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

Ragdoll, like you, I'd worked for a while with an unsuitable teacher. In fact, this may even top your experience: In addition to being rather disorganized and scattershot in her approach, she was teaching out her ex's house without telling me that she didn't actually live there anymore. I found out the day she didn't show up for my lesson and I made the mistake of ringing the doorbell: The ex answered and started screaming at me for being there. Apparently, she didn't actually own the Kimball piano we'd been using, either; when she moved in with a new roommate, we ended up using an ancient thing, about 100 years old, shot to heck, not tuned in memory, with a couple of dead keys and missing keytops.

It's almost funny now, but ... oh, golly!

Fyi, if you haven't done so yet, do ask your piano tech for teacher recommendations. Many techs are accomplished musicians, and they know which teachers take care of their pianos. That's how I found my wonderful teacher. My requirements were to find a teacher who could provide a fundamental/traditional musical education, focusing on classical music and including theory, who was experienced teaching adults, and who had a well maintained instrument. Over time, I have learned to trust my teacher to teach me (instead of thinking I knew what I needed to learn next), and we've both been flexible about what pieces to work on, books to use, etc. She's also learned that I am a terrible student with bad/nonexistent practice habits and a tendancy to want to move on to the next piece before I'm ready. :p

Cas, congrats on recognizing your year-to-year progress! I'm sure you've been making headway all along -- but *seeing* it can be a different matter. I'm curious about your continued work with the same Christmas carol arrangements. What book are you using?

Ragdoll, my bad! I confused your search for a teacher with a thread by shaolin95, who'd had a bad teacher with a bad piano. You probably wondered why I was telling you my crazy former teacher story ... *facepalm*

I am using the Joy of Christmas (Agay) book. I was overly optimistic when I bought it.

Your story about the teacher using her ex's home is both funny and outrageous.

My AOTW is that I started messing around with Phil Collins' "Against All Odds" and learned the intro (just two measures) and ending (4 measures).

1) Gave myself chills (well, Mabel & Mr. Collins did 99.9% of the work)

2) Played it for my wife and she got really excited: "Oooooh! I loooove that song!", and started singing the lyrics.

She actually liked something I want to play! Yay!

Now I just need to figure out how to accommodate my vocal limitations.

Hold on... do you mean, she was sneaking in there with you? She still had a key (or jimmied the window, or who-knows-what) and scheduled you for a time when he would be at work or otherwise (hopefully) not around?!?

I really like Agay’s piano solo books, so I’ll definitely be looking to get the Joy of Christmas. It doesn’t surprise me you’re taking some time to get through it. It's actually bigger than his skinny little “Intro Classics to Moderns” text that I may never get all the way through.


I suppose they had some kind of agreement? She acted like it was her house -- was there ready for me to arrive, front door open -- until the day I woke up the ex by ringing the doorbell, etc. As I recall, I balked at meeting her at that house again, so she switched to the roommate's condo, but the sad-sack piano did me in. I did feel rather sorry for her. It seemed her life has just tanked and she was trying to get back on her newly single feet, but, well, obviously it was an unworkable situation.

She was the second teacher I'd tried. The first was a Russian lady in Chicago who talked to me like I was four years old and used a text that would have suited me if I had been. Apparently, she didn't understand the question "Do you teach adult students?" meant that I was looking for a teacher who was used to teaching adults. :p

Thankfully, the third time was the charm, and I finally met my wonderful, wonderful *real* teacher. I'm sticking to her like glue!

My teacher is a DMA student at the U. He's having another recital this weekend and I am really excited to go.

A good teacher is a treasure. Of course they need good teaching chops, but communication, personality, sense of humor and patience in the right proportions are important.

@pianodeb --- It isn't only that it is a biggish book, but that I have only really "studied" a couple of pieces. In effect I just sit down and try to play them. The first year it was almost hopeless. The second year it was better. This year it's going really well. My favourite piece is Oh Holy Night, but there is a huge selection - included a few Italian carols, and some I've never seen.There's an interesting arrangement of "Il est ne le divin enfant" by Agay which I have been dabbling with and find quite charming.

Tonight we have an "Adventure" of the week! - We're going into Milan for a concert.
Argerich and Kremer. The program is Mieczysław Weinberg Sonata 3 op. 126 violin solo, Sonata n. 5 op. 53 for violin and piano, plus Beethoven : Sonata in G major op. 30 and Sonata in G major op. 96.
AND....we'll meet Sinophillia

@malkin

+1

How nice for you, both the concert and meeting a fellow PW member. Not familiar with this opus but will look for it on YouTube for a listen.

That's great Cas. Nice to know you'll meet Sinophillia!

Finally called the piano tech after not having my brand new piano tuned since I got it 6 months ago. So apparently it's wayyyyy flat. He did send me a reminder card to get it tuned sooner "because brand new pianos should be at least tuned 4x in its first year" I obviously didn't quite get that into my head. Oops! Now I know why. This is my AOTW because after he's done tuning my piano I'm planning to practice for hours Oh and also, I managed to practice everyday this week after getting home from work even when it's 11pm. I'd neglected my digital piano for a while there....I bet it was so sad collecting dust in the corner. Now it's happy again

I predict this would have happened even if you hadn't "planned" it. Gotta love a newly tuned piano.

Six months is a long time!
Brewer is so completely picky about tuning that we had the tuner over 3-4 times/year for the Vogel. The tuning on the new piano gets worse by the hour. I'm not sure how long we'll be able to stand it!

And how cool was that?

My beloved Martha, the wonderful Gidon Kremer, Cheryl & Mr. casinitaly all in one night! What a treat!

My first AOTW post: Learned to play "The Sick Doll" (Tchaikovsky Op 39 No 7).

Started playing two months ago and enjoy every minute of it.

I played organ for a couple of years when I was a kid (three years or so, stopped when I was 10) but was a bad student (Not really practicing, no focus, probably started to early) so I never got anywhere.

Happy to have access to the forum. I was not able to access for a while today. Happy practice and happy thanksgiving! I have guests this week and will be super busy for non-piano activities.

Why don't you play for your... guests?

Congrats wimpiano! Getting that 1st song/piece under your belt is always so satisfying.

Congratulations and welcome to the AOTW thread. Sick Doll is an interesting piece, one that you can really bring out the musicality. What are you working on next?