My brain is apparently way too small to divide in half so I won't go that route. I can play Chiapanecas through, but it is full of mis-hits, oops and it is anything but musical in even my best rendition. Tomorrow is it. If I can't get through two run throughs that are reasonably goof free, I'll move on.

I have O sole mio to do next which I have practiced quite a bit and think I stand a chance. After that I've covered everything else up to Scarborough Fair (did someone say 'affair'?).

I will report in tomorrow one way or another. I'll either be braggin' or complain'n.

Some pieces are like that. My rendition of "Good People" was mostly free of mistakes, but it was full of hesitations and as you say "anything but musical". After a month, it was just time to move on. But, as you are giving it another day - I hope you are braggin' tomorrow.

I'm working on Chiapanecas right now, so I'm right behind you.

I'm still struggling with O Sole Mio - It seems like I've been struggling since trying to play Little Brown Jug - which, by the way, I still hate.
Also, it's a little harder to sit down at the DP when the weather is so beautiful. There's only so much free time after work.

I agree with you dee, the warmer weather is making it much more difficult. But we are actually having the most rain we have had in the last 5 years (good thing we needed it), so when I'd normally go out to the pool after work, its been about time for a thunderstorm to roll in, I loose my satelite internet and and am so thankful to have the piano to sit down to.

Finally got back to lessons tonight, was supposed to go back two weeks ago but got the kids darn cold and didn't want to spread it around, so I cancelled. Lesson went well. I'm officially up to Cockles & Mussles in the AIO book, up to What a Wonderful World in the Greatest Hits book, and still working on Desperado in the other book I bought. That one will still be a little while, but I'm seeing improvements every day. My teacher agreed that it was a little above where I'm at now, but agreed that if I wanted to work it out, it covered a lot of the same techniques that were in some of the easier pieces she had given me and agreed to trade off several of the easier ones for me to continue working on that piece.

I also got my Hannons book tonight, so adding that in, still doing scales, arpegios and cadences. But I'm happier I think having one bigger piece to work on rather than a half a dozen simpler ones, it keeps me challenged and motivated and feeling more focused.

Glad to hear everyone is progressing so well. I need to get myself moving in the Alfred's book or you are all going to leave me behind and move on to thread #2!

Hi Barb,

You are just ahead of me in the book. I also bought the Greatest Hits book after reading what you and others had to say about it. I have always loved Edelweiss and What a Wonderful World (have you heard Eva Cassidy sing What a Wonderful World? - so beautiful and poignant, especially considering her untimely passing from cancer)...

Anyway one thing I was wondering -- when do you move on from a piece? I can get through BTMD and Cafe Vienna with say only one or two small mistakes. Do you usually get them to "perfect" before moving on? I think if I did that I would go crazy!

It's true - at my age (43 with two young kids) finding practice time is the hardest part. But I love it when I do!

Cheers --

@ Zenobe:

I only officially call myself more or less "done" with a piece when my teacher lets me play the next one. Now, she lets me go ahead with the book, but everything I play by my own is never considered 'done' until it gets her approval. BUT! Even if she lets me move to the next piece, we always go back a number of pages to review past pieces, and to my horror, pieces I have supposedly mastered come out full of silly mistakes. So now in my practice time I decided to practice old pieces too, even though I'm itching to do the newer ones. Just a while ago, I reviewed everything from "Beautiful Brown Eyes" to my current piece, "Lullaby." To my surprise, all that reviewing was actually a good warm-up and made playing my current piece easier.
I also noticed a slight improvement in my sight reading.

Personally, I never go to the next piece until I get to play a piece note-perfect more times than I mess it up. I have a feeling my teacher isn't as strict about being note-perfect, though (she said I'm a bit of a perfectionist )

Zenobe,

I take very much the same approach as marimorimo. Once I know I can nail a song and prove it several times, I officially move on (even if I occasionally go back and make a mistake). But what I do is paperclip back to the last song that was a challenge, for me its still Blow the Man down and that is where I start my warm up for each practice session. I'll probably be moving my paper clip up soon, but BTMD was such a challenge at first, I now enjoy starting there and nailing it on the first try.

I think when you have a song near perfection, it is as good a time as any to introduce something new to avoid boredom and stagnation, but do like I do, and paperclip that page that might still need a little polishing and use it for warm up, and soon enough you will notice one day that it is now perfected without effort. Well, that's what works for me at least.

I never wait for perfection - if I can nail the melody and the notes, I consider it done. Then I play, play, play, play it and practice it until I get the right beat. My teacher lets me move ahead to a new lesson even though the old one is not perfect. Really, how much time do I have left in this world
I am also playing from 2 other books in addition to good old Alfred. I can play Danny Boy ALMOST perfectly and then have several going from My first book of classical music - which I love. I'm playing Fur Elise fairly well.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I like the paper clip idea Barb, I will definitely use that one. It sounds like using the older pieces as warm up to keep them sharp, while continuing to forge ahead at a reasonable pace, will be the best method for me. I find sometimes as I come to the end of a piece without any mistakes, my brain kind of spazzes out and forces me to make a mistake out of panic. Maybe that is a hurdle like any other, and I need to keep on practicing the piece to get over that problem also.

Yesterday was a big day at our house - new piano arrived! I posted pictures on the Piano Forum under the thread "New Piano Arrived Yesterday." We're very excited! If you check the photos out can you please give me an unbiased opinion whether you think the piano is too big for the room I put it in? Thanks!

Zenobe
I did see your new Young Chang grand piano. It is beautiful and I think you found a great spot for it. I have always been impressed with the value, tone and action of the Young Chang pianos. It will make practice so much fun for you and your son. Congratulations!

Reached "On Top of Old Smoky" over the weekend. Still polishing previous pieces to some extent (especially Lullabye and BTMD), but if I aim for perfection I will never move forward. Also I'm trying to learn Wonderful World from the Greatest Hits book, and just getting started with scales in an Alfred's scales book.

Hope everyone had a good weekend... it's been raining off and on for 10 days here in southern New England. Ready for that to be over...

I never wait for "perfection" either, because I would never achieve it. I do wait until I can play note perfect MOST of the time, and the piece sounds as smooth and musical as my limited talent will allow it to be. I continue to play older pieces along with the newest ones, and I also go back and review from time to time - starting from Blow the Man Down. I also have a few other books that I work from to keep from getting bored. So along with my Alfred Book 1, I occasionally play from:
Faber Adult Piano Adventures (haven't actually touched this one in quite a while)
Alfred's Greatest Hits Book 1
Alfred's Pop Songbook Book 1
Bastien Piano Basics Book 1
and some sheet music from the free sheet music sites

Perhaps I would advance in Alfred's a little faster if I concentrated on it exclusively, but I enjoy the variety and I think it helps me learn better in the long run.

You all probably know about this site but just in case..... musicnotes.com - they have a lot of sheet music for "easy piano", some with fingering. I just bought a few songs - you just pay and then print the music. I like it because I can buy the songs that I like and not have to buy a book just to get one song. I'm going to start "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Also, still working on Ole SOle Mio. I'll be working on that forever, I think.

That one is coming up for me soon, dee180, so if you have any pointers I would love to hear them. Still clunking out "Little Brown Jug" and working up "Chiapanecas". Having a severe thunderstorm now so I've unplugged my digital. Should probably unplug my computer also.

Probably the computer moreso than the piano!

HI mom3gram - I wish I did have some helpful hints for you....I'd take them myself
I guess the biggest thing is not to get discouraged. It took me forever with the hated Little Brown Jug - now I can play it but I don't want to
I've moved on to Jericho which I find infinitely easier than LBJ, Chip, OSM.

I agree with you all that it gets a bit tiresome only working from the one Alfred's book, so I want to supplement with a few fun songs in parallel.

I wasn't aware of musicnotes.com until dee180 referred to it... when I went to the site I discovered that not only is it possible to transpose songs I like into an easier key before purchasing the sheet music, which is great, but even better, I can actually listen on-line to how it should sound when I play it, complete with notes that turn red when they are sounding... dang them internets is cool!

Yesterday I found a local music store that will let me practice on my lunch hours for free... now I don't have to squeeze in 5 minutes here and there into our busy evenings at home. Here's hoping that turns out OK.

@Zenobe : Wow, I'm envious you can actually practice during your lunch hour! Fat chance of that happening where I work (we can't go outside and our company is in the middle of nowhere anyway). Not to mention that music stores are few and far in between in my country

As I thought, there were some things I wasn't doing quite right in 'Lullabye' and even with 'Cafe Vienna' but my teacher gently corrected me. Now it's much better. I got the go signal to continue so over the next week I'm planning to tackle "Joy to the World," "Cockles and Mussels," and "Got those Blues"! My teacher played some of the songs at the back of the Alfred book and now I'm even more inspired to work hard. The later songs sounded so much more fun and exciting (loved 'The Entertainer' ) I can't wait to play those songs!

