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

MY AOTW: I finished my recording for the recital! Yay baby!

Christine - even though the cello thing might not work out, you probably got an awful lot out of it already, so its not really time mispent. And the idea of more duets with your son sounds great.

SingSong - hope you are feeling better by now. I had this image of you coughing on the beat.

Cheryl - I was sure you were going to say he turned and said "hey, this is really hard!" The digital comment is pretty good though, now if you can convince him its not the same with the silent option engaged when he's napping....

Recaredo - It is amazing how just a small change in hand postion makes all the difference in relaxation and tone production - god bless the spaces between the black notes!

Maechre - Can you tell us a little bit about this. Are you a full time music student?

Andy - Debussy's Arabesque is such a nice piece. If you can play it in front of your friend on an unfamiliar piano, I'm sure you will get a recording you like soon. You wouldn't want it to be perfect anyway... we'd have to kick you out of ABF for wanton professionalism

BeccaBb - Way to go. Can't wait to hear your recital submission.


I had a sort of mini-achievement last week, but the kind that makes you feel good because it is the result of something you have worked on. At lesson, as I was doing some arpeggios for my teacher that I work on every week, I realized that I was getting to the notes way ahead of time at the tempo I'd been working. They felt so relaxed and she even commented that my wrists looked totally loose and flexible. This is such a change from a year ago that it really snuck up on me. She had been assuring me all along that speed would come whenever my wrists loosened up and urged me to just focus on accuracy and good, even tone production.

A small step, but one necessary before I could move forward.

Jim

That is an awesome achievement, Jim. My hands still HURT doing arpeggios. I work so hard at them and I aim to describe mine as you just did. CONGRATULATIONS.

Thanks for the comments regarding playing with the cello. I agree with you, I am not at all disappointed nor full of regret for trying. I did learn an awful lot (perhaps most importantly....that I for the most part play by ear when it comes to counting) and my plan is to move forward from here. If you notice in my signature, I have a collection of pieces I am playing with my teacher. I am learning what will be my son's future parts. She will play my future parts. Should be fun.

Congratulations! My family is lobbying for another dog, but I'm not ready until they can take (most of) the dogwalking duties. I did get to spend time with a relative's dog this past weekend, and soaked it up.

In piano, due to travel my practices have been much less frequent than hoped for, and I haven't been to a lesson in weeks... but I did realize (upon looking at the score more carefully) that I was making a rhythm error in my minuet (adding an extra beat where I wanted a note to last longer, but Bach did not)... I've only played it once for my teacher so haven't gotten much feedback on it, so didn't catch the error that way...

I've also been getting used to a tricky fingering in the sonatina I'm working on, which my teacher wrote out for me in contrast to what's indicated on the score, where my thumb is used on a black key... and the next note is on a nearby white key between two blacks, but my finger just doesn't fit in there so I have to kind of curl it and hit the white key away from the blacks... anyway, lots of words to say that the hand position required there has been new but now is starting to feel natural, a different way to play. Sonatina still has a long way to go, but I hope to record the minuet for the recital... I hope that is my AOTW for next week!

I study David Nevue's O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Postlude) as a kind of "relax" between practising pieces from the children book recommended by my teacher.
Yesterday I've spent some time on the piece's end where there are chord in left hand spreading octave played for whole measure and right hand plays very simple melody from 1/4 notes. Last three measures in left hand are going up in a sequence C, D, E. So I just need to move spreaded hand in fixed form always up one key.
My issue with this is that I'm not able to switch the hand fast enough to not stop music flow on these chords.
Yesterday I've experienced AHA moment where before switching the chord I pressed the dumper pedal and just at the same time of pressing keys down on next chord I released pedal. When I showed that to my wife (12 years of piano playing experience in her childhood) she just rolled her eyes over, but for me this was really invention which I got just from the attempt on improving playing and solely myself, since so far I've not dealt with the dumper pedal at all. So I just reinvented the wheel, but it was really gratifying experience...

What got me excited this past week was that I was watching the Wings for Wheels Bruce Springsteen documentary about the making of Born to Run. Springsteen showed the first house where he lived alone for the first time and said something like, This is where I wrote the songs to Born to Run. Most of them were written on piano... actually, all of them were written on piano.

When I was a teenager, this was one of my favorite albums, and I never realized all the songs were written on piano. I suppose I always thought of Springsteen as a guitar player and figured the piano was just another instrument added in to give it a fuller sound, just like the sax, keyboards, bass, drums, horns, etc.

Anyhow, in the documentary, Springsteen would often play a little bit of each song on the piano, and so after watching it, I went to Amazon and looked at the preview of a piano book for Born to Run.

The sheet music may not be entirely accurate to the album, but anyhow I managed to play the first two lines of Thunder Road and really enjoyed it.

Another minor achievement..... The MacDowell piece I've been working on has one measure where the left hand has to play a ninth, and two places where it plays a 10th (G-B). Right hand is doing its own work an octave away, so no help from a sneaky RH thumb or anything like that. The ninth was never a problem and I could reach it as long as I streched as far as possible. But the tenth was impossible and I had to roll it, which is exactly what my teacher does too. Last week I realized that I could now reach the tenth too, although just barely and only by using the front edge of the keys. Also the MacDowell tempo is slow, so I don't really have to rush to get to it. When I showed my teacher and asked her if I should play the tenth or roll it, she said "play it, and I'm so jealous", which really felt good

I have to believe that a month of stretching to get the ninth opened my hand up just enough to catch the edge of that tenth.
There is hope for us oldsters after all.

