Challenging ourselves

[timnc]

Given the current situation with being at home so much, I was thinking "What can I do to challenge myself?" I started playing some hymns on my portable which has no pedal keys (uses bass coupler only) playing all 4 parts with no helps between hands (left hand only on TB and right only on SA). Some hymns are fairly easy, but I some are quite challenging for me. When we play the bass in the pedal, it's easy to use the left to help out with the alto so we can keep the phrases legato. But I found that I needed to use manual technique much more and stretching out further on hymns where the parts get far apart with just manuals. I think this would be a great time to share ideas about things we can do to challenge ourselves in practice that we would not normally do while playing.

[Logan]

I've been practicing to a metronome and recording the results with a computer. This makes it easy to zoom in and see which beats I'm off (and quantify exactly how off)

also been rehearsing for a webcast all in one take. So nine successive tunes with 2-4 measure segues. Any blunders and I start all over