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

That was how my teacher had me play it. Left hand in the usual place, right hand one octave higher.

That is great... I don't know what else I have messed up. I'm self learning but "with teacher" gets my vote, hands down.

Not related but I'm listening to a few ABF Recital pieces as I'm writing this post. Music is truly beautiful. Amazing how a pair of speakers has improved my Journey. I'm falling in love with Piece # 24, Like the wind, performed by kawaigirl1. Check some of them out. My heart and soul are somewhere on a beautiful cloud blue sky paradise heaven dream land... I don't think what I just wrote is proper English but who cares... Wonderful night, sweet dreams, if it's day where you're, Good day, everyone.

Thank you for the songs Nguyen! You get my vote as nicest forum member :-)

Thanks Metusion for the vote. Don't flatter me too much or I’ll start doing this more often and get myself in trouble with Alfred. And don’t worry about the posting here regularly. I was just joking. Don’t take me too serious LOL…

I enjoy it here too much I just try to get us post more I guess. Someday I post something dumb; the next day come back, read my post and like “what non-sense”. Hahaha… So please everyone, don’t take me serious LOL… My hope is, though non-sense, joking and goofing around sometimes, it inspires and motivates us to learn together.

Hi,guys and gals, I'm back. Jus picked up Book 1 w/CD fom my local bookstore yesterday. I made it to page 30. So far I'm really happy with my purchase.
My main reason for purchasing was to learn to read music, and it looks like a great choice for that.
As for the "songs" Rock-A-Long, Mexican Hat Dance, all the way to Jingle Bells, I don't plan to learn them. IMO they aren't songs, but more like reading/playing exercises to familiarize you with seeing the notes and playing them together, and I will treat them as such. I will begin with Jingle Bells to actually learn the songs.
Once I reached page 24(intervals)things began to gel. I continued to page 30, but will stop and go back to page 24 and work on intervals until they are burned into my brain. In my view they will be key to learning to sight read at speed, which is my ultimate goal. So I'll remain there until I know them "like the back of my hand".
My goals for Alfred's aren't so much to learn to play(I'm already playing publicly in my local church) as to learn reading, basic theory and technique, etc. So each time I come upon a new musical idea or concept I'll stop and burn it into my brain and fingers before I move on. It'll be slow going, but well worth it in the end, IMO.

Welcome back Pianonewb. Hope the series will serve your purpose. It's indeed very helpful learning together as we go along this thread. I've also listened to your Recital piece. Pretty cool.

Hello all. I'm assuming everyone is having a fine weekend?

I know this might have been suggested either on this thread or in the forums before but I was able to snag a copy of Barbara Lister-Sink's Freeing the Caged Bird. A lot of people have suggested it to self-learners but surely directs it to all parties. It's a very informative video that talks about techniques to help you play with minimal effort. Easier said than done, but this video definitely showed how tense I was when playing (especially without a teacher's guidance). There are some vids on youtube from the video. Just thought I'd share because it helped me tons!

I also purchased a PX-330 and according to the tracker it should be arriving sometime this week. I was also lucky enough to have a family friend who may teach me starting sometime in January so hopefully it will go smooth. So far the new year looks to be starting off a promising one!

Anyway good day/night all. Pianoworld has taken enough of my practice time. Lol



P.S.
Oh sole mio! is kicking me arse... hahaha

Thanks, Nguyen. I also believe this thread can be an important learning tool. It's always more fun doing things together.

Had to miss my lesson last week due to being ill so have moved on to some new songs having perfected all the ones up to them, so now working on Little Brown Jug, Chiapanecas and O Sole Mio.

Yuck, can't stand any of these three pieces and LBJ and OSM are quite difficult. Little Brown Jug is so trite but I have spent hours on it already, still not that good. I look fondly back at being stuck on lovely elegant superb Blow The Man Down compared to this horrible little ditty!

Will be very glad when I am past these three.

I have to say I didn't like Little Brown Jug at the beginning, but once I managed to 'get it', I really like it. Especially, when I try and play it as fast as I can! Chiapanecas took a while to get used to too, but I still can't stand O Sole Mio. I think it is the arpeggio that I don't like - was trying them out in Amazing Grace last night, and they sound awful!

My Scarborough Fair is coming along ok. I think I can play it reasonable smooth, when I remember all the right notes! And Raisins and Almonds are coming along too.

I have received my 'Greatest Hits' supplement book, and I am rather disappointed, as I was expecting it to be more exciting. Oh well, only 7 (ok, 6.5) days left till Christmas break!

