Kinda fried

I haven't been posting much lately. Reason: I have too much to do, not enough time.

Piano work seems to increase exponentially as I improve, like running on a treadmill that keeps upping the tempo. Sometimes I feel like I'm about to fall off. In addition to about 20 to 30 minutes' worth of technical work (scales, chords, short exercises) I've taken on a Bach partita (No. 2 in C minor), a Bartok Mikrokosmos (No. 153 -- last one in Volume VI), and am still working on several Brahms pieces. Oh yes, plus the Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 Preludio, which I am scheduled to play at a master class next weekend.

So there's that.

And then on the cello, I'm working on the Schumann concerto for a concert this fall, date TBD. I want to also practice some etudes (Popper and Piatti) as well as the Bach Suite No. 4 in E flat, but wow, so little time.

In an interesting development, I just met with one of our local National Symphony cellists to play for him and talk about these things I'm working on. It was really fun, and it looks like we'll be getting together a few times more for some lessons. So I actually have a teacher now, at least for a bit! He described what we'll be doing as more coaching than lessons, but whatever you want to call it, I think it will help. I've kind of been worrying that the Schumann doesn't seem as awful to play as I remembered from my attempt years ago, that maybe I wasn't appreciating its difficulties fully. But my coach today was very encouraging about where I am with it.

This is all very nice, but every night I have to decide whether I want to have two short practice sessions so I can fit in both instruments or one long one on either piano or cello so I can get more done. Either way, it's exhausting doing this after a full day of working in an office.

There's an orchestra concert coming up in two weeks -- luckily, not difficult cello parts, but I do have to go to the rehearsals and be reasonably prepared. In fact, I have to head out to a rehearsal in about 15 minutes.

I'm also now teaching two cello students, which takes up a couple of hours on Saturday afternoons.

In the rest of my life, in addition to going to work, I'm of course taking care of things at home and trying to maintain my physical and mental health.

So yeah, kinda fried.  But what's the alternative?