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

To all beginners and new comers:
I understand whenever you complain that there is no beginner in this forum. The fact is many started out brand new or semi brand new or returned with shakey fingers after God knows how many years of absence. They just got better quick. Cheryl is a great example of successes. Donno if they were adult prodigy or what. One thing for sure their love for music and very patient yet analytical (totally adult)way of learning made difference. So you too get better. Sorry Cheryl I had to say this for new comers.

Zoe- I agree with getting pedal in from the start. I too had to go through the ritual of doing it without for a couple of weeks, etc.

Malkin -yay for the bits and pieces. I find the backward practice (described in my long post above) to be truly a time saver.

Well, FarmGirl, thanks for your kind words. I don't really think I'm an adult prodigy - Sam Rose, Wouter, JazzWee - those guys are the really amazing ones.

I think I'm a reasonable example of what anyone who is dedicated and determined (one might say obsessed) can achieve without being particularly talent.

One thing that I'm CONSTANTLY trying to remember is to be patient with myself. I am so guilty of wanting results NOW, I can really make myself crazy!

There is- me. I'm not even grade 1- nowhere near it. What brilliant posts- you folks are so dedicated and inspiriational! And what great teachers as well.

CasinItaly, you are too modest. If you were uploading for the recital after five months on piano, that is exceptional, and definitely in the above average group. Years of childhood music exposure and training gives a person a huge advantage over someone that is totally new to making music as an adult.

There are many true beginners. I see their questions. Some of their queries get little response because the questions are so basic, often with a poor understanding of what to ask. I remember when I was relatively new to the forum and posted a question on how to play a simple arpeggio. Silence, not a single response. Only when I posted a clip of my beginner mangling did a kind teacher take the time to respond to my question and told me something so extremely basic.

For every basic beginner question posted there are usually another 100 or 1000 readers often times wondering the same thing. The other thing that happens is that a new person posts a question and abandons the forum.

I do want to encourage all the new beginners, the lurkers, those on the fence about sharing music with uploads. Everyone was a beginner at some point. For those that have been playing for a month or two, or three, one reassuring thought is that many new folks are getting their first instrument as a holiday gift. So by the time January comes, they will be where you are now, and will look to you as the more experienced person.

Sand Tiger, what a great post! I will try to give my feedback next time if I knows answer to beginner questions. It just makes me appreciate our resident teachers. Peter, Keystring, Apple, Merodien and others I may failed to mention. Thank you

EdwardianPiano - I hope to play at parties if not at home with family and friends.

Christmas Music learned so far:
1. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
2. Angels We Have Heard on High

My goal is 5 songs. I started a week and a half ago. Now granted I've only had 3 lessons, I'm just putting in extra practice time to accomplish my goal. Hope I'm not rushing my learning! I'm also a true beginner!!

No, not too modest, that really isn't one of my characteristics Quite the contrary in fact, I've got way too much ego! I will agree though that the highschool training made a significant difference in my "start up".
I had to learn the bass clef, and of course there is the whole issue of two hand coordination - but being able to read music and being familiar with how to make music was indeed a huge help.



Sometimes it is hard to understand what is being asked - and sometimes it is hard to know how to explain what you'd like to answer! I spent about 20 minutes last night trying to formulate an explanation of counting for someone and gave up... then I saw a teacher had replied and cleared the matter in about 3 lines!

I do confess though that sometimes I get a bit tired of seeing the same questions over and over - I think that some folks really need to learn to use the search feature! However, I do try to remember that not everyone is familiar with forums and just as they are new to learning piano, they are quite possibly also new to learning how a forum works!

What I do like is that every few months we see a new batch of arrivals and they seem to "click" -- you can see the same folks replying to each other, and of course there is input from older members too - but the newer people tend to develop a rapport - much as we have done here in this thread.

Your suggestion of making uploads is interesting but I have to say that I have rarely uploaded anything except my recital pieces. I generally have not felt that I want to record and publish. I find recording stressful --- and there again, lots of folks don't know how to record and upload, so that's another frustration and something else to learn (which takes away from piano time!)

