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Thank you SO much for doing that wj3.... For some reason, I get so confused between 3/4 and 6/8 time. A couple of them it seems could be either 3/4 or 6/8, especially #10 #12 and #14.

Thanks again, I really do appreciate it!

This is exactly what I did.
If the "gist" of several songs was to learn E-flat Major then I would wade through all those pieces, but really only become enthusiastic and play to memorize Danny Boy.
I found early on that if I don't like a song (He's Got The Whole World In His Hands, for example), I don't and won't learn it as well as the songs I do like.

So now I play select pieces from Book One and Two as warm-ups for the various key signatures and chord inversions the books were intended to teach.

Although, I did have to learn to like Chopin's Etude No. 3 Opus 10 Theme.
And in retrospect it turned out to be the toughest piece in Book Two for me, if not the prettiest.
The rest of the book seemed down hill after that one...

Happy playing,
AC

I'm still working on "Solace". There are a lot of Book 1 people finishing up the last few pages, and they will be moving up to Book 2 soon. I hope I'm not still on "Solace" when they get to it. LOL I've got the notes and the fingering down pretty well. It's the timing, and keeping time without hesitating when I make the jumps that I'm working on now. I did take a little break from it, but honestly, it kept calling to me and it was driving me nuts that I wasn't getting it, so I went back and started working on it piecemeal again. There are so many things to think about in this one - jumps, accidentals changing to naturals, syncopated timing, and my muscle memory is taking a long time to develop with this one. Never fear, I will get it eventually. And I do work on other things too, to keep my interest up. Any advice from all of you who have mastered it would be welcome and appreciated.

Don't worry mom3gram. You've caught up with me and kind of passed me. I am still working on Alexanders Ragtime Band..... I gotten so that I at least want to get decent recording before I move on.

My teacher is a stickler on technique. So we work on one song for a long time. First I learn the notes then I have to count and say the notes at the same time as playing. Then I have to make sure my hands are quiet and only using my fingers to play and then I have to get the phrasing and dynamics right. He won't let me use the sustain pedal until I can play true legato.....So its rather slow going.

I finally decided that its not going to be a race and I am enjoying the experience.

Mom3,
I don't know about "mastered," but I passed Solace a while back and yes I have notes all over the page. In bar 13 (I think - that's not counting the incomplete one at the beginning), I changed the fingering for the LH chords. For the F-Bb-D, I used 4-2-1 instead of 5-2-1, then went to 3-2-1 for the G#-B-D. Seemed to make it easier for me, & my teacher was OK with it. Also, in bar 15, I made a note to be really careful with hand position to get from the bass C's back to the A/C & Bb/C pairs - I tried to keep my thumb hovering near middle C so I'd be able to land in the right place.

Don't know whether that's any help or not.

I'm working on book 3 now but Solace is one of the Book 2 pieces I keep on playing from time to time. I was a big fan of the movie "The Sting" when it first came out and would love it if someday I could takle the complete version of "Solace - A Mexican Serenade" by Scott Joplin. It's one of my favorite Joplin pieces, but it's also quite a challenging one. The "theam from Solace" is only one small section of the found near the end.

Undone

I started "Solace" today. Having fun with it... Can play through slowly. Not too bad once you get the timing right. Being a Ragtime fan and Joplin fan in partictular, I have been looking forward to this one. I also have Alexanders on the run.... Maybe I'll get a recording of it this week.

Wow! I'm so jealous that you can play it through on your first day. LOL Yes, it's all in the timing. Unfortunately I still haven't coordinated the timing with the note playing on this one. Looking forward to hearing your recording of Alexanders.

Hello Forum, I start my AOI Book 2 and forum today. I am just giddy about that.

I am still reading back logs on the Book 2 Forum. That will take a while. I don’t spend excessive time in PW, but I do try to visit and catch up at least once every week. It is most certainly quality time. I get a lot out of PW forums and look forward to the shared Book 2 adventures coming.

I have a couple strengths coming out of Book 1. One thing I have going is a well organized practice routine, balanced between AIO and supplemental studies. Also, I am good with theory and do some study away from the instrument. If I keep to that routine I think I will continue to progress in most areas.

