Around 1 hour, ending just after midnight.
Started the evening full of energy, but only when I got to the doorsteps of my coworking space did I realise that I left my access badge hanging on the chalkboard in my room. I drove back to get it, and returned to my practice space. Used up 30 min in transit, and ended up with a little bit less than 1 hour of room booking time.
I made the best use of it. G, C, D major scales, broken scales on G. Investigated how best to move that over to C and D, and gave up on D because I needed even higher positions to get there. I will find my way there one day :)
I sound pretty horrible at high positions. I think I just need better technique. But it's good to get my screech on and just screech it out once in a while.
Focus of the night was Ragtime Annie. I wanted to fix the timing / tempo issues I had in lessons last Wednesday, and to solidify my string changes during "the fast part" of the tune. I find it easier not to think too much about it - the tune has a feel, and if I look too closely at the music I end up missing the forest for the trees, and not getting the trees right either. Stupid metaphor but it means if I focus too hard on the notes on the page, I end up getting it wrong. Let the feel of the music and the muscle memory take over, and it starts sounding better.
Ragtime Annie is a really fun song so it has to be played with commitment to fun. I think I got the gist of this song.
Moved over to Sleepin' Soond and wow! I can play this fast! And faster. And faster. Love it.
After getting these two songs in shipshape, I moved over to my favourite DDAD tuning. Dead man's tuning shines on my fiddle - with harmonics and ringing overtones everywhere that are beautiful and frankly, out of my control. It's just a really awesome tuning. Returning to the songs Bonapart's Retreat and Washington's March - these two songs speak powerfully to me because it's the kind of music I like and the kind of music that I want to play.
Returning to standard tuning to let the fiddle rest, I finished just after midnight.