You are right about pianos arriving in the next month as gifts! I got mine for Christmas and that makes for a fun "benchmark" for comparing where I am with my Christmas songs every year.

And again, your point about each one of us gradually becoming the one that a newer person can refer to is bang on. The lovely thing about this forum is that there are so many folks at so many different levels. Sometimes there are just a few months difference, sometimes we're learning different techniques at different times in our journey -but it really doesn't take very long before we have some insight to share. That insight may simply be "oh yes, I had a terrible time learning xyz, but now I can do it" -- but even that can simple "now I can do it" can be an inspiration for someone who is frustrated and feeling incompetent.
We've all had THOSE moments - and no doubt will face them again (and again and again) in the future!

I have been away for a while, and I have had a blast catching up on this thread! There is such good information and enthusiasm here. You guys are great inspiration.

I had a major MS relapse that caused temporary partial paralysis on my right side, which prevented me from playing piano at all. I am happy to say I have made a complete recovery and I am again on the piano bench. My first AOTW was being brave enough to actually sit down and try to play again. I was scared to death that I would not be able to play. My fingers are rusty after 2 1/2 months, but everything seems back to normal. I just have some rebuilding to do.

I had my first piano lesson since the end of September today, and my teacher was happy with where I was at. I am thanking my lucky stars that she specializes in the physiology of piano playing. She gave me some simple etudes to focus on maintaining the bridge of the back of the hand. Weak fingers tend to let that collapse. So, my goals for this week is to get my pieces back to where they were before the "intermission", and to be very aware of my hand position. One visual aid tip she gave me which I will pass on: the thumb and the fifth finger should always point at 11 and 1 o'clock. It seems to work for me.

Hi SwissMS - so glad to hear you are on the road to recovery from this very scary relapse. My mom has MS, but she has never had that kind of experience. I can only imagine your fears as you lived through this.

You are really fortunate to have a teacher who can really focus on what you need!

MY ATOW....My teacher was pleased with my work this week - I'd improved vastly with the passage I didn't even think I could do last lesson! He also noted I'd somehow managed to get it wrong and I had ended up doing something that was technically even harder! lol.... The correction was a simple thing (I had focused on holding down the g and bflat AND the octave G, instead of letting go of the bottom notes!!, I was supposed to just do a legato and leave them. He was actually sort of pleased with the error becuase it was good in terms of developing a technical skill).

He also saw an improvement in my hand position for scales, but I have more work to do - I tend to have my fingers flying up in the air when not in use. I've "tamed" them a bit, but he showed me more detail on how to develop the skill.

We also studied a few bars and hand positioning shifts. The bars themselves are very simple, but the concepts are things I will apply to many pieces in the future. What he is showing me is how to look at a piece and decide how I'm going to play it right from the start.

He also showed me that I was attacking the grace notes in my jazz piece too ferociously and how to lighten up !

I leave the lessons feeling thrilled and that I've gained something that is another building block in my piano skills-set.

I can't help but wonder why my other teacher didn't do some of these things, and I continue to be pleased about the switch!

Well I have an informal Christmas Recital coming up on the 7th of Dec (center court of local mall)for which I have been reviewing some pieces. I was getting frustrated with my teacher because she kept pointing out things I didn't deem very important for this venue. ie: "you rushed this phrase", "this count was too long", etc. WELL, two weeks ago she told me to practice consistantly with the metronome until my tempo and timing were correct before next lesson.

Then yesterday at my lesson, we played the pieces as duets and they were so beautiful I got a bit misty. She wants to do these along with me at the recital.

Aw, that was a special moment indeed!!!!

If you tap out the rhythm of a song, it will probably be recognised. If you just play the notes, in a rhythmless string, you might be surprised that it won't! Your teacher was right. Your audience in the mall ill excuse the odd wrong note. They'll immediately notice if the "beat" slips.

