I'm thinking about an optimized practice schedule for the 6 months after I return from my workshop, before the next workshop in February.
Cut for length 🙂
I was talking to the friend I will be playing with then (I'm planning to switch from summer to spring next year) and he reminded me that we had said we'll play Beethoven's 3rd cello sonata together. I've read the first two movements through a couple of times so far and I don't find the piano part super hard (apparently the cello part is the hardest of Beethoven's sonatas). I haven't looked at the fast part of the 3rd movement though.
Next year's Dvorak early piano quartet looks pretty easy but I have to learn the Beethoven as well. And I want to get back to playing clawhammer banjo with a new online class focused on playing by ear (turns out my good sight reading skills translated directly to tab and I can't play banjo by ear at all, either, and I've been away from that for several years at this point).
All this to say that I plan to strictly follow Dr. Molly's schedule for the first round of learning Dvorak and Beethoven. I can start the Beethoven during the long two week break in the schedule for the Dvorak. The Dvorak takes a little more than half an hour to play at speed so if I am about to sight read most of it (and work on the faster runs later in the piece more at length) a few hours of practice should do the trick. I want to work on it first to get it in my head. And then after that I'll work on the Beethoven, but I'll probably want to break it up into at least two different cycles. And continue to work at least once a week on whatever bits of the Dvorak are giving me trouble. In between, during the breaks, I should have plenty of time for banjo, which I will not be optimizing.
I still have to figure out how I want to break things up (currently thinking entire Dvorak, 1st and 2nd movements of Beethoven, and then 3rd movement of Beethoven). It'll be a great opportunity to see if I can fit much more into my schedule! The Dvorak needs to be played well but the Beethoven is just for fun so it needs to be decent but not performance level.