This week I recovered a piece I hadn't played for over six months. A Busoni-Bach chorale prelude Ich ruf zu dir....

It took a little under 4 hours to "get it back" and playable from memory. For a full report see link in sig..

This was really last week's achievement. My (summer) teacher had asked me to start on the second movement of Mozart K545. At the next lesson I played the opening 16 bars or so. He sat thoughtful for a minute and said (paraphrasing) "I've always thought that that movement was about the same level of difficulty as the first but you made it easy. Do the rest for next week". And that was it.

Sadly today's lesson won't be so good! The movement got harder and I goofed by trying to learn it all a little instead of concentrating on getting another section in good shape. Oh well, we live and learn!

I'd been indulging in naughty period of neglecting my sight reading, mostly because I had reached an odd impasse where all the practice material I could find seemed either way too easy or way too hard.

But I noticed that my general music reading skills had improved lately, so I got out the Keith Snell Preparatory Level Repertoire books I had used in the very beginnings of my piano adventure, and was surprised to discover that I could sit down and read the music off the page fluently enough to get the gist of the tune pretty quicly.

Most (not all) are still too hard for me to sight read at a steady tempo, but now a new and pleasant part of my practice routine is reading through a couple of new pieces, and just discovering what they sound like.

One of my major piano goals that I talked about here last fall was to be able to sit down with a book of unfamiliar sheet music, and be able to get a few new tunes sounding musical with an afternoon's pleasant practice. It appears I am now capable of doing this!

This week I found in a library-musicscore-book a arrangement of the main theme of the movie Schindlers list. It was written by the Dutch pianist Jan Vayne. Mostly is the theme written in G-minor......Vayne put it in a real new accompaniment in A-minor. I enjoyed it to play....

Also nice other arrangements in this album of Jan Vayne

Best regards,
Johan B

I learned "Martha My Dear". It needs practice, but it doesn't sound bad either. Now I have 4 songs/pieces I can play all the way through. Yay!

I am a beginner of 6 months and today I started playing Fur Elise. Only took two days to learn. I have most of the "beggining" down. Just need to clean it up.

Douglas.

Sounds like some good things are happening!
Elwyn, I checked out your blog- very interesting to read about how you approached the challenge!
Andy- great feedback from the teacher! Good for you!
Tangleweed - isn't that satisfying? A real sign of progress!
Johan, - Schindler's List is one of my favourite films - thanks for posting a link to the book!
Little Blue, you are on your way to building a great repertoire!
Basskid -doesn't it feel great to get started on a new piece and feel you're doing well?

Complimenti a tutti!

I think I finally had a breakthrough in voicing on my Mendelssohn piece - Op.19 No.1. Yeah!! I was starting to feel like I was never going to get it.

Another nice thing, but not one of my accomplishments, is that when my piano tech came to tune my piano this week, he also adjusted the touch to be a little lighter. It's so much easier to play my trills and turns now.

I uploaded my first MP3 recording of Enya's Watermark this week in the members recordings section, I have messed about for some time with piano but never really performed anything as complete as this so I'm quite excited about it to be honest.

Cheers

Martin

Deciding definitely not to read any more entries in the "...can I get to Julliard in 12 years..." (and I've only been playing for 10 weeks) thread...

Wow...it sounds like there are a lot of wonderful accomplishments out there!!

I'm excited this week as I just got my piano tuned and cleaned for the very first time! Now my teacher can teach me how to use those pedals!! (I have been working with a pedal-less keyboard up to this point!) Will have to go back and redo some of the music to get that pedaling down!!

My piano has been sitting, not being played for a very long time. (could be decades), so the keys were difficult to press, but they are much easier now (for the limited play time I was able to get during lunch).

Interesting to read everyone's comments!

Nancy

I am mastering a Montuno, that I want to use as warm up routine and for having fun

that's my happy tip of the week

I have been working on a Mozart piece and my teacher wanted me to try to memorize the piece and play it. I am proud of my accomplishment because I fully remembered the piece, and played it well with all the dynamics.

Wrapping up my study of Chopin nocturne op9 no. 1, and memorized half of clair de lune. Also, picked up a great Sonatine collection for sight reading practice. Some are quite cute really!

Wonderful stuff! I feel energized just reading your posts!