I'd hardly describe my practice of them previously as a rhythmless string but more my own interpretation of the songs. I had intended them to be solos. I believe she wanted the actual rhythm on my part to be correct (per the sheets) in order to surprise me with her intention to do them as a duets. Which are a completely new thing to me.

Andy Congrats on your Aoty! My first year mark is coming up end of this weekend.

Farmgirl: Your lessons sound like so much fun! Please let us know how the master class goes. I think I might be green with envy!

Cas: another awesome lesson! Again I feel green! hehe Glad to hear that your teacher is helping you to relax. We really can be our own worst enemies eh?

Zoe: Good for you for figuring out a way to get around your lack of time. When I was working full time I was so tired I rarely touched my piano! You should be proud of yourself for sticking with it!

Warlock: That's a awesome goal! I'm only trying to learn two right now (Jingle bells and Silent night) to play for my family for X-mas. The extra time can only help!

SwissMS: Welcome back! I'm glad to hear your on full recovery! I have two loved ones with MS. It's an awful disease and I'm always so impressed with the grit to keep going. It's very nice that you have a teacher so supportive!

Ragdoll: congrats on your first attempt at a duet! Sounds like a ton of fun!

Sounds like you are having fun Warlock. Best wishes for your lessons and Xmas music.

How cool to make beautiful music on your piano!

Sorry to hear about the MS SwissMS- nice to hear you're improving and playing piano again. I do voluntary work with people with MS and have met some great folks who are doing all sorts of arts and activities.

Casinitaly you are certainly doing very well with your teacher. I've been a bit lazy on Piano lately. I am blaming the cold weather and vegetating on the couch with a hot water bottle.

AOTW... blech, not much. Pretty much just surviving (from a piano perspective that is). Between Thanksgiving and going away for three days, there was very little bench time, maybe two or three hours total across the last 10 days. Mostly I was in "just keep the music in the fingers so it's not forgotten" mode. Mission accomplished.

I did squeeze in as much time as possible with http://www.musictheory.net/exercises though, which is excellent. I'm able to identify individual notes much more rapidly and accurately, I also (finally) can identify key signatures by name based on their flats/sharps. I'm starting to be able to identify intervals and chords using their proper names (both from the grand staff and seeing the keys highlighted).

The most exciting part of this is that I'm starting to really see patterns, both consciously and intuitively. For instance, a perfect 5th is a root white key and then the fifth white key up from that root (OK, obvious), and on the black keys it is the fourth black key up from the root. Actually, I imagine there are black keys everywhere and I then play the fifth above. I find this easier mentally because I'm simply looking for the same physical distance regardless of whether the keys are black or white.

This works only when the perfect fifth spans one and only one pair of keys without a black key between them (B/C and E/F). If crossing both B/C and E/F, you need to go up an additional half step from the fifth key of the same color -- so this extra rule only applies to B as the root for the white keys, and A#/Bb for the black keys.

Not rocket science (and oh goodness, please someone tell me if I've screwed this up, but I did double-check myself just now and I think I have it right), but it's a jump forward for me to actually start to grasp these things on the level of understanding the relationships between the concepts and the physical reality on the keyboard vs. either memorization or brute force "dead reckoning" of counting half-steps, using mnemonics such as "FACE", and so on.

My next goal is to be able to have the same level of intuition from the written page to the keys. It's easy to see B/C and E/F on the keyboard, but on the sheet I still don't have those two interpretive exceptions integrated into my thinking so that I can convert an interval or chord into the shape of my hand without having to translate the notes on the sheet to the letters and then to the physical keys.

I think this will be a long process, but my gut sense is that being able to grasp the impact of B/C and E/F is the main thing that is necessary in order to deal with the variety of hand positions needed for different chords, scales, and so on. Otherwise, if we had black keys between every single pair of white keys (I guess we wouldn't need a G and a G# then would we?), every chord, interval, scale, etc. would have only two forms -- depending on whether it started on a black or a white key. That would be so much easier! ...setting aside of course that it would be next to impossible to keep track of where we are on the piano

So, I'm really zeroed in on understanding the impact of B/C and E/F since they are really driving much of the complexity we face (not to mention saving us from crippling simplicity) in translating between the sheet and the keys.

