Last item on my summer practice!

 Last item on my Summer Goals List! It's hymn improv or playing by ear.



   In retrospect, with summer being very close to over, this was an area where practice wound up being a lot different than I anticipated. But let me back up and start with the what and the why.

   Hymn improv is basically starting with a piece of music intended for a four-part choir and turning it into a piano arrangement. This is important when you're in a church that still uses hymnals. It could also be applicable to working from a lead sheet, which I did do some of this summer. Either way, when you're playing for church (which I do), it's a skill that, like all other skills, needs practice to stay sharp. 

   Playing by ear is playing without music altogether. For me, this is a less pressing skill than arranging hymns or even sight reading or technical prowess. However, some people are whizzes at this, and I greatly admire them. Besides, in music, there's no such thing as a useless skill. Having a strong ear as a teacher makes it easier to hear mistakes in unfamiliar music, as well as simply giving me a wider range of flexibility (when you can play by ear, you don't have to worry about whether or not you have the sheet music for that song you really want to learn). 

   Now for the how.

   It didn't wind up being something that I did in focused sessions where I dug deep and went for the hard. My playing by ear wound up being pounding around with movie themes. I just couldn't think of anything besides those fragments of themes that I really wanted to play and didn't already have the music for. I mean, as a teacher, I do have a lot of sheet music. 

   Improv/arranging happened more, but was also slightly crazier. 

   It happened on a Sunday morning, when I volunteered to play for church, simply because I felt like it and I knew nobody else was there to do it. (We could have sung a capella, but....)

   It happened while working at a summer camp, playing piano for chapel and not always having time to practice before I went up. 

   It happened in the evenings, when I simply wanted to sing to the Lord. 

   It happened. But rarely during what I would normally call an official practice time. 

   But maybe, in the end, that doesn't really matter. 

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