James Zhan in real life.

Piano Journal

I often have trouble practicing the piano regularly, even though I enjoy playing the piano, so I created this page to help motivate me! I want to practice at least 3 times a week.

Current goal is to polish the 6 pieces I’ve learned from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 by J. S. Bach:

X = practiced

AUGUST 2026
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
               01 02
               X  ·
03 04 05 06 07 08 09
·  ·  ·  X  ·  X  X
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
·  ·  ·  ·  X  X  X
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
·  ·  ·  X  X  ·  X
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
·  ·  X  ·  ·  ·  ·
31
·

2026-08-26: Pretty good practice today! I tried a faster tempo with the C minor fugue and gave it a more lively vibe by incorporating a bit more staccato—I liked it!

2026-08-21: Really great practice today! My fingers felt very nimble and I felt like I was just flying on the keys—I sometimes feel this way when practicing and it’s an awesome feeling. My fingers felt confident, like they knew exactly what they were doing, and I was able to really feel every single key I pressed. I think the more regular piano practice is (to no one’s surprise) helping me get better. Maybe I will finally be able to consider the C-Sharp prelude and fugue done and move onto a new piece!

2026-08-20: I felt rather distracted during today’s practice. Earlier today, I started looking into cheaper phone plans for my wife and me, and my brain has been in “rabbit hole mode” since, and so I found myself keeping thinking about that during practice. That’s alright; I’m glad I still practiced!

2026-08-16: Really good practice today! I did it at 4pm and it was much better than at night. I felt like my fingers were at peak performance and the practice felt very productive.

2026-08-15: I had to practice the piano at night again today because I was out for most of the day. Knowing that my fingers don’t perform the best at night, I decided to just take it slow and play correctly and precisely rather than rushing it and play a bunch of wrong notes. That turned out to be the right approach as I got to continue to polish some passages that I’m weaker on. This piano journal has really shown its effectiveness today—I would absolutely have just made an excuse about being too late and not practiced if it weren’t for this tracker. I’m so happy I did!

2026-08-14: I left piano practice as the last thing to do today and it was a bad decision. I knew that my fingers typically don’t play well at the end of the day (for some reason) so I usually try to practice during the day but the day just got away from me. I’m glad I still practiced, though. I’m trying to be more aware of my posture while playing. During more difficulty passages, I can really scrunch up and that’s not good for my back. I need to make sure that doesn’t become a stubborn habit.

2026-08-09: Regular practice. Went okay. Didn’t play extraordinarily but I tried to continue to focus on the passages where my playing tends to get messy. I think I’ve got 90% of these 6 pieces down at this point, so the next step is to really polish them so I can actually play them really well (gotta do Bach’s masterpieces justice!).

2026-08-08: Had a decent practice. Today I focused more on certain passages that often trip me over and ones where it’s harder to keep every note clear.

2026-08-06: Today’s practice was trash! Got through the C major and C minor preludes and fugues, and it all went downhill afterwards for some reason. Made so many mistakes in places that I normally never have issues with. I still practiced for almost an hour, though, but I hope next practice would be better. (Practice footage)

2026-08-01: Great practice today! I’m getting more used to the pressure of being recorded and of performing for not just for myself. I’m getting more and more fluent with the 6 pieces. I think once I can consistent play them with minimal mistakes, I will start to work on some of the more intricate passages of the C minor fugue and the C-sharp major fugue. The presto part of the C minor prelude still have much room to improve as well—I can sometimes play it well but often times it’s a bit too messy for my taste. (Practice footage)

July

JULY 2026
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
      01 02 03 04 05
      ·  ·  ·  ·  ·
06 07 08 09 10 11 12
·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
X  X  X  ·  ·  X  X
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
·  X  ·  ·  ·  X  X
27 28 29 30 31
·  X  X  ·  X

2026-07-31: I finally set up the overhead rig to record my piano practice! Recording myself made me feel a bit nervous and I made some more mistakes as a result, but I think this is a good way for me to overcome performance anxiety. I’ve been playing only for myself for a very long time and I feel like I lost all my ability to play for anyone but myself. I also do like reviewing my own playing. For example, reviewing the footage from today, I’ve noticed that the form of some of my left fingers collapsed a bit during some more challenging passages, so I should pay more attention to that. I only managed to get 2 takes that I deemed presentable today.

