Learning to Play Pipa

This year, I’m teaching myself to play the Chinese Pipa.

I'm currently one month in. The first (and sometimes only) 30 minutes every day are just spent on a set of speed exercises, doing tremolos on different combinations of fingers. The most important of these, lun zhi, uses all 5 fingers, and the book I'm using indicates that it takes most students 3-6 months of daily practice before they can execute it continuously at the correct speed, which corresponds to playing sixteenth notes at upward of 200bpm. That's so fast, it has the effect of sounding like a single sustained note.

The deal I've made with myself is that I have to practice until I've learned this technique, and can play a piece featuring it at full speed. If playing isn't enough of a reward to keep going at that point, I can quit.

If I do make it, I will have learned one of the most difficult techniques in modern music. And if I, who started this project believing that I'm not good at music, can do that, then I can learn anything.