Hey AlleyCat, That sounds like a wise decision. Most of us are playing because it is just plain fun (ok, hard work, but FUN work!)
If it starts to feel like a chore, then something is wrong!
I'm glad you are comfortable with your decision and are going to "relax" for a bit. - (in fact, mid Sept is just around the corner!! ack!!!!!!!)

Just finished memorizing the RH of Fantasie Impromptu and can play at about 75% speed. Now I have to memorize the LH.

My achievement of the week is that I seem to have reached a turning point in relation to reading music. For quite a while it's been something I dutifully practiced because I wanted to get better at it, but there was a certain "hold your nose and eat your spinach" aspect to the whole exercise, I did it to further a goal, and had to discipline and apply myself to work on something difficult/frustrating in order to do so.

But I've noticed that in the last week or so, I have repeatedly found myself reading through random music books from my sheet music collection, just because it's fun, a satisfying challenge. I think this marks a real turning point in my music-reading quest, in that it has acquired the intrinsic momentum of a pleasurable and healthy activity.

That's great news Tangleweeds. Congrats, I know you've worked hard at it.

Today's piano lesson! I played all my pieces pretty much as well as I have at home which is pretty much a first.

Aspiring Chopin : good for you! What a solid start to your new piece!
Andy: Isn't that exciting? (It is pretty rare for me too, I wonder if you've hit a turning point? Keep us posted!!

Tangleweeds: now THAT is really exciting - when you feel such a change sweeping over your playing - I'm delighted for you!

I don't have any real achievement to report this week, ..... I just had a LOT of fun sight-reading and trying to play by ear with both hands (I find RH is relatively easy, it is getting anything to work on the LH that stymies me ! )

Let's hear some more! Remember as beginners we are justified in being enthusiastic about every babystep of progress!

Well, it isn't much of an achievement ( or much of a musical week as I was out of town for most of it....) but tonight I managed to ad-lib "When the Saints go Marching in" (which I've never played with sheet music)... in a very jazzy upbeat way - complete with chords and little bouncy notes back and forth between the two hands - ok... lots of testing and fiddling to find my way - but wow, I was giggling away as I was playing - can't wait to give it a try for my teacher!

(I know ad-lib isn't the right term... I'm having a brain foggy moment, I must have used up too many cells with the Saints )

My accomplishment this week is memorizing and playing Star Light Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (arranged by Gori Fater) in 2-4 days. Still rough around the edges, but I've done pretty well so far! The version I have is pretty hard, but I plowed through it! Usually I'm lazy about learning new stuff, I get discouraged because of difficulty, or it takes me a month or more to learn, understand, memorize, and play a piece so this is pretty huge for me

This past week, the conservatory went back into session, so I had my first lesson since June. I had been working on the next piece in my method book (Clementi op 36 no 3, 1st movement) on my own over the summer break, and managed to play it through for my teacher without embarrassing myself too badly. She seemed pleased that I'd done so much work (thank you, MOYD list for the motivation!)even though it will probably be November before I have it polished to her satisfaction (I'm going to be travelling a fair bit for the rest of this month and have to miss 3 lessons)

I appreciate this thread, too!

I'm working on this piece right now, and I absolutely love it! The 3rd movement is giving me troubles, but I hope to grind past them and eventually get my fingers to cooperate.

Good luck with the first movement, it really is fun to play!

Triptych- I don't know that pieces -I'll have to google it! (One thing I love about this forum is that I am constantly hearing about new music!) Glad you got over the feeling of being discouraged and are making good progress!

Thumper and Ben- I really like Clementi - I'm playing around with the first Sonatina in Op36 - but I have the book which contains all six of them .... I will have to give N3 some attention and see what you're talking about !

My achievement wasn't so much an event of progress as simply one of great fun and giggles. I had some friends over for dinner and showed them my little improv for "Saints go Marching in" and one of them joined in with a wild bass end counter part, then another joined in higher up on the treble edge - so the three of us were pounding away absolutely having a blast!

Also, my teacher, who is fast and furiously becoming a friend (and a colleague as we're both teaching in a local middle school this year!!!) and I played a duet for my husband before the other guests arrived. He got a big kick out of that.

What can I say - no big progress, just a great evening of fun and laughter sharing a love of music with friends!

In my last lesson, I was glad I could play 4 out of 6 pages of Chopin's Nocturne in D flat without stopping despite several slips. This is a huge improvement as I tend to let my nervousness stop me from playing beyond a page. In addition, I learned the 4th page on my own without assigned by the teacher, and was commented that I managed well, being the hardest page of the nocturne. Not only that, this is only the 3rd piece I am learning after 17 years of not having lessons, and 17 years ago I only had 3.5 years of lessons. So it was a big deal for me that the teacher has such expectations from me.

A few minutes before the end of the lesson, the teacher asked for Bach's D minor prelude (WTC book 2). After a few bars, the teacher stopped me. I was doing what the teacher spent months teaching me not to. I was shattered! All the good feelings from the Chopin has vanished. I left the lesson really disappointed.

I have 2 weeks to learn the last 2 pages of the nocturne (page 5 already going well). I swear to not disappoint the teacher in the next lesson, Chopin or Bach!

Tubbie - don't focus on what went wrong! Let yourself enjoy the pleasure of having done more than you hoped (or more than the teacher expected) with Chopin.

I have only once left my lesson feeling shattered - and it was AWFUL. I was blue all week.

The best thing you can do is acknowledge that something went wrong - and let go of the baggage of emotion about it.

Look at it and say ...what could I have done to avoid that? Perhaps just a bit of re-focussing, as you switched from one composer to another might have helped you to remember whatever it was you forgot.