2026-07-29: Both yesterday’s and today’s practices were great! I feel like I’m finally out of “catching up to where I was” mode and starting to make progress. I started recording my practice and managed to get usable takes for 5 out of the 6 pieces! Still lots to improve but they’re in somewhat presentable shape! You can take a listen:

C Major Prelude, BWV846 | 2026-07-29 Practice | https://bear-images.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/jameszhanirl/c-major-prelude.mp3

C Major Fugue, BWV846 | 2026-07-29 Practice | https://bear-images.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/jameszhanirl/c-major-fugue.mp3

C Minor Prelude, BWV847 | 2026-07-29 Practice | https://bear-images.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/jameszhanirl/c-minor-prelude.mp3

C-Sharp Major Prelude, BWV848 | 2026-07-29 Practice | https://bear-images.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/jameszhanirl/c-sharp-major-prelude.mp3

C-Sharp Major Fugue, BWV848 | 2026-07-29 Practice | https://bear-images.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/jameszhanirl/c-sharp-major-fugue.mp3


2026-07-26: Had a really good practice for the first 30 minutes. I had to pause my practice to do some stuff, and by the time I came back, I lost the mojo. My fingers felt kind of stiff and I couldn’t focus, so after 20 minutes I called it quits.

2026-07-25: A bit of a rushed practice today as I had a bunch of stuff to do. My fingers felt great, though, and I could feel that they were getting more and more in shape. Playing the 6 pieces felt smooth, and some of the sections that tripped me up the last few times no longer did.

2026-07-21: Today’s practice was alright. My fingers felt obediently nimble so I was able to get through all 6 pieces with much trouble, though after about 30 minutes, they started to throw a tantrum—I blame the 76% humidity at home. I think I’m about 90% back to where I was before the 7-month hiatus. I will keep practicing these 6 pieces for another couple of weeks, and then back to learning a piece I was in the midst of learning, the Prelude in C-minor (BWV 934) from Little Preludes and Fugues. Now that one I’m pretty sure I’ll have to just start from scratch. Thankfully, it’s a rather easy piece—it was supposed to be an easy win lol. This time I will finish learning it! Once I’m in better shapes with these pieces, I’m thinking of recording some performances to post here.

2026-07-18: My fingers were being temperamental today—the keys felt extra slippery and I was making mistakes in sections that I normally wouldn’t. My fingers just felt kind of stiff. This does happen sometimes so it’s no big deal. I still practiced all the usual 6 pieces for 40 minutes so I consider that a win!

2026-07-15: I somehow still remembered all the notes for the C-sharp fugue! Hallelujah and thank all the gods. The second half of the fugue was really hard for me to learn and has many notes, and I was worried I would have to relearn after not playing it for 7 months, but I managed to get to the end without having to look at the sheet music. I lost the fluency I had but I can easily get that back by consistent practice. I will take this as a sign that the Piano God decided to have mercy on me and that I should keep up the practice this time!!

2026-07-14: I could play through the C major prelude and fugue no problem, yay! Need some work on presto part of the C minor prelude, but I didn’t seem to have lost much muscle memory for the C minor fugue, which is a good sign. C-sharp prelude was rougher towards the end, but I still remembered all the keys so it’s a matter of polishing. C-sharp fugue was the hardest of all and naturally, I couldn’t get through it. I started stumbling at bar 39, which makes sense as that all the way to the end was what I learned last and had the least practice before the hiatus. I think I should still remember most of the keys, so I just need to keep up with practice!

2026-07-13: Finally got back to practicing the piano after a 7-month hiatus! Took me long enough, but better late than never! First step is always to get the muscle memory back for my repertoire. Today, I re-learned BWV846’s fugue. It’s still in a rough shape but I can at least get through the piece. Tomorrow’s goal is to re-learn BWV847 both prelude and fugue.