Music Practice Advice from Barney the Dinosaur

I was never a huge fan of Barney the Dinosaur (he just wasn't as cool as Snuffy and Big Bird to me). However, I recently came across this two-part episode where Barney and his friends talk about how practice makes music.

Pianist Greg Murray shows the kids a few neat things that you can do with music once you've worked hard to learn a song. In this clip, Greg plays some different variations of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

Barney & Friends: Practice Makes Music (Part 1):

And Part 2 of Practice Makes Music:

The main point to take away is that Barney the Dinosaur's friend Greg practiced a lot to get to the point where he could have fun with any song, whether it was Mary Had a Little Lamb or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 

Practice Tip: Don't Bite of More than You can Chew

This week, I have the immense honour of playing on the Steinway CD 503 grand that legendary pianist Vladmir Horowitz played on. I just found out this morning that there were still openings, so I snagged some practice time.That gives me less than 24 hours to throw something together that would be worthy to play on such an instrument. That brings me to my point: don't bite off more than you can chew. I've dusted off Mozart's Sonata in C, K. 545 from last year. I just have to focus on trouble spots as the rest is holding together fine.

I am torn. I'd like to play Chopin on it. I may still. Debussy is on the short list as it doesn't take me long to get any of my ol' Debussy preludes under my fingers. We'll see if I can resurrect a Chopin Nocturne. No guarantees.

And in honour of VC3.0's big weekend coming up, I should toss in a bit of Eric Whitacre's Seal Lullaby.The moral of the story is: when you don't have a lot of time, stick to what is actually do-able in the time you have to prepare.I leave you with a performance by Vladmir Horowitz: