Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and ALL in One Adult Piano Course Book #1

I liked it. Sounds good to me, all transitions are smooth. I do not notice any transition you may have more trouble. Your play seems good to me too.



My "Good People" still need to be played smoothly, with rigth timing

always glad to hear you are making steady progress! The last 3 songs in the book took me about one month on each... so take your time, as polishing each single detail in techniques will help you long way in the future... I think those eighth notes still give me trouble even now, I'm struggling with playing 1/8 at 150 bpm... but, "I'm getting there note by note" (stole from someone's signature here in this forum)

If someone could help here, I've been working on The Entertainer and there is this part with the right hand where I'm not sure if I should play it with the fingers 1-4 or 1-5.



Alfred's didn't mark anything so perhaps they intend us to play it with the 1-4, however that is a bit of a stretch. I realized I was twisting or rotating my hand clockwise to play it like that and now my wrist kind of hurts.

Should I continue to try to play it 1-4, perhaps paying attention to keep my hand straighter or should I try to play it 1-5?

Thanks for any help,

Johnny

Play it the comfortable way. 1-5. There's nothing nearby that would dictate 4 as being in any way more convenient. Your hand position will often be moving, and expanding out or contracting in, as you move up and down the keyboard.

If the immediately preceding note were E on 5, then that might be an argument for 1-4.

Thanks PianoStudent88,

By playing it 1-5, one has to move both right and left hands down one key so I think that makes it a bit more difficult to keep with the rhythm that way. However the comfort of playing it with the 1-5 position should more than make up for it. It will just need a little more practice to get the hang of keeping the timing on that bit.

I've been using 1-5... I didn't even think...

I like PianoStudent88's theory. Since next note is D on the left, using 5 helps to prepare RH to move towards left...

On a side topic, I find it hard for me to play sheetmusic that doesn't have fingering marks, unless it's simple 5 finger position... I read some threads on this topic, people often said it's a personal preference, whatever you feel comfortable with...

Johnny D, as soon as you've played the final A with 2 in the RH in the previous measure, your RH has already moved down a step. Let your RH lie naturally over the keys at that point and you'll find that 5 is already over D. That is, don't maintain the stretched position where 3 is over C and 2 is over A.

Wish4 Thing, there are principles that cover sensible fingering. It does adjust depending on the player, but it's not a pure free-for-all. I once found a document on the web which described this, but I can't find it again. Let me think about it overnight and I may be able to summarize what I remember.

I found that playing lots of well-fingered music helped me to be able to come up with reasonable fingerings for unfingered music. I don't do it well on the fly though; I need to take time and work it out. Even so, on the fly I am able to get to the notes by hook or by crook.

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks

You got it right the first time


That's true too.

I was playing the ending of He's Got the Whole World and I started thinking to myself, "That sounds a bit like Carole King's You've got a Friend." The last couple of chords sound kind of the same, maybe they are in a different key, but it reminded me of it.

So then I stop playing He's Got the Whole World and start playing some chords and notes and thinking the words to You've Got a Friend: "Don't you know that you've got a friend? Ain't it good to know you've got a friend. Ain't it good to know.."

Has something like this happened to anyone else while studying Alfred's? Playing something and thinking it sounds like another song, and maybe trying to play or sing the other song?

Axis of Awesome does a video of 64 pop songs that use the same four chords .. good video but it has a curse word in it so I'd better not post it here ... it's on UTube

Thanks for the video. Were all of those songs really recorded in the same key or did they transpose any of them to fit?

I been relearning songs up to Good People where I was when
I quit practicing. I am at The Can-Can now. I was looking ahead
at songs in the book watching Youtube videos. I found demos
that a teacher uploaded for her students. They are the last
seven songs in the All In One book from Over The Rainbow to
Chattanooga Choo Choo. Her channel is "pamspiano".

Thanks for the info Smells Like A Beer ... I'm on page 79 this week and looking forward to reaching the pieces at the end of the book ... well,maybe not Gilligan's piece

There is also this guy, Alan, on youtube alanchan who has uploaded a ton of videos of himself playing various pieces from all sorts of lesson books among others.

Just search his channel for alfred's and the piece you are working on.

The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle isn't in my book. It sounds kind of fun though as long as it isn't too difficult.

I've just started Amazing Grace though I still need to polish up He's Got The Whole World and The Entertainer.

I am enjoying The Entertainer. It's a bit difficult at first but once you get the syncopation down it's not that hard in my opinion, and by the time we get to the song, we've already had some practice in syncopation. This was also a song I heard a lot as a child so maybe that helps too.

Thanks for share this.



Well done!



Thanks for share.

I was just told my piano is out of tune... I might have to re-record the last 3 pieces of this book after I get my piano tuned...

by the way, here is an easy Fur Elise from gmajormusictheory.org (many of you recommended this site for leveled sheet music, thanks!), I added pedal to left hand playing... it was fun especially for left hand practice (though with an out-of-tune piano... )

I still end up getting a lot of help from my teacher on this. She comes up with solutions that never occurred to me. I guess it comes with experience...

I was hoping to get more hints from PianoStudent88 on this topic...:)

someone mentioned The Art of Fingering in another thread... I haven't had the time to read it yet... not sure if this will help?