Wow, congrats...I'm still working on stuff in the ambitious section.

Book three seems to have a high attrition rate. A lot of people decide they’ve had enough of Alfred and move on to other things before completing it. There are a bunch of great pieces in it, but they are mostly in the “Ambitious Section” while the main section of the book has a lot of “not so memorable” pieces. These are also a number of pieces that take a long time to master.

Undone

This definitely bears repeating!

A lot of folks who study on their own drop out of this book pretty quickly due to the dud pieces or they move to the "Ambitious Section", complete them and move on. Those with teachers seems to be in the book to start with but then they are pulled away from it. Of course, there have been several folks on here complete the book but as Undone said, the attrition rate is high.

There have been times that I have wished for "instant process" especially going through Alfred 2 and 3 books. I am still in 3, working at my pace on "moonlight"> I am on the fifth page!! But I have been working on this piece since last Christmas along with other music.

Take the time to enjoy what you have learned to play and don't forget to go back on what you've learned ( that's one of my goals because I have forgotten some pieces).

And yes, I will definitely post this when I have this piece to my satifaction :-). Take care

I finished "Jazz Ostinato" this week. I should have another piece assigned to me out of Book 3 within a couple of more weeks.

Just saw my amazon.com order for book 3 shipped, looking forward to it myself.

Congratulations on being another step closer Cyborg. Jazz Ostinato, as I recall, was one I had to “force myself to learn”, but I must admit that almost all of the pieces that fit into this category I wind up getting some enjoyment from once I get them down.

Fate; Welcome to the book 3 thread. We look forward to hearing more from you once your book arrives and you get started in it.

Undone

Undone,

Ironically, it's been one of my favorite pieces so far out of book 3. I got it in two weeks (pretty good for me) and my teacher said she loved hearing me perform the piece with such confidence. So I was pretty pleased. Hopefully, I'll get the next piece out of book 3 assigned to me this week.


Fate,

Welcome aboard!!! I'm looking forward to seeing your progress through book 3.

Cyborg,

All the better then! There are a few “jazz oriented” pieces in book 3 an I may have one confused with another. But it really doesn’t matter, as I said above, even the ones I’m not crazy about at first I usually wind up liking by the time I’m done with them, and it’s always better when you like it right from the start.

Undone

I was assigned "Solider's Joy (Hornpipe)" this week. I've also wrapped up several other Alfred's series books recently.

Funny enough, I spent some last weekend trying to find Tocatta in D, and here it is all nice and transcribed. Having some fun with that one.... Tho, I'm still trying to keep to my goal of playing through these books properly.

Hi book 3er's. I started this book a while back, but like so many others have set it down to pursue other things. I have decided to try and complete this book from the beginning so I'm starting with "A Super-Special Sorta Song".

Wish me luck.

Hi HG, good to see another book 3 participant going for the “full set”. If you can keep at it through some of the “pieces of questionable worth” you’ll find that there is a lot of good stuff in here. You’ll also find that this will probably take longer to complete than either of the previous books (if you include the “Ambitious Section” which you really should).

Anyway Good Luck on your journey!

Undone

HG - Welcome aboard the Book 3 group!

Just an update that today I was assigned "Variations on a Sea Chanty". I'm moving along in Book 3 slowly but surely.

Thanks for the welcome guys.

I'm about finished with "A Super Special Sorta Song" and will be moving on to "Calypso Rhumba".

Well gang, I’m considering myself done (though I'll still use the forum name "Undone" ). I finished Fur Elise, the last piece I had to go in Alfred’s Book 3, this weekend. It’s not quite at “recital level” thanks to all the repeats, but there are only a few glaring “oopses” in it and most of them are problems with dynamics. I’ll continue to work on it from time to time just as I do many of the other pieces at the end of book 3, but I figure I have it down well enough to call it finished and so will move on to other “post Alfred” work.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would not have made it this far if it were not for the “Alfred Adult All-In-One” threads here in ABF and all the fine people who have contributed to them and worked along with me through many of the phases of learning. A big thanks to Mark for starting them and to everyone who has contributed to them over the years!

Undone

Can somebody tell me - is this piece in Alfred's Basic Book 3 or does it only appear in the All in One Book 3? Thanks!

Congrats again Undone! I never expected the threads to last this long.

So where you going after the graduation parties...?

If its the spooky sounding one, its it the basic too.

