I can see the timing on this one's going to kick my ass for the next 2wks

I had a little extra time this evening, so I went ahead and transferred my recording of “A Classy Rag” to BoxNet. This take contains a few fat fingered mistakes and, as always, is far from perfect, but after having worked on this selection for several weeks, this is the point at which I decided it was time to move on. Hope you enjoy it:

http://www.box.net/shared/n9tdpl06gn

Undone

Very nicely done, holy crap that's fast! I've got some work to be done....

- SC

Thanks Undone!

Undone - yes, I did enjoy! Very much. Excellent performance. Good, steady "ragtime" tempo throughout - very polished playing with no "fat-fingering" that I noticed - you seem to have a real good feel for this style of music - I wouldn't be surprised at all if you're tearing up some complete and original Joplin soon!

Regards, JF

Everyone,

What are your thoughts on this excerpt from pianofundamentals? :

Essentially 100% of technique development is accomplished by practicing hands separately (HS). Do not try to develop finger/hand technique hands together (HT) as that is much more difficult, time consuming, and dangerous, as explained in detail later.

Choose two short passages, one each for the right hand (RH) and the left hand (LH). Practice the RH until it begins to tire, then switch to the LH. Switch every 5 to 15 seconds, before either the resting hand cools and becomes sluggish, or the working hand becomes tired.


Thanks,

I think I get the flow of each hand better when doing them separately; but my teacher usually has me play hands together even the first time; at least as far as alfred book #2 went. I asked her about it - and she said for harder stuff we'd probably do more hands separate; but so far not really.

I usually come home and do hands separate for a little while and then together but only until I might find a problem area and then work on hands separate for a small bit. I'm not sure I'd agree it was dangerous - what does he have to say 'later' about it being dangerous?

On a side note - I'm really enjoying listening to everyone's uploads; just not much time to post these days.

Thanks for the comments on “A Classy Rag”. JF – I do enjoy playing Ragtime and I’d love to eventually work my way up to being able to handle some stride piano and boogie woogie. There’s also a lot of great stuff from the silent picture era that would be fun to learn too.

On a family vacation to Disney World a couple of years ago, I spent several hours sitting and listening to the piano player they had at the end of “Main Street USA”. He was phenomenal (he’d also been playing piano for over forty years). I thought at the time “what a great job, too bad I didn’t stick with the piano from the age of four”.

Undone

Undone- nice job on Classy Rag! Far better than I ever got it!

My teacher usually has be play HT when we cold read a new piece, for the sight reading benefit. If it's got tricky bits, she will have me work them HS for a while to get them under my fingers better, and then put them together. I usually find it's helpful to only have to think about one hand at a time with the more difficult parts. Easier to get it hammered into my brain. Easier stuff (what's that? LOL) is HT all the way.

Thanks for the replies Nancy and IrishMak,

I guess my next question is:

Do you actually learn each piece, in its entirety, for each hand? Or perhaps only practice HS for difficult sections.

The book emphasized "memorizing" the entire piece separately for each hand. I have not been doing that; sounds a bit extreme. What are everyone's thoughts on this?

Thanks so much in advance

I find myself running through the whole piece each hand separately a few times; esp if there are 'tricky' chord changes on the left hand that I want to make sure and get the feel for. I don't fully memorize the whole thing that way before putting hands together. Then I start playing hands together and only go back to hands separate if it's proving to be difficult.

I do much the same as Nancy. It's what my teacher recommends. HS for difficult, tricky passages, the HT on those sections till I get them. And also work with a few measures before and after to get the transitions, as well. Now, granted, sometimes, if there's a lot of tricky bits, it does mean that almost the whole piece is worked on HS, but she does want me to try to get HT asap.

I usually try to work HT as much as possible only going to HS when I’m having too hard a time doing HT. But then I had never heard of the benefits of working HS that you read about in pianofundamentals. If the piece has a very distinctive left hand pattern that goes along despite what the right hand is doing, then I may try to get the left hand (separate) down before adding the right hand to it. Once again, this is just what I find myself doing, and not what I have reason to believe is the best or even correct way to practice.

Undone

This is more or less the same way I practice/learn piano pieces. That's why the pianofundamentals reading shocked me.

Thanks everyone for the replies!

Serenade op.3 no. 5 Haydn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXOJCP5uxJw

I know it isn't perfect, and I had played it in better control while not recording, but that is all I could do while recording today. Thanks for watching/commenting

Nicely done mate!

Thanks Ttigg

I'm on the grand piano whatever now (another "Palmer" piece). Pianonoobalexman's videos end on the piece I just submitted, so I have no reference for my current A3 piece. If anyone has a recording, I'd love to hear it.

BTW, pianonoobalexman slurred all of the RH eighth notes in Serenade. I did not do this; I only slurred the ones indicated, and played the others disconnected. This is one of the main reasons why it took me a while to learn this Haydn piece. It's more complicated being concerned with slur vs. disconnect while going through an ostensibly, but not acutally, redundant piece. This dynamic reduces the repetitiveness, and I certainly believe it to be indicated by the score.

BTW:

I WOULD LIKE TO CALL FOR A GENERAL SUBMISSION OF ALFRED'S BOOK 3 PIECES. IF YOU HAVE THEM, PLEASE POST THEM HERE. That way Mark... can post them on the main page. We're all on the same team here, so let's help each other! I also will continue to record pieces and post them here; for better or worse

Waltz - very nice indeed - good light touch - excellent tempo consistency - you are moving right along in your piano studies at a very rapid clip, with skill and growing mastery - best of all your enthusiasm is always there, which is very refreshing to see!