I can kinda play Scarborough Fair, but some of the notes on the music sheets seem off.. I've tried different combinations, but it just doesn't sound properly. Are there mistakes on the sheet I should be aware off? For the rest I can almost play it because I already knew a different version of the song. This version sounds better though despite the few weird keys..

No, there are no mistakes on the sheet... At least I don't know of any. Which part do you think is wrong? What are those weird keys?..

I had my last lesson for this year last night. Pity, as I am loving it so much. But, to compensate for that, I am having a full 1 hour lesson first week in New Year (back to half an hour afterwards)!

The practice is suffering a bit with all the run up to Christmas, but I still manage to spend at least a few minutes at piano every day. Soon the work will be over and I can spend a few hours just enjoying myself!

The sheet you have is from the Alfred Book Metusion. Make sure you play all the Bs as natural Bs. Though the song is written in "D minor" with B Flat Key Signature, all of its Bs are Natural Bs.

I am enjoying playing "Greensleeves/(What Child is This)" as my Christmas piece this year. It sounds great now that I am able to coordinate the pedal.

I can play "Scarborough Fair" pretty well without error. Now to add the pedalling. For some reason, I keep messing up with "Raisins and Almonds". It's so similar to "Scarborough" that it shouldn't be a problem, but it is.

"He's Got the Whole World" - first two parts are great, last part a little shaky because of the B-flats. I keep forgetting about them.

"Entertainer" and "Amazing Grace" are proceeding slowly, but they aren't as hard as I expected them to be. I didn't think I would ever be able to play these when I first looked at them.

Maybe I'm working on too many pieces at one time, but I don't want to get bored. Plus, I'm really looking forward to finishing this book. :-)

I have found myself doing this as well... I think what is happening is that I am getting better at the initial learning phase of a new song to get to the point where I can hit the right notes at the right time at a slow tempo. But then there's a much longer learning period where I work the song up to the proper tempo and get the dynamics correct, etc...

So basically I learn the basics of a song quickly, but it takes me a long time to master it. I find the period of time from "basics" to "mastery" to be somewhat boring and frustrating.

I especially get frustrated when I make a mistake in a spot that I know I can do. It's frustrating to be able to play any particular part of a piece flawlessly in isolation, but when I put the entire piece together there's always *somewhere* that I make a mistake but it's not a consistent spot. So practicing to get rid of "random errors" is very frustrating.

So I tend to get several songs up to a working level and then rotate through them to master them, but this makes progress on any one song seem slow.

If that makes sense.

I will check again thx.. It's just that some keys don't sound good together.

mom3gram, congratulations on your “Greensleeves”. It's great to hear your pedal and the song is polished. I'm also very encouraged to hear the above.


It does Mooshinator, perfectly. I just have the opposite problem. I can’t concentrate on more than one piece at a time. Sometimes I flip a few pages forward and play them to test and see how difficult/easy they are but not start practicing until I have some confidence that I’ve learned the current one and it’s somewhat polished. I go back and play them from time to time for warm ups, to enjoy or to put some polishing touches here and there, but I can’t go ahead and start a new one without some satisfaction that the current one is ok to move on. Strange right? Maybe I’ve ingrained my mind to focus only one at a time. Just hope my mind isn’t more linear, logical than conceptual, musical. I do enjoy music more than science. LOL


Maybe you don’t like the piece. Or maybe this arrangement isn’t as good as the one you know. Maybe you haven’t played it correctly. If you like the song and this arrangement, it'll sound right eventually. Best.

I usually prefer to work on multiple pieces at once otherwise I get bored of the piece.

But this week I'm making an exception because I really wnat to be done with Little Brown Jug, and I fear that if I mess around working on some other new songs too then my teacher might not pass me on LBJ on Friday.

I am curious - how long do you all practice in one sitting? I do a lot of short sessions.

Well, I am giving myself a 'tick' on Scarborough Fair! I love the song, so it is not going anywhere, I'll keep playing it. Gave it a try to "He got..." this morning, both hands - I might be able to do it!!!!

Entertainer - I can do right hand pretty well now, but I am still dreading to add the left one!

Amazing Grace - those arpeggios sound really bad, I will need a lot of practice to get used to them...

Bolt, I did the same thing with "Little Brown Jug". I dropped everything and focused on it so that I could get past it. I sort of liked it in the beginning, but by the end I couldn't wait to get rid of it. LOL

I practice in several short sessions during the day. I find that I can focus and not get "sloppy" that way. Sometimes I run through everything once or twice, and sometimes I concentrate on one piece or part of a piece that is giving me trouble. I usually get in a total of 2 hours.