Jim

It has nothing to do with the piano, but none the less i feel some sort of achievement (LOL). Here's Charlie my new put with his father and mother. I am looking forward to long & happy life journey with him. He is not gifted as Emma musically but does not dislike piano music (phew!).



Here's Emma and Charlie. Emma put her pianist career on hold for a puppy. She took him under her wings and has been acting like a surrogate mom. She taught puppy how to get through the doggy door, so the puppy is house trained in 3 days - it's a record for us. It took me 6 months to train Emma.

Sounds like Charlie is gifted in another kind of way (the basic skills department).

FarmGirl - Charlie is the cutest thing! I hope he helps Emma heal her broken heart - and you, too. Your memories will be good.

Cathy

FarmGirl -- how wonderful to have a new member of the household! And what a cutie he is! Congratulations.

AoTW - My lesson last week got canceled at (literally) the last minute when my teacher had to leave unexpectedly. But since I was already at the studio, I spent the hour just playing on the piano I usually take lessons on. Getting to play on a grand piano was just such a treat, and I realized there's a big difference between playing on a piano and taking lessons on it. I felt like I really got to enjoy its qualities, rather than concentrating so much on what and how I was playing.

As a young child, my sister-in-law took a year of piano lessons. She just recently started trying to re-learn how to play. When I saw her the other day, she asked me a couple questions about reading music, and since she was obviously a little confused, I volunteered to give her a "lesson". So I went over there last night, and we spent about an hour going over some basics. It was lots of fun, so we plan to do it again when she's ready. So now I'm teaching piano to two people!

Andy, what is the silent option you were considering? Do you have an upright? On my upright, there is a felt cloth that can be lowered between the hammers and the strings using the "practice pedal" (the middle pedal). It doesn't make it silent, but it does quiet it enough to prevent disturbing others' sleep. On the downside, it does kind of ruin the tone. But I bet it would be pretty inexpensive to install something like that. And if you didn't care whether the raising/lowering mechanism was attached to the pedal, maybe you could even do it yourself.

Yes, I have a practice pedal too. It works OK, though I do find there is some unexplained ringing with it on (I think it's probably felt hitting other strings lightly which, when the damper pedal is down) causes unexpected resonances.

The Silent Option is an add-on - sometimes done at the factory, but it can also be done by anyone who wants to pay for it.
You use the middle pedal to move a horizontal bar in front of the hammers, which prevents them from striking the strings. Then you turn on the electrical power and you have a digital piano. There are different kinds of sensors that can be installed - the one I have is Yamaha and it is very sensitive to pressure and speed of depression. When we were shopping the salesmen opened up 2 pianos with different systems. The other system (I don't remember the brand) had a much less sensitive digital read -we could all hear the difference (and my husband was fascinated with the insides of the pianos! When mine arrived he wanted the lid open so he could watch the action going !)

FarmGirl - Charlie is adorable! What a great new friend for Emma (and you too of course!)

Welcome to PW, Charlie!

Awwww FarmGirl your dogs are adorable! (especially the puppy)

Congratulations everyone on their musical achievements, and FarmGirl on her gorgeous dogs. Golden retrievers are the best (or maybe a close second behind St. Bernards)!

Christine, MaryBee, Cathy, Cheryl, Lain, Sam and MaryAnn,
Thank you so much. I am quite lucky to have dogs like them. We have an indoor gate, so they are confined in a couple of rooms that has access to the dog run. I feel sorry for Emma. Emma loves piano and she wants to come out to listen to the piano when I play. She gives a couple of protesting wines but I cannot get her out. The puppy start crying (like beaten to death) the moment we remove Emma from him. You can say that I am completely out mother'ed by my own dog. Well, I am used to out played by kids, so, there you go again.

I just realized that we don't have so many days till the recital on the forum. I am so not ready. I have to put on Rach piece I am playing off and on. I have not played at speed. It does not sound the way I want. I usually feel like I have normal length of fingers but for some reasons, this piece makes me feel like i need a couple more fingers. I will submit it since I find meaning in participating.

Thinking of the upcoming recital, I sat down with youtube to listen to what others done with my piece. It was fun but I am now completely depressed at how horrible I am. I liked Prokofiev's recording of Rach prelude 23-5. Borrowing Mr. S/H's expression, it was frigging amazing how much melody lines he could bring out. It almost sounded like coming from 3 pianos. I also liked Rachmaninoff's old recording (not the one revived from the player piano). It's just that the recording quality was poor, probably due to the technology of the day. Prokofiev played it a bit slower than everyone else but I loved his sensitive way of playing. It was beautiful. As far as I know, he only had 5 fingers on each of his hands just like anyone else, so it is really amazing how he brought out those melodies buried in the music. I am strangely inspired to direct the piece further to discover the melody line I missed / failed to bring out.

Now i'm listening to Barenboim's recording of Pathetique movement #3. It's out of the world. It brings tear in my eyes. I like his playing of Pathetique #3 best of all I listened to youtube. I like his phrasing, sensitive playing, basically everything.

I don't have achievement to speak of... I went to lesson today and worked on 2nd and 3rd pages of the Pathetique movement 3 with my teacher. I had so many points to improve. She is generally happy with my progress but I am reminded of importance of reading the score better. I read notes very quickly but often failed to notice those expressions noted on the score including the dynamics. Much to be desired... (whining).