It’s cool and rainy in Michigan this morning.

I got up and poked around on the web since my New York Times isn’t here yet. Then I read Italo Cavino on Exactitude (from “Six Memos for the Millenium”).

I didn’t finish this essay.

Played through the Haydn sonata I am memorizing while looking at the music.(The picture above is the one on my version of his sonatas.) My old piano teacher suggested this to me. Always keep returning to the page even after you have it memorized. And details do pop up. Not usually note details but dynamics. In this particular sonata I have a bit of trouble remembering which octave to play in sometimes because Haydn shifts stuff around.

Then I worked through the next step in my Jazz Piano book. Chapter seven is over playing rootless left hand chord positions to free up the right hand for improv. Levine asks the student to study (& transpose into all keys) a ii-V-I progression that involves no roots. You’re supposed to listen for the root in your head. I practiced by reaching over and playing the missing root with my right hand (this is another Levine suggestion).

After that I worked through a couple keyboard sonata movements by C.P.E. Bach (that’s him above). C.P.E was apparently a bit influence on the self-taught Haydn. CPE’s sonatas are all over the place. He was very interested in what he thought of as expression in music. I have the two volume Dover set and that’s what I play in from time to time.