Regards, JF

Thanks so much JF

And don't forget to post any recordings you may have sitting around (if you'd like); we need them!

With Grand Piano Band (which is fun to play, even if it is a "Palmer Piece" lol), playing the eighth notes disconnected versus later playing them staccato is a little tricky. They sound similar, just the staccato is a more extreme version. Does anyone agree/disagree etc?

Waltz - I'm working on getting a recording of "A Classy Rag" (which will be a little different but certainly not better than Undone's very excellent version), but so far I'm not completely happy with it - if I get one I'll probably submit it to the Sept. Piano Bar (and here I guess). My take on "Come Back to Sorrento" is in the July Piano Bar (or was it June?), and my version of "Swan Lake" was in an earlier Bar this year (maybe April or May?). My version of "Serenade" was submitted to a Recital, earlier this year I think, if you want to track it down. I'll try to submit other ones here if I get any good ones (always in doubt).

I guess (since you asked) I should simply uplaod them all to one post here soon and let Mark do his thing. Maybe I'll get on that...

Regards, JF

Waltz – Great job on Serenade! I also noticed the lack of submissions for Book # 3. At first I thought of this as a hardship – nothing to listen to to get a feel for an unfamiliar selection. But then I began to think of it as another good learning experience – trying to get things right based on the printed music alone. I also liked the idea that I would not be influenced to make my playing sound just like someone else’s recording (possibly including the same mistakes).

Now of course this is no reason not to collect recordings for as many selections as possible; everyone can decide for themselves whether and when to listen to them. I’m just relaying the sort of thought process I went through when I found “Hey, I don’t have any recordings of this piece to listen to!”

Undone

Thanks JF and Undone for the compliments and the suggestions. I still would like to compile Alfred's 3 recordings. I don't use them until I think I have the basic rhythm and sound of a piece. Then I definitely like to check to ensure my playing both sounds correct and has no erroneous notes.

Did anyone else struggle with playing "disconnected" vs. playing staccato in the same piece?

Waltz (and whomever else may be interested) - below is what I have recorded from Book 3 so far (mostly just the pieces I really liked).

Please be advised (as you may already know) that I take a lot of "liberties" with the pieces as arranged in Book 3, re-arranging them, adding intros and repeating endings or supplying alternate endings, inserting D.S. al Fines where none exist, repeating sections when none were called for originally, varying the tempo in parts, etc. - in essence, doing just about anything and everything to enhance and enliven and extend a piece to make it more interesting and/or difficult.

So, be forwarned - while my performance of a piece carries the spirit of it, it hardly ever is a good sample of the piece exactly as arranged in the Book, and can serve only as a broad, general guide - assuming you like it enough to use it as such!).


Fandango

Theme from Serenade

Theme from Swan Lake

Come back to Sorrento

An American Hymn


Also, from Book 2 here's my take on the Joplin piece (I'll include it here because I don't think it ever appeared in the Book 2 thread):

Theme from Solace


And here's a piece I recorded for my first entry in an ABF Recital (over a year ago), which I thought you might like to hear:

The Sound of Music

Regards, JF

Thanks so much JF!!! Now if we can only get them to the main page...

BTW: Nice job on the Serenade

Thanks Waltz - in the interest of cleaning up loose ends, here's another piece from Book 2 that was submitted to a Recital, but never found it's way into the Book 2 thread - so, Mark (if you're still around) come and get it if you wish:

Hava Nagila

Regards, JF

John where does this piece go on the list, its not in my book. Also is this played as written or did you ad lib? I don't want to put the ad lib ones on the main page in case someone wants to hear examples as written.

edit:
John I just checked and this piece Hava Nagila in in the book one thread...

Mark

Mark - Hava Nagila is in the AIO Book 2 on page 70 - I would have no idea why it's in the Book 1 thread, unless I uploaded it there at someone's request or to illustrate a point (?). But even so, it should also be on page 1 of the Book 2 thread - if you decide to use it at all.

I played Hava Nagila pretty much according to the Book arrangement, except on the repeat I only played measures 11-41 once instead of twice, thus merely shortening the piece.

However, if you're not going to include it because of any adjustments or enhancements (or "ad-libs", as you call them) that I made, then you might have to eliminate some of the other pieces already uploaded to page 1 of the Book 2 thread since they contain various "ad-libs", a fact that I believe I made clear all along - and additionally you may not want to upload some of those I just posted immediately above to the Book 3 thread for the same reason.

The choice is your's. But whatever you decide, I'll probably continue to upload selected pieces from Book 3 in the body of the 3 thread (if I manage to get a good recording) - and explain in detail how it varies from the Book's arrangement.

Regards, JF

Hava Nagila is in the book 2 thread as well as the pieces you previously told me about from the "just for fun" forum.

Since you stopped putting your pieces there and notifying me I thought you were not interested in posting your stuff on the opening posts. Which is fine.

I do like to keep the pieces as original as possible to prevent confusion to those using them as learning examples.


Mark

If there are any pieces from any Alfred book you want posted on the opening page, post it here and drop me a PM. Some stuff gets lost in the conversation and I don't always read through every post of every thread.

Thanks

Mark...