My husband and I finished recording our five-movement Telemann sonata at last, and the experience made me realize the many, many ways in which I differ from not only the world-class professional musicians I avidly follow, but also the part-time professionals on whose mistakes I can hardly keep from commenting.

1. Stamina. My wrists can’t handle much more than an hour of daily practice. I suppose one might eventually master a piece at that rate, but not without
2. Focus. I can read books for hours, but after three or four months of playing the same piece just one hour daily, I was tired of it, and started pushing for us to do some
3. Recording. This wasn’t my first rodeo, and recording is just as hard as I remember, even with my talented husband doing all the heavy lifting on setup. We know how professional groups record multiple takes and then combine them. We weren’t sure whether that was kosher for us, but it didn’t matter, since even with the ‘nome we were unable to play any movement identically enough to create “drop-in” measures, due to a deficit of
4. Technique. This covers a lot of ground, including overall consistency of everything from tempo to phrasing, playing together as an (albeit small) ensemble, treatment of the performance markings, period-related style considerations, and, most obviously, just getting all the notes right. Which we did not.

We enjoyed this activity nonetheless, and will likely try another cycle starting in a month or so. This time I’m going to try to put in the time to memorize it by learning it one measure at a time, if I can achieve the required Stamina and Focus.

Meanwhile, it is what it is. If you still want to listen, follow this link.