My biggest weaknesses are sight reading and playing with tempo. To work on my sight reading I have started to spend time every day doing just that. I have a collection of unread materials to work from and I have gotten it into my regular routine to sight read every day. But I do struggle with that. As for playing in tempo, I am not comfortable with where I am at. Doing AIO I get each piece smooth and move on. So most of the time, on each piece, I am in learning mode. I am playing slow or unevenly as I work it out. Then when I get it smooth – it’s off to the next piece. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my playing at tempo with competence. Even with my supplemental stuff, I have tried to do as much different material as I can absorb. I don’t spend a lot of time re-playing what I have already worked my way through. So I need a plan to work on that playin in tempo thingy.

I am ready to get started now.

MOM3GRAM!! I'm an artist as well..and also have a collection of watercolor books! I love to sketch outside as well..love Cathy Johnson (am in many of her Yahoo Groups)..and am also amazing a wonderful piano collection as well.

(I'm sneaking in this forum to see what you guys are up to..I'm on Scarborough Fair so it won't be long before I'm here--hopefully..sshhhhhhhh)

Just wanted to let you know that there is someone else out there as crazy!!!!

Welcome, Captain Zero! You will definitely find some timing challenges in Book 2. LOL But I'm hoping that whatever doesn't kill us will make us stronger.

Nancymae, I'm a fan of Cathy Johnson too, and have several of her books. Scarborough Fair is a pretty piece. I should go back and play it more often. I like those broken chords.

Welcome Captain Zero! Good to have you aboard....

Okay, "Solace" is getting better. Not there yet, but getting better. LOL Enough that I felt confident starting the first three measures of "La Bamba" today. Wish me luck with it - I hear it's a tough one.

Ah, yes, La Bamba. I had such a hard time with that one, my teacher was going to let me skip it, but I'm glad I persevered. I hope I'll pass it next time I have a lesson. I played it for a friend the other night & she recognized it, which is a good sign.

Hello all!

I started on book two back in April. Since then I have only made it as far as Hungarian Rhapsody, and instead was working from the Succeeding with the Masters books by Helen Marlais, per recommendation of my instructor. I think she is almost a bit too optimistic of my skills. It takes me at least two weeks to learn a song from the Marlais book enough to play it through, though without proper dynamics. Longer to get it sounding ok.

Before that, I was struggling with the songs up through Hungarian Rhapsody in Alfred's book 2, thinking that the book was far more difficult than book 1. Interestingly, I went back to it the other day, after chopping through the more difficult Marlais books for about 2 months, and found that miraculously I seemed to be able to now simply sit down and play the Hungarian Rhapsody without any problem and little effort.

It seems that even though I have hacked through the more challenging pieces without lingering until perfection, the easier ones now are more simple for me to play. Maybe my sight reading improved? Maybe confidence? I don't know. But perhaps it isn't so critical to play a piece to perfection right away, before moving on, as some instructors have suggested. Well, I like that idea because I am not very enthusiastic of some of the Alfred songs and can't see forcing myself to learn them to perfection.

I have succeeded in trudging through some of the Alfred's 2 songs that are a little corny. Nonetheless, I feel I've picked up some pretty good bits from learning songs like "Arkansas Traveler" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic", from a technique point of view.

I'll worry about repertoire once I have some basics under my belt.

Hi tnew.

I don't think you should worry about it taking two or three or more weeks to learn and play the pieces from the Marlais series, which I have also used with my teacher. Although short (usually one or two pages) there is usually a lot going on musically. Even the Baroque era pieces that look deceptively simple are really very challenging to play well. There's a wide variety of key signitures, all kinds or ornaments, lots of staccato/legato RH/LH, polyphonic melodies, and tons of sixteenth note passages. I don't think you see a sixteeth note in Alfred 2 until more than halfway through the book. My experience mirrors your own in terms of finding the pieces in AIO much more approachable now.



I think there's a lot to be said for this approach. What we are really learning in all of this beginner/early intermediate repertoire is technique and familiarity with a wide range of keys, rhythms,and musical forms. To that end it seems to make perfect sense to be working on more pieces, but not to any kind of performance standard. Also, in my own case a particular weakness is my sight reading, which can only benefit from increasing the sheer volume of pieces that I attemt to read. (Quite appart from, or in addition to, my actual denovo sightreading practice.)

I started to fool around with La Bamba....Boy oh Boy is this one going to be hard! My fingers get all twisted up. I still haven't recorded Alexanders yet, but I can play it pretty well. Working on Solace still slowly its going to take awhile to bring it up to tempo.....

Yes, Solace is a tough one, and I'm still not up to tempo, and I still have a few spots with hesitations, and I think La Bamba is going to be even harder. I'm persistent though. Good luck with it, wj3.

Thanks Mom3..I think its going to take awhile..