calendars each year--one of black labs and one of ginger cats, in honor of our pets.  Even though I'm the one who changes the calendar each month, he says he still wants them each year--family traditions are important to him.  I was so excited to think that I could make my own wall calendars for 2013 using Shutterfly--one with photos of Raven and one with photos of Pooh.

I went through every single photo we have (in a huge box) and found every photo of Raven and of Pooh, and also of our late cat Casey.  I scanned them onto a disk (my husband bought me a scanner, which I hadn't  used much), loaded them onto the computer, and transferred them to Shutterfly.  I spent weeks over the summer doing this--I wanted to have a lot of time to think about the calendar layout.  By the end of the summer I had created the two calendars, but figured I wouldn't order them until sometime in the fall, when there was a sale on calendars.

It never crossed my mind when I was working on the calendars that Raven wouldn't live to see 2013.  I never imagined life without her, let alone next year.  Within a week of her death, I decided to create a memory book of Raven for my husband's birthday, which is in a few weeks.  Because I had already looked through all the photos and loaded them onto Shutterfly, it wasn't difficult to create a book.  I'm so grateful I had those photos on Shutterfly--it would have been so difficult to go through all our photos now.  So thank you for being there, Shutterfly.

I ordered the book, and also went ahead and ordered both calendars.  They came out beautifully.  I just am not sure what to do with the Raven 2013 calendar.  I don't think I'll wrap it--I'll let my son know I have it, and if he wants to put it up in his room he will.  If not, I'll keep it in a safe place.