Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Achievement of the week - what got you excited?

The grand at City Hall Plaza is pretty nice, or at least it was a week-and-a-half ago. Who knows what the ravages of exposure will have done to it by now.

The one I played this week had ground up leaves and a cigarette butt on the keys when I get to it 1st thing in the morning. Yuck! Made me think of everyone who talks about washing their hands every time before they play. No point with one of these babies.

Week 82: My left hand complains. I attribute it that to too much forte arpeggio practice and too much time in cool air conditioned places. I finally start wearing the Imak brand gloves that I bought months ago based on Piano World reports. I have many other pairs of gloves. The Imak brand is a bit heavier in material, a snug fit in the longer fingers, with a longer cuff. The gloves seem to help. After a couple of very light days when I "ghost" the left hand sections, hovering over the keys but not actually playing them, I go back to light practice.

Ragdoll, what you describe is common, memorizing and then ignoring or putting away the sheet music. This week I go back to the Ashokan Farewell sheet and play starting at different line breaks. This forces me to try and sight read that section. Even though the entire piece is memorized, the line breaks are almost random starting points (measures 7, 12, 16, 20, 25, 30). It is a good exercise and helps me deepen the memory, as well as reinforce the sight reading. Starting at so many points can also help with recovery during a live performance.

There is another thread about being at 90%. As a beginner, I find that staying a long time on a piece, or going back to a piece brings me more and more that I can try to do. It might be subtle changes in the dynamics, voicing or pedaling, subtle or not so subtle changes in tempo. I have been neglecting my metronome work and am making a note of it, so will do at least some for the next week.

As for those street pianos, I carry hand sanitizer with me, so I would use it perhaps before and after playing a popular public piano. The alcohol based solution also does a good job for a quick wipe to clean a table at the coffee house or fast food place.

Have a good week everyone and keep those reports coming.

My AOTW: Today was the second piano party for my teacher and her adult students. I played first, since I was the only one who had played at a piano party before. I was the "veteran". Ha!

I started out a little nervous, because I had to wait while they sorted out some camera problems. Sitting there on the bench, realizing everyone was watching, got to me. Once I started playing though, I relaxed and really enjoyed it. I played my two Grieg pieces, Melody and Valse Impromptu, error free! I was elated! Then, after the other students played, I played another piece, Nancy Telfer's "When Rivers Flowed on Mars". Everyone played very well and really enjoyed themselves. Our teacher treated us to her playing Villa- Lobos "Aria" and Scarlatti ""Sonata in C# minor". Beautiful!

This was a great warm up for the November 10th recital, which will be much more formal. The kids will play first, and then us big kids (adults) will play. I am scheduled to play Villa-Lobos then. It is going to be fun!

My AOTW was that I obtained a copy of the Zanarkand piece from Final Fantasy. It's a lovely piece and I fully expected to add it to my collection of "Music I cannot play." But - wow - I actually can play it - just slowly, and not perfectly yet. It was an upper for me.

I have started and stopped playing a couple of times in my life but when I restarted a year ago, I really committed to putting in the time and effort and this made me feel that I'm seeing results.

WiseBuff - nice accomplishment on the Arabesque. I'm not studying it seriously yet, but I've been trying to play though the #1 when I have some time. I'm looking forward to the time when it moves up to the top of my list.

torquenale - I find that breaks are good for my expressiveness too.

SwissMS - sounds like you got a lot of good playing in at the party.

As for me, I am very excited, having just received the best birthday present ever ... a piano piece commissioned by my husband, written by my teacher. Learning this is going to be a fun, interesting, and unique experience. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about this in a future ABF recital. Here are the first few measures:

MaryB... Congrats.... I look forward to hearing it.

SwissMs.... Good for you. I take it these piano parties are better than a recital. Sounds good.

tourquenale... Good going. Expressiveness....oh yes.

Oongawa.... Good for you. Hate adding to thing I cannot play.

What I'm excited about is. My teacher knows the problems I have with playing with anybody around. She also knows I only wish to do recordings...or rather...demos. She told me to go ahead and bring her recordings. Yes! In the infamous words of Carole King: I can do a good demo..... hehe

I also had another weekend of survival. Just got the electricity and computer turned on. We've had a really bad blizzard here. Lost power Fri. at 1:30pm. Has taken this long to get us back on. No heat, no cooking, no hot water, no lights.
If ya wanna hear whining....I just gotta whine... They were here last night at 7... Worked on it and got the main lines up and everything around us on a couple hours later. The exception was three buildings in my complex. I called in and complained again this morning at 3am. Told them the service crew just walked off. Didn't worry about three buildings not on. We can't have an emergency generator. We depend completely on them. Those A holes! They got the other two buildings on today. This building had to wait until quarter till 9 tonight for power. A holes! I think I got a service crew foreman in trouble for walking off last night. They didn't want to look at anything underground...no pad mount inspections. I'm gonna complain again asking why it took so long to get my building on. I'll go to the PUC. This is bull!

Oh, I thought about you, Ron, when I saw the news about feet of snow in the Dakotas. I'm sorry for the long outage, but I'm glad you checked in and let us know you're back!

Cathy

Thank you, Cathy...
It was a nasty nasty storm. Only thing we didn't have was deep cold. Only got into the twenties. Otherwise, 40mph winds gusting up to 70 to 80mph. Heavy wet snow. Trees down all over the place. Took a picture of a tree outside my window. I'm on the third floor. I love that tree. It used to block everything out. Like a garden apartment. Now it's all folded and broken down on the ground.