Trilling news MaryBee
I love Enya, MF-blues - I'm going to check out your recording!
EJR - excellent decision - best to avoid posts you know are just going to make you roll your eyes eh?
NancyMaey, your fingers are going to be flying now!
Joe, I'm not familiar with Montuno.... research time for me!- that's one of the things I love about this forum. I read about what others are playing and it opens up new horizons for me!
Mozart 79 - what satisfaction! Complimenti!
Rui725 - Sounds like you are on a great roll of progress here!

Thanks for sharing all the good news - it really is inspirational to read about everyone's successes!

Today my teacher told me she was very impressed with my dedication and how well I took note of correcting technique (specifically in my case hand and arm position and relaxation)

She said I was a wonderful student! Made my day.

That along with the fact that we played sight-reading duets for an hour and a half (after the lesson), just for the fun of it!!!
I played my first Mendleson piece today.

Wow, Cas - that must've given you such a boost.
I still haven't found a teacher - waiting till I get back from vacation.
My achievement of the week, I guess, is that I can play page one of the Oscar Peterson book well enough that I've moved on to page 2. (Slow but steady.....)

My accomplishment of the week:

Practicing faithfully on piano assignments, then being able to follow that with songs played for pure enjoyment. The evening comes, I am still playing, the sun sets, the stars come out and quietness descends making tone production more clarified and rewarding. I am learning more and more how to gain sought after sounds.

wow, well said!

Rui, what is the full title of that Sonatine collection? I need more sight-reading material too.

Sonatine Colllection 1 followed with scribbles known as the Chinese language, haha.

It's a local publishing company that threw a whole bunch of Sonatines into one and sells it for real cheap

A nice collection is the Clementi Op 36 - there are 6 sonatine. I'm working on the first one.
There are a number of editions - Amazon has some which also have CDs.

How fun! I wish I had someone I could do that with.

Ahhh. You are inspirational!

CebuKid,

If you go to the sheetmusicplus site and seach under piano, sonatina, you will find several different collections. The Fabers have two albums at what looks like early intermediate/intermediate level.

If you want lotsa sonatinas for sight reading, perhaps you should check out this offering from CDSheetMusic:
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Piano-Sonatinas-And-Standard-Study-Works-Version-2-0/7868051

Here's the contents:
http://www.cdsheetmusic.com/products/disk_contents.cfm?product=17

SheetMusicPlus has a 20% off sale on all their CD Sheet Music until August 4th.

It's spelled Mendelssohn, dear. :P
But in all seriousness, it amazes me how fast you seem to progress! What piece was it that you started?



You sightread that stuff? O_O
I've been busting my ass over that stuff for hours, haha! That's pretty amazing, give yourself a pat on the back!
How long have you been playing?

P-Rex, thanks for the spelling correction - that's what I get for rushing and not checking! lol....

I will have to check the name of the piece we played - she kept pulling them out and we just kept plugging away at them. It was a charming piece - we're meeting tomorrow and I'll write it down.

Things have started to come together in the last few weeks. Of course everything is relative, but I definitely can feel a change in what I'm able to do, it is very exciting!

It really is a good thing to be able to find the positive in everything we do.

I am pleased with the fact that I don't get as anxious as I used to when I go to my lessons. I am also much less critical/self defeating. Now I can practice without beating myself up over every little thing. Because of this I think I am making better progress than I have in the past. My reading is getting better as well.

Getting a recording for the piano bar that I was happy enough with on take #1. It's not perfect (but what is) and I covered a big flub nicely I think (not going to say what it is!!).

The MendelsSOHN duet I played with my teacher is OP 62 N. 1
It is peculiar in that the "primo" part - the easy one - is mostly only right hand until the end.

This week my achievement was that for the first time ever I played something better during the lesson than at home! woohoo!

Kymber - that sounds like great progress!
Andy - how nice you were able to cover up your "flub"..... I won't even bother listening for it !

(edited to add: I've just listened to your piece - lovely!!!!!! You have a really nice touch, and your playing is really even and steady. I'm inspired to put that piece on my "must learn"list! May I ask when you started plyaying? )


Isn't it stressful recording? Worse than playing in front of people because any mistake you make is always going to be there! argh!!

I'm hoping I'll have my piece in shape before the 15th to submit for the August recital. I dropped the Vinciguerra I was working on as I realized I was never going to get it anywhere near the right speed for August.