Also... my Christmas surprise has been ruined, I will be getting my piano tuned.

The kids were bummed because they wanted to surprise me and have me sit down to play one day and suddenly have actual music come out of the thing (it's really that bad, I'm half tempted to make a recording of it, just for posterity's sake). But I asked my wife to please PLEASE PLEASE not have it done without me there since I want to discuss the action with the tuner, decide if it's worthwhile to try to raise it to concert pitch (it's a half step flat in the middle, as much as a whole tone flat in the upper registers), find out if he thinks it will hold its tune going forward, and so on.

If you've made it this far on this prattling post, you deserve a medal...

ATallGuyNH -- what you are going through is a very exciting step forward. I remember making similar observations to my first teacher after a few lessons --..Oh look what I've figured out! Bless her heart, she didn't laugh! Sure it is dead simple stuff, but so is long division once you know how to do it!

It is too early (and I haven't had enough coffee) to get a handle on your description - but if you are feeling that EF and BC mess things up, then yes, I'd say you're on the right track!

Did you have any music reading experience before starting on the piano?
I did, but even so, the transition from page to touching the instrument was harder on piano than on clarinet for example, simply because of having to read 2 lines, and sometimes having more than one note to play at one time.

I remember the thrill of seeing those patterns for the first time ---and actually I still find it very exciting to look at a piece of music and realize "oh! I get it! This is like..xyz". Very satisfying indeed. You'll find that the more you play the more those symbols on the page are automatically translated to a finger positioning. You won't even think of what they are, you just know - much like reading text and no longer spelling out words, but reading them as a whole.

I was told that it would take about 2 years to start being fluid in reading, and in my experience that was pretty accurate. What I've found in my third year is that the learning increased at a more rapid rate.

If you can do as much sight reading as possible (I have 2 HUGE books of "easy" piano - I personally don't find 50% of the pieces very "easy", but there sure are a lot of pages - over 500 in total-- I try to sight read every day. Inlanding made a suggestion to me --- that I should try playing a page, and write the date on it - that way when I go back to it in a year or six month I will have a feeling for how much easier it is to play. Even if I'm not doing "pure" sight reading (prima vista), I am practicing reading with pieces I'm not very familiar with.

Several of us have commented on how much easier it is to play our Christmas carols this year - there are 2 very cool aspects to that. One is that we can mark our progress, the other is that many of us were here talking about what we could do with our carols and we can share in each other's progress!

Last night I was trying to sing while playing carols....talk about a coordination challenge!

I think it is great you're getting your piano tuned for Christmas! And also right that it isn't a surprise. I love hanging out with the tuner while she works! It is wonderful to hear your piano come back into its proper voice!

Playing a duet was very clever of your teacher. It made you play maybe with a degree of "interpretation" but without losing the rhythmic pulse.

I wasn't suggesting you went ALL the way down the rhythmless string" path! And music, particularly written-down versions of popular styles, often (usually?) requires a bit of interpretation. I just see "It's my interpretation!" so often used as an excuse for sloppy playing - slowing down the tricky bits, rushing the hard bits...

It's hard. Just this week I had to tell a student something he probably saw as quite illogical. A Joplin rag, though an ancestor of mainstream Jazz styles, takes straight 8s, unswung. Then I dug myself a hole. "Like rock music, as against Swing" I said. Next we looked at "Jingle Bell Rock". Written (in this version(in straight 8s. "Ah. But this is 1950's Rock 'n Roll. Written straight, played swung." And God help anyone who tries to play the notated rhythms strictly literally!
How do you tell a student what notation is worthy of literal playing, what transcription of a pop song by a publishing house hack arranger isn't?