When I first started the Alfred Book I would always warm up by playing all of the previous songs. This helped reinforce the songs and kept them fresh, but it started to take too much of my practice time.

I've since changed my strategy and only focus on the current song. The later songs are much more challenging and require quite a bit of time to master. I'm on Scarborough Fair now and definitely need the time investment to make this sound good. The pedaling on this song is tough for me.

Me too - I used to warm up by playing the songs in the beginning of the book but now that I am so far into the book, don't have the time.
Yes, the later songs are very challenging for me too and I have a really hard time trying to pedal and play at the same time - I find that I need to learn the piece first and then add the pedaling.
I'm on Jericho now and will be moving on to the next one at tomorrow's lesson.

Okay, I can now play "Little Brown Jug" with no mistakes, both with the music and from memory. It's still slow with some hesitations, so it doesn't sound all that musical (does LBJ EVER actually sound musical?) but I've got the notes down pat. Will continue to practice it until something better comes along.

I played "Chiapanecas" all the way through today - the first section error free, but the rest kind of stumbling.

I also tried several pieces from my friend's copy of Alfred's All-Time Favorites, Book 1 and I like this book better than Greatest Hits or Pop Songbook. I wish I had found this one first - I may have skipped the other two.

Congrats Mom3gram on conquering LBJ and it sounds like Chiapanecas (how do you say that?) is coming along nicely.

I'm officially up to Got Those Blues, and have to say that is a fun song, not too hard, nice rythm. I was actually not looking forward to the Blues sections (the AIO has 3 back to back blues before getting to On top of old Smokey), but I've actually found the first one to be quite fun and it livens up the room, I catch my kids moving to the beat out of the corner of my eye, lol.

I don't know how to pronounce Chiapanecas either. :-)

There are quite a few bluesy pieces in the later sections of Alfred. Some people love them, I didn't really care for them. To me they were hard to learn and I didn't really like the sound, even when played by someone other than me. But I worked through them because there were things in there that I needed to learn. I'm glad that you are having fun with "Got Those Blues". If you liked that one, you will probably like the others too.

Hi mom3gram, Nice job! Keep up the great work!



Since I've just passed the point in book 2 where it says that I'm now ready for "The Greatest Hits, level 2" book, I'm thinking about perhaps getting it. May I ask why you preferred the "All-Time Favorites, Book 1" better than the Greatest Hits or Pop Songbook?

Best Regards,

Key Notes

One of my favorite pieces in this book, and I'm still playing it while I'm working on book 2. The pedaling was quite hard for me at first as well.

Keep on practicing, and you'll get it soon enough.

Key Notes

Well, it could just be a case of "the grass is always greener", but what I liked about "Alltime Favorites" was that it had some of everything - classics, oldies that I loved, hymns, and in general more pieces than the other two. Of course, every time I see another book I want it. :-) I'm just not sure that I really need another Alfred level 1 supplemental book, when I've only learned a few songs from each of the two books I already have.

P.S. I also have Bastien's "Religious Favorites", which has a ton of really nice hymns and have only scratched the surface of that one. I think I'm a book junkie. :-)

Mom3Gram - BIG congratulations on LBJ!!!! That really was a tough one. (I still hate it)

I just bought Alfred's all time favorites and found that it has quite a few songs that are in Book two. So I am a little confused why it is graded level one. However with that said it has a nice selection of songs to learn. I think I will pick my next recital piece from it.

I see... not such a bad habit to have. Thanks for the overview mom3gram.

Sounds like you have a lot of varied options available at your finger tips (Oops, a pun, can be intended ) to have a ton of fun with. That's really great!!! Perhaps sometime those selections and compositions are "greener"... . Seriously, I'm trying very hard to prevent myself from catching the collecting-sheet-music-that-I-can't-play syndrome, especially at this very early stages of my learning. But I can however start collecting the ones that I can with a few added challenges of course, so I'll definitely stroll down to the music shop to take a closer look at them when I'm ready.

Thanks again and have a fabulous day!

Key Notes