In the last week, I have stepped up my practice for two concerts I’m playing soon.

September 6, First Mondays Concert. “La Camera e la Chiesa”, 7:00 pm, Music by Antonio Lotti, J. S. Bach, Henry Purcell, C.P.E. Bach and Arcangelo Corelli. In addition to myself on organ and harpsichord, I will be joined by Aris Doike, cello; Alex Hayashi, oboe; and Darel Stark, violin. I’m really looking forward to playing a two-organ duet piece by Henry Purcell, “Sonata No. 1.” with Scott Fikse. The concert will be livestreamed to the church’s Facebook page.

September 11, Josquin Desprez: A 500th Anniverary Celebration, 7:30 pm, presented by Early Music Hawaii. The concert will be livestreamed, location to be announced later. (Check the Early Music Hawaii website)

What do I mean by “stepped up my practice?” It means that instead of listening to my usual Spanish podcasts on my daily 2-1/2 mile walk, I’m listening primarily to multiple performances of the C.P.E. Bach, “Sonata in G minor for violin and harpsichord, H. 542.5” formerly attributed to J. S. Bach as BWV 1020.

I am also walking over to my harpsichord or the organ multiple times per day to review the music.

In other words, “I’m cramming!”

Years ago, I discovered that whenever I play a concert especially with other instruments, I need to listen to a performance of it OVER and OVER AGAIN. How many times do I listen to it? At the very least, 100 TIMES if not more! On my daily walk, I’m able to hear at least five or six complete performances of the work—in addition to violin and harpsichord, I’ve also enjoyed listening to flute and harpsichord, baroque violin and guitar, flute and organ, flute and harp, oboe and piano even clarinet and piano!

I really like this performance with Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute and Trevor Pinnock, harpsichord … not too fast, not too slow, just right!

Listening to the music for me is almost as good as sitting down at the instrument and practicing, using my fingers. After all, as I tell my students, practicing is training your brain, which controls your fingers (and feet!). My goal is to listen to every single note of the piece, so that my performance will be completely bulletproof, and nothing will phase me, no matter if harpsichord falls over or tomatoes are thrown!

During the performance, I have the same mantra: Listen to every. single. note!

Those of you who know me, however, know that my responsibilities don’t stop at just practicing the music; I’m also busy behind the scenes. For example, in the last week, Early Music Hawaii released a preview video of the upcoming season. I was involved not only in playing the harpsichord here, but also preparing the email campaign to our donors and supporters. Here’s the video, in case you didn’t see it before.

In addition to preparing the email campaign, I also updated the Early Music Hawaii website to reflect our new ticket order campaign, necesitating my learning a new platform, Ticket Tailor and Stripe. I will soon work on the printed program which can be downloaded.

My work is never done!