EDIT: The wind chill was something like 15 below zero.

rnaple-I'm assuming it will be nicer weather on the 17th when we drive to Rapid City for the weekend (we show one of our dogs that weekend). Glad you got your power back and are safe. It just doesn't seem like snow time yet but then I'm a summer person.

MaryBee. What a wonderful gift from your husband. How long a piece is it? The chords look challenging.

SwissMs. Congratulations on your performance but mostly on having fun with it. I love it when the teacher plays...that's why we follow them isn't it.

Oongawa. Isn't it true that the list of "I want to play this" just get's longer and longer. :-)

Fast tempo has never been one of my achievements so I've been working on it so I can at least have some moderate speed. My approach is to take some easier pieces and work them up to tempo. Schumann's Wild Rider is clipping along at a nice gallop although he runs into a few trees now and then. There's that bit of relaxation that I don't have and now I'm really aware of. Ride on...

@rnaple, sounds like an ugly storm (with capital UGH. Sorry about your tree, glad you checked in.

@MaryBee, what a nice gift, I can't wait to hear it.

@SwissMs, piano parties sound like so much fun. I'm glad to hear yours went so nicely.

@SandTiger, Thanks for the encouragement, nice to know it's a common thing with beginners. I too can see great improvement in my reading when I return to a piece I've put aside for a bit and played from (bad) memory.

AFA, my AOTW (day actually), is that I did not practice at all, did not perform, did not try to correct any mistakes or sluggish tempos, dynamics, etc. I just had a great romp with my piano...what freedom to just play without feeling like I was readying a lesson or performance for anyone. It was bliss for a solid hour. Guess I'll practice tonight though but this morning was so joyful and liberating... a regular frolic

Ragdoll...that sounded like such fun to just play that I followed your example and pulled out some contemporary pieces and just played through them...let Dubussy and Chopin take a rest. Thank you for the reminder that we don't have to work all the time.

I lived in MN for 13 years. I remember that. You have to have a snoot boot when you go out. Do you have one or do you need me to think about a Christmas present?

Cathy

I appreciate the thought. I got everything I need for winter. A real good snoot boot too. Here's a tip on something new for winter wear: Carhartt's Cordura Nylon Shell... like a winter gauntlet.

Here's my loving tree.
[img][IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img33/2998/xgin.jpg[/img]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/img]
Here's another one outside the other side of my apartment.
[img:left]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/3hiw.jpg/[/img]

Well I nearly let the harvesting of our vineyard be an excuse to miss a lesson. I am so glad I went because there is always something to work on and inspiration to be recaptured. That bar 13 and 32 in my Chopin is transformed, 'don't count, just let your fingers float, dance over the keys' sounds impossible but when you try it works!

My AOTW was being dumb or brave enough to disassemble my Yamaha P105 and put it back together. I have had a sticking key for a little while and as I didn't play that key often I let it go and then it got worse. Still under warranty I could have had it repaired but I probably would have had to take it to a specialist repair shop an hours drive away and hand over my little baby for goodness knows how long. Taking it apart was easy as was locating the problem which was nothing broken just a minor adjustment. All done in an hour I am back up and running again.

It's nice already. 57 today, clear, breezy. Just got snow everywhere.
Doggies!.... Oh yes!

Wow, lot's going on here! MaryBee, how super cool to have a composition being written for you! Can't wait to hear it!
Ron - congrats on haning on to MOYD under such duress - wow, I'd have been livid!!!
We were without power for about the same amount of time just before Christmas 2 years ago - it wasn't fun, that's for sure.

I'm in a blah place with my piano right now. I have finally got the new fingerings for fixing my Grieg done, but frankly I've just been working on the same pieces for too long. This week I'm supposed to select and get started on a sonatina, and although I want to work on a longer piece, I'm not convinced that this is what I need right now. I don't know what I need, but something. It has been a chore to get to the piano these last 2 weeks.

Cheryl,
I think you just need to have fun sometimes. Pick something enjoyable to play. I quit on my Grieg pieces. I respect the composer but I was not having fun. I was going to play them for my mid term recital but decided not to. I am not a young person, it means every bit of minute is precious. I know the life has an expiration date. When I practice after 10 hours of work, I'm practicing with sleepy eyes. I want to enjoy the piece I play. There is nothing wrong with Grieg. I like the piece that talks to my heart. Prefer an emotional piece over beautiful landscape. It's just me. So I told my teacher that I won't play them for the recital. It felt good. I am doing two short pieces Chopin and Schubert that I like and having lots of fun. Feel like being with an old friend. I know I should be doing something else .. but hey, sometimes we should not do what we should do.

Cheryl, have you played anything from Bartok's For Children? They're more melodic than you might expect. And being based on Eastern European folk songs, they offer a nice shift in flavor for Western ears. IIRC, the two books are somewhat progressive in difficulty. They're something I've wanted to get into for a while.

Go for some fun Casinitaly. I'm with Farmgirl that life is short and we should use it well. I'm trying to practice what I preach here and just "play" sometimes. I've been practicing for so long that actual playing is stressful. That's just wrong.

Rnaple, so glad it has warmed up in the your area...just not ready for that subzero size of the Dakotas.

Vineyard? Did you say vineyard Palmpirate? You make wine too as well as music. How cool. I get it...you dance over the keys on the Chopin after the wine. Or at least don't notice if it's wrong. Just teasing you. I can't play worth anything after wine.

I got my music theory homework done...I'm so SLOW with figuring it all out. The lead sheet symbols and chord inversions and where they fit in the key signature are things I'm aware of but just never worked with before. Hoping it helps me read vertically as well as horizontally.