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Thanks Waltz. It's good that you are enjoying your seasonal changes. While I prefer the warm weather climate myself, I can also appreciate all of the beauty and activities that each season has to offer as well.

I was listening to your Bach's "Musette in D" and those jumps seemed quite challenging as you've aptly pointed out, but I'm sure that you must have conquered them by now. Definitely a nice little heads-up for me when I get to book 3.




Hi AWtPP, You've been progressing beautifully! I enjoyed listening to this piece as well as the short and cute piece that you played for your 3YO daughter,"Tarantella", what a sweet image.



Hi Music in Me, It was a pleasure listening to your version of "Sakura" and "Waves of the Danube" as well.

"Sakura" brought back a lot of Samurai movies memories which I used to love to watch, and I definitely can't wait to get to "Waves of the Danube", another beautiful classic, beautifully played.

Cheers,

Key Notes

MiM, great job on both of them. It's also impressive how quickly you mastered WOTD after not having played it for 8 years. Keep up the progress, you are playing extremely well.

Key Notes,

The Musette isn't in Book 3, my teacher assigned it to me. I'm doing Bach's beginner stuff. Currently, I'm learning Minuet in G (114), which is really pretty.

I'm doing Rock-a My Soul, and I'm trying to justify the specified fingering, and I juat can't understand why they would choose fingers 3 and 5 on the first notes of bar 10 (the first 2 notes of line 4). Sure, I understand that the provided fingering is not etched in stone, but it is clear that fingers 1 and 3 would be more logical, especially when you consider the next note.

Could someone look this up? ... just to see if this is as obvious as I think it is! Or may be let me know if I'm missing something.

I have just started book 2 and it seems that Guantanamera the 6th and 8th measure seems to make the song sound correct I have to play the last 2 fingers of the F cord at the same time that i hit the last B on the right hand? Do the notes always have to line up perfectly or did i just discover something. The song seems to get off beat if I try to leave a slight delay. Can anyone shed some light on this for me, thanks

Here's measure 6:


I added the counting in to hopefully help you see how you'd do this. So here's how you'd play it, one hand at a time, stating the note/action and then the count for how long you'd 'hold' that note/action in parens.

Right hand: Rest (1 + 2 + 3) D (+) E(+) F (+)

Left Hand: B (1 + 2) FG (+) FG (3 + ) Rest (4 +)

So when you play the last F&G with the left hand, you hold it for a full count (in this you'd hold it when saying '3 and'). When you are on the 'and' of '3 and' you also play the D with the right hand, so you're playing the B during the last half of the F&G note.

Hope this helps

-Nancy

Thank you Nancy. Keeping count seems to be a weakness of mine, you think I should go over book 1 again? Problem is I pretty much memorized every song by now, so that probably won't help me. I guess I will just try to pay close attention to it from now on. I find myself a lot of times just playing the song and seeing what happens without counting

I don't think you necessarily need to go back over book 1. I find it really helps if I try and count out the music even before I play it on the piano. I'll even write it in with a pencil to help myself remember the timing on the tricky bits. My piano teacher will often draw a line from top to bottom when a RH and LH note needs to be played at the same time. I see this in a few places on Guantanamera, so I obviously needed the reminders

I think Guantanamera is a very pretty song; keep at it!

Nancy_w, amen and a great lesson indeed.

That's why I insist on the "Music in Me Index Finger Method" (tongue in cheek), which I use before I play any song, which is basically a way to ensure that one does the right counting and feels each note with his/her finger.

A typo correction to your statement that "...so you're playing the B during the last half of the F&G note.". Here you meant D, not B.

Ah - thanks for that correction. You must be the person I remember who has posted before that you do the counting with your finger. I think it's a great method, very simple, but effective. I sometimes have to remind myself to do it on even the 'simpler' music as sometimes 'simple' can be deceptive

Nancy,

Nice to hear from you again. Did you finish the Coate's Canon in D? Are you in Book 3?