Keep in mind, you are a begginer and what you learn in one piece might not necessarily automatically transfer over into another - you (and I and all the others here) really have to work at EVERYTHING - because as new pianists so very little comes naturally!

Be encouraged with your progress and let us know how you make out with the final pages!

After focusing my practice for a few weeks on just the exposition of the 1st movement of Mozart's piano sonata K. 457, I played through it at my lesson. A couple flubs, but I actually played it like I meant it! My teacher said, "Okay, good. Let's move on to the development." (He doesn't give enthusiastic praise.) But I knew that practicing was worth it!

Well done Tubbie and MaryBee!!!

Tubbie, so why would you have a lesson if there was nothing to correct? Be happy you have a teacher as a travelling companion on your journey. Really, they are there to cheer for you, and to help you learn new things, and can see your progress even if you try to mask it by forgetting things you practiced forever.

It was shattering because I would make good progress with the Bach in one lesson then regress in the next lesson, then progress again but regress after that. I felt so stupid and useless even though the teacher has always been encouraging.

I guess you are right. The teacher is there to help me learn. I look forward to redeem myself in the next lesson!

My recent achievement was pulling out cassette tape recordings (that sounds so archaic!) of piano lessons with a sensational jazz teacher I studied with and was able to hear his interpretation of "The Man I Love" which I'm now emulating. It's been several years and it was great to dust the recordings off.

Today I managed to play my Franck piece almost perfectly for my teacher (after totally flubbing it at our last lesson, despite knowing it quite well).

Though there were a couple of errors, I played it really smoothly, and with much better flow and feeling - I knew it was going well, and when she said "BRAVA" I really knew I'd earned it.

It was wonderful.

The othe achievement this week is of a different nature....... I chose my acoustic piano and it will be delivered on 21 October.

(One of my friends is at the keyboard, the pic is from my cell phone!)

Hello Cheryl!

Well done for getting it right! You most certainly must have deserved your “BRAVA”!

I used to find that I knew a piece “quite well”, but when it came to playing in public (or in front of even just one person), I might “fluff” parts of it. Often, when I next played, it was better. A lot of this is “all in the mind”, I think.

Now too, I will go back to the part or parts that I didn’t play to my satisfaction, practice the section(s) slowly and then progressively to tempo: that seems to do wonders the next time around!

Anyhow, congratulations for that, and of course for your new acquisition - it looks a lovely instrument!

You’ve already read about what got me excited during the week, so I won’t repeat myself again here!

Good luck

I am impressed with everyone's accomplishments. I have been sick for 4 weeks with bronchites and could not do much besides clickin on the forum and listening to the Chopin Intl competition. The medicine started working yesterday and I tried playing scales and hannon. I was very happy to do that although I had to cough from time to time.

Ha ha. I know what you mean about the teacher's presence affecting your playing. I'm thinking of getting a photo of my teacher, and then when I think I really know a piece, put the picture up on top of my piano and try to play it again.* I'm sure it would make me totally mess up.

* just kidding!

Cheryl,

Congrats on the Franck piece, and oooooooo-aaaaahhhhh double congrats on the beautiful piano. Fill us in on the details of why this one said "I belong to you."

I think I might surprise my teacher in my next lesson that I can play HT C major scale (4 octaves) at M.M. 60 (though it's only Hanon's minimal tempo requirement). I don't think he'd expect that from a beginner who started learning piano only two months ago. I'm ready to move on to G major and D major now. When everything else falls apart, scales are always there holding up the fort. That's how I feel sometimes. :-)

yeh right one d"amore..!
I figured that practising scales DOES pay off allot.

My accomplise this week is that I can play chopin prelude op 28. no4 well, and are being credited that my chopin waltz was on of the best versions somebody heard which makes me more eager to learn.

Finished work on and recorded Carpenter's bittersweet Christmas song "Merry Christmas, Darling" (no, it's not too early - only about 75 shopping days left).

Continuing work and making real progress on Schubert's "Waltz in B Minor" (very lovely piece of music).

JF

I love reading about everyone's progress and activities!
Christmas music already - mamma mia.... I suppose it is time to be getting ready!

Jim... why was this one the "one"... Well, keeping my budget constraints in mind narrowed the field

However, .... I'd been to the dealer before, and tried out several, ..this time I had planned to try a few others that I'd not seen before.

I tried a Kawai, and we all agreed that it sounded muddy - my husband said it was just darn unpleasant!

We tinkered about.. and then they said, we have some with silent mode.
My friend strolled over and played a bit on one of them, and it was nice, so I tried a bit, but when I paused, my friend tried the one beside it - and although the two pianos were practically twins (serial numbers just a few digits apart).... the sounds was totally different.

I was immediately drawn to it - literally - I felt like a magnet was pulling me. It made me say "ooooooooooh!, what have we here?".
When I sat down to play I loved the feel of it - just enough resistence to be comfortable.

I've already re-organized the living room in preparation for the delivery!
and yes... pics will follow!

cheers!

Sounds like your piano found you, Cheryl.

Now I have an announcement. ......drumroll........

I'm beginning a search for an acoustic. Not in a rush and have to work out where it will go in the house. But a grand is likely. Wooohooo, now I just have to allow a piano to find me like you did.

Ahhhhh!!!! Congrats Jim!!!! I hope that you find "the one" as quickly as Cheryl found hers!!!
I still haven't found mine, but I keep looking and looking and looking.

Oh Jim, that's wonderful news!!!!

If I weren't so excited about my own piano arriving, I might just be a tad jealous of you getting a grand - but as I'm so thrilled.... I'm just really happy that you get to go for the grand! Keep us posted as your search unfolds!

You too Glasslove - we want to know about your shopping too!

Now I just have to break the news to my wife. Doh!!!
This is going to cost me a living room full of new furniture I suspect.
Oh well, the piano will need classy company.