I thought that today I would share with you what I’m currently practicing. I love, love hearing about what people are practicing, how they’re doing it, and just generally about how people go about learning music. The processes behind how people go from reading a piece for the first time to performing it on stage for the 50th time is a very time-intensive and laborious process, but a very rewarding process at the end of the day. So here are the pieces that I’m currently practicing.

Soldier’s Sonata by Thomas Flippin- Thomas is one of my living heroes for a whole host of reasons. I’ve been looking forward to having some time to learn this piece in particular and now is the time!
Sonika Chenzi by Anthony Green - A large part of my work as an artist centers around continuing to create art by those who are living and by those who I admire most. Anthony is an amazing artist and composer. I’m going to perform this piece later this year.
Postcards from Spain by Thea Musgrave - Among all of the other things that I am fascinated by, I’m often fascinated by learning music that I’ve never heard before and although I’ve searched far and wide for a recording of this piece and haven’t found one. So I’m playing this piece and learning something I’ve never heard. There are so many challenges that come along with learning a piece that you’ve never heard, but I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit and one I’ll continue to pursue.
Op. 9, Variations -Theme of Mercadante by Emilia Giuliani - I really enjoy listening this piece. One might say it’s cute. I would say it’s deceptively virtuosic and in the best way.
Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 99 by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco - This is kind of like a yearly summer project for me. I tend to spend the summer months focusing on this concerto and then get busy during the fall, but it’s starting to feel really good this go around and I’m planning to put this into my schedule in the fall too.

So, these are the pieces that I’ll be focusing on learning for the next 6 weeks or so. In total this is about 60 minutes on music. Once I feel good about my progress on these pieces I’ll start working on a different set of pieces and keep these in the maintenance phase.

How do you practice? I would love to know!

-Ciyadh

P.S. Happy Listening!