Beethoven revisits the metronome but in a new way - Day 11

My in-laws are in town this weekend so my posts are going to be a little shorter, fortunately for anyone reading!  

At this beginning of the day 11 practice session I decided to use one of my favorite metronome tricks.  I set the metronome to mark every half measure but treated the click of the metronome as the offbeats.  This exercise can be a bit of a mind game but I do it often with lyrical sections in order to propel myself over the barlines and to feel the melody in a more fluid way.  With a lot of practice the most beautiful, flowing melodies can often end up very square and mechanical - quite the opposite of what I really want with such a passage.  Such is the case with this one from the cadenza.  I usually start off at a pretty slow tempo doing this and then I bump up the metronome until I find a tempo that feels right and allows for the musicality that I'm looking for.  

The rest of my practice session is pretty self-explanatory.  I will say though that right now I'm consciously working on bringing up the tempos and memorizing.  As of today everything is pretty well memorized so I'm feeling much, much better, especially since memory isn't really my thing.

Now, since it's almost time to go out to dinner with my in-laws, I'll leave you with the video.  I hope you enjoy.  And in case you're keeping track, only 8 days until recording! 

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