Album preparation

I'm recording my next CD in December and I've been spending about two hours a day in rehearsal to prepare. I've noticed in the past that longer stretches only make me frustrated, so I set goals that can be met inside my time limit.

Monday was a day off, a welcome break after a weekend of performing. Tuesday saw me practicing the nine hardest tunes, which are the ones I know best from previous rehearsal and from live performance over the past few months. Yesterday I focused on five tunes I know somewhat, but which could use some work, and today I'm learning the last two. They're simple, but I've done very little with them and I'm still sight-reading.

Each day I also incorporate work from the previous days, but fundamentally this is what my polishing process looks like. The spring and summer learning process is much more arduous, spending three or four days on a single piece while rehearsing the other music I'd already treated thus. Right now I'm just applying a higher standard to my performances and working with a metronome to better prepare for studio sessions.

The entire thing is a yearlong process that began while my previous album, Wanderlust, was still in post-production. Accordingly, I already have music lined up to start learning in January. Any project I undertake needs my full and passionate support or else it would never get off the ground.