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
·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·
31
·

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.