What I'm playing this week

On the piano: I am making good progress on all my pieces.

Bach WTC I/19: This is now memorized. I'm still feeling like I am not doing this methodically enough. With this piece in particular, I just kind of bludgeoned my way through it until it started sticking, which did not seem like a good way to go about it, but I had a hard time intellectualizing. Anyway, I'm hoping to try to record it in the next week or so.

Brahms Op. 118: I've mostly been working on No. 3, and this, too, is memorized. It's also getting easier each time I practice it, though it's still pretty clunky. So I now have learned half of the set in this opus number group. Of course, Nos. 4 and 6 are the hardest ones . . .

Beethoven Op. 2 No. 3: First movement is also mostly memorized. This means I can play through most of it with only a few peeks at the music now and then.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but memorization always means major progress to me.  Even if I can play something musically and technically well, if it's not memorized I don't feel I have plumbed the depths. And conversely, if I at least have a piece memorized, I know I have more than superficial acquaintance with it. Perhaps this is not true for people who memorize music more easily than I do. When I started practicing the piano again (about six years ago), I had to make a conscious effort to memorize. I still do, though it has become a slightly more natural process. I'm sure if I practiced more it would go faster.

On the cello: Um, not doing much. Slap me with a wet bow hair.