MiM,

Your fingering seems fine to me, whatever works best. Alfred's sometimes goofs with that, so I wouldn't worry about it. Rock-a my Soul was a "Blah" piece I thought.

I woke up this morning and now I am able to play it, funny how that happens. Hopefully one day I will get to a point where i can just take a brand new piece that i never seen before and be able to play it correctly without having to track down a recording.

Hi! I'm still reading posts, but not posting much myself. Call me a lurker

I sort of finished the Coate's Canon in D. I don't play it everyday anymore but every couple of days. It's such a pretty piece. I did play it for my piano teacher when I started my lessons up (and totally screwed up two areas where i couldn't get my fingers to do the right thing. Figures).

I'm taking a break from Alfred right now and working on pieces for the level 3 exam. It gives me something to work towards, and I'm enjoying the songs that we picked for me to work on. I also think it'll be good to really polish some songs vs a lot of what we do in Alfred is get most of the way there, and then move on. Later I might decide doing the exam was nutso.

Nice! A piano teacher and a new repertoire. Minuet in G is definitely another beautiful classic.

Key Notes

Nancy,

Level 3 exam! Which exam is it and where/when will you take it? That's really exciting. Also, if you don't mind, I'd love to know the pieces and other things you must learn and perform to pass. I've done some research on the British version and level 3 is no joke, some advanced stuff was there. Is the British test offered in America?

Key Notes,

Thanks . I just started with a new teacher a month or two ago. It's working very well, and I can see the way I play and practice changing. I am also working, as a long term project, on Clementi's Sonatina op.36 no.1. I sort of have the first movement down, but it needs work. I just began the second movement yesterday.

An excellent idea indeed in getting a good instructor, and glad to know that things are working out for you in this regard.

Clementi's Sonatina Op.36 no.1 is a fun sounding piece and so I presume that it would be super fun to learn as well. At what speed are you aiming for? Spiritoso is what it sounded like to me. Looking forward to hearing your recording of it.

Key Notes

Edited to add: I also liked Clementi's Prelude in D as well. Such a beautifully soothing piece, and I enjoyed listening to Undone's version of it in A3 thread.

Waltz:
Glad to hear your teacher is working out well for you.

The exam program I'm doing is here:

National Conversatory of America

I'm not sure everything that's involved yet; or how it compares to the British version. What I know so far: I have to memorize three songs; and then be able to play two others with music if I want (those are studies, and not as long as the songs). I also have to be able to do some scales and a formula pattern; which isn't too bad.

They used to have a list of songs on the website to show what to to choose from for each level, but I could only find the popular ones. Here's what we've picked so far:

• Hornpipe in B flat Major (Henry Purcell)
• The Song of Twilight (Yoshinao Hakada)
• Arabesque (Burgmuller)

We still need to select another Study and a Sonatina, which I'll learn more than one movement in, but only have to play a single movement for the exam. (It looks like the Clementi one you are working on is one of the possibilities there) You can also pick a popular piece as teacher's choice, but it's still from the list they have, but it's quite extensive.

The Song of Twilight is quite pretty and I really like it. The Hornpipe one is very challenging for me. I didn't think it would be, but argh! The left hand is supposed to play detached - mostly quarter notes, but the right hand has a lot of stuff going on timing wise and I haven't yet felt like I've mastered even the first line in it. I'm working on all three songs at once right now.

I'm not sure when the exam is; or how it's all setup yet!

New piece:Rock-a My Soul

Nancy,

I had not heard of the American branch of Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music. Do you know if you will receive the same diploma as the Canadian version? I tried to download the syllabus, but it instructed me to buy it in a local music store...

Spiritoso is definitely what is called for on the sheet music. Right now, I play the first movement around Adante. I still have a lot of work to do there... I think it is fun having a long term piece to learn. My goal is to have the entire thing playable by Christmas. So no real rush

Nice job with the new piece. What is next for you?