Woohoo, Undone! Congratulations. Are you the first to graduate from all three of these threads? What book/piece are you going to work on next?

Is the Fur Elise in book 3 a simplified version, or the "real deal"?

Thanks Mark & mom3gram. It really does seem like a graduation, especially since it took about as long as High School!

Undone

It's the "real deal".

Undone

Everything in the back of book 3 in the "Ambitious Section" is the read deal.

cool! look forward to that

Howdy y'all.
Let me introduce myself.
I'm recently retired, but have been foolin' around with keyboard "for an embarrasingly long time", considering that I still can't really play--I actually started when I was a teen.
I've mostly tried to learn on my own, but I've had a few teachers along the way, for a few months at a time--one was very good, actually (taught at college) but I didn't have my own piano at the time and didn't pratice nearly enough.

Anyway, I'm here because a few years ago I decided to pick up again with Alfred Adult AIO Book 2, and with the help of a teacher, slugged my way through it. I didn't think the teacher was helping me all that much, so I quit lessons and started Book 3 on my own. According to my notes, I got up to page 41, "Make up Your Mind". I must have "made up my mind" to do something else at that point. What I did do is go back to the Chord Approach Book 2, and I worked through those and a lot of the supplements, especially Christmas and Hymns. That was fine for just playing tunes, but I wanted to really learn the left hand, so I went to the Basic Course starting in Book 2 again, and quit again when I got into book 3 or 4!
Reminds me of the old saw--I don't have X years experience, I have 1 year experience X times!

But I still can't play the songs I want, or play good enough to, say, accompany a family sing-along.
I'd like to evenutally be able to "play by ear" and play hymns from the hymnbook (4-parts).

So now I'm now working with a new teacher in a group class, and he's using a "constructive" approach--showing us how to write songs and make chords. I like that--I feel I'm starting to play music and not just notes.
But his approach is a bit weak on technique. And discipline--which I sorely need.

When I (re)discovered this forum, it inspired me to take another look at Alfred, because I was making noticeable (to me at least) progress then, and as I say, I don't seem to make progress unless I'm following a disciplined plan of study.
So I guess this is my pledge to me to FINISH AIO Book 3! (And review book 2.) Imagine being able to play Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin! Off to the piano!

tinman1943

Tinman1943, I hope you have better luck in completing book 3 this time. It can take a long time to do so. One thing I found when I started my re-learning journey; I thought that when I got “good enough” I’d be able to play some of the more complicated pieces such as those at the end of Book 3 as easily as I could play the pieces in book 1 when I was at that level. This has not been the case. It takes me much longer to get the “ambitious” pieces down, but on the other hand, I’m able to complete them much more quickly than I could have when I started in book 3. You just have to stick with it!

Undone

Thanks for the encouragement, Undone.

I decided to go back to the begining of 3 since I've been away for so long.
Actually I'm also reviewing 2 in parallel.

And I'm also trying to catch up on the first 46 pages of this thread, because I'm sure there's a lot of good advice in there. And in the other book threads as well.

But here's a problem I'm having at the moment.

In a piece like Super Special Sort of Song, there's a lot of repetition of the same patterns,
and switching to repetitions of a similar pattern. I can do any given pattern, measure or pair just fine.
But when I try to play the complete song, I end up still playing the G7 chord pattern when I should be playing the C, or vice versa.
It's like the change sneaks up and surprises me, then I either hit the wrong notes or have to stop and figure out which notes to play before going on.
Perhaps I'm not really paying attention to the music at all, just playing from memory, and don't notice the switch until it's too late. (When I was in school I could "read" a whole page of a boring novel while daydreaming about something else!).

I'm guessing I need to learn to read ahead so I can start planning the switch before I actually get to it. Which means playing one thing while looking at something else.
I know I can do it with words, when reading aloud, so it must be similar with music, right?)
Any suggestions how to practice that?

Tinman1943, Sounds like you already know what to do to resolve the problem; read the music as your playing (don’t go by memory too soon) and learn to look ahead a little for what’s coming up. In my previous post I stated that it takes a long time to get some of these piece down. That’s true, but the further I went in book 3 (and the more time under my belt), the more I found that I could quickly “work my way through the piece”. Maybe not site read it, but within a relatively short period of time I could bungle my way through. Where the “takes a long time” comes in is taking the piece from “bungling my way through” to “finished piece”, and the last ten percent of “polish” takes more time than any other segment. But then that’s just me, and it’s all part of the fun.

Undone