Jim - ok, I listened to the link....1000 apologies. I don't know what I heard before, but it wasn't this. I take it all back. I would play that!

I would play it in a box.
And I would play it with a fox.
And I would play it in a house.
And I would play it with a mouse.
And I would play it here and there.
Say! I I would play it ANYWHERE!


Christine - bingo Yes, I am charmed! I actually have read something about this piece in the past, though I'd never heard it played before.

The title is "Pavane pour un infante defunte"
One's first reaction is that it was written for a child who had died. However, from what I understand, it is meant more for a child from an older time.
Here.... A quote!
Ravel described the piece as "an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court". The pavane was a slow processional dance that enjoyed great popularity in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."

Very Funny!!!

Yes, you are right regarding it too, it was Ravel's first piece to gain popularity. It is dedicated to Princess Polignac.
Ravel preferred it to be played calmly, without too much passion or sentimental rubato. He didn't say that it couldn't be played with a fox, so I believe it would be safe to carry on with that plan

BTW: If you like Bolero, you can hear a lot of nice solo piano versions of it too.

I predict that next month you will Ravel sooo much that you will insist your teacher continue your lessons with a Ravel only diet!!!!! Ha!

For Ravel, you should play it with a reynard ... but I suppose that wouldn't rhyme with boîte would it?

Oh, goodness, no appology needed, Cheryl -- Even if you hate it. I just wanted to make sure you heard a decent performance.
Now I've gone and set myself up for having to outdo all those youtube versions except the one I liked....dang, trapped myself again. I'll really have to practice it...

I'll practice like a nut.
I'll practice off my butt.
I'll practice till I drop.
I'll practice without stop.
I'll practice every day.
Until its a snap to play.

Well, that's the plan, anyway.

Well, we could be a bit flexible.....
Je le sonnerai dans l'eau,
Je le sonnerai avec un veau,
Je le sonnerai sur le toit,
Je le sonnerai dans une boîte,
Je l'aime tellment beacoup,
Je le sonnerai partout!!!

Christine..... I wouldn't put any money down on that bet

Jim --- good one!!!! I will look forward to your performance!

Hello Folks,
not achievement per se nor mine, but rather of my wife who took me to her grammar school (she is a teacher), unlocked small grand piano in one musical room and I've been allowed to practice on this instrument for an hour or so. Nice experience. The piano was quite old Petrof model V, but whole playing was so, so different to what I know from our and my teacher's uprights. IMHO and wife also claims this, piano should be well regulated. School invested some money to it two years or so ago. Well, for me, surprising experience now I a little bit better understand the difference between action and I kind of fall in love with the grand action. Also, it provided a lot better sound than our small August Fo"rster upright.
Searching for small grand piano for rent now...:-)

Whew! I finally managed to get my recital recorded. I came back from my three week trip to the US, clicked on PianoWorld, and saw that recitals were due. I panicked! My piece needed a lot more polishing before I left. So, I practiced a lot this last week, and managed to do a 1/2 way decent recording. I still have more work on this, and next time I think I will pick a shorter piece to record! Now I can relax and try back to normal life!

My AOTW: re-recording and re-submitting my minuet to the recital, of course! And congratulations, btw, to the many who seem to be overcoming obstacles to be part of the recital... seems like many folks are jumping through extra hoops to get there, good show!

Another AOTW, today at lesson, my teacher said he liked my minuet very much, which was a far cry from last week. He likes to hear things played with authority, not muddy, and always says that if you can play something loud and clear then you can easily play it soft, but the reverse is not true. That's a comment in reaction to my playing timidly when I'm not quite sure of a piece yet.

We spent most of the time today working on my sonatina, which I can play most of at speed now, with flubs. If I work hard at it, I'm hoping it'll only be another week or two before it is really gelling.

He also gave me a new Czerny exercise, #1 ("Action of the fingers, the hand quiet") in "The Art of Finger Dexterity"... it has a fast up-down line in one hand and chords or single slow notes in the other... and the point is to play the fast line crisply and clearly, but equally challenging for me right now is to find the chords! I'm terrible at that, which of course makes it a good chord-reading exercise for now.

Finally getting to grips with a Froberger piece. I abandoned an initial attempt to tackle an unmeasured piece (or rather a 'the measures seem to be all over the place' piece) and decided to begin with something more straightforward.

All the note suspensions that initially seemed very challenging were fine in the end, with a bit of practice, and after having done some work with the metronome to work out all the relative note values (there's very little regular rhythm and very wide range of note values). Then I threw in quite a few spreads and some inegalite in the few quavers. It's starting to sound more musical! (I hope.) Next I'm going to tackle some reverse spreads. Finally I will try tackling some trills.

This is the first new piece I'm starting to feel happy about on the new-to-me loan harpsichord. As an instrument, it's not perfect (needs a bit of maintenance work, some strings missing!) but it's good enough to really get to grips with the harpsichord feel. I couldn't imagine doing the Froberger on the piano, and it's great to be able to explore this music on a harpsichord.

I've also sent off for some parts (strings, dampers, plectra, tools) to replace some missing bits, and last weekend I attended a harpsichord maintenance course - part 2 next month - so I feel much more comfortable doing some fixing now (as well as knowing what to order!).

I'm falling very much in love with Froberger. There's some brilliant stuff, but I think his work doesn't really suit the piano, which may be why he's not known much by pianists.

My teacher asked me to listen to some Ravel and think about a piece of his that I might like to learn, so these links to his music are very timely. There's only one that has really grabbed me so far, and that one is Pavane pour un infante defunte. But that one I like enough so that it is now on my to-learn list.

Eglantine, it sounds like you're learning a lot with your latest piece. And how fun to work on fixing your own instrument! You're really going to get to know it on all levels.

Upon request, and for your listening pleasure ( ), here is a link to my grandson's first composition: Ghosts Booing, Zombies Chewing.

MaryBee -
My kids love it! ("so much!", they say.) The little one is giggling about the gross noises, and the big one wanted to hear it twice!
I have a feeling we may have some covers of that tune soon in our house.

Hi friends, I really hate to let you all down but I cannot join the recital this time. I just flew in to NY on an urgent business and am writing this in a hired car. I did not know that I needed to make travel arrangement until late Thursday. So I had to cancel my 2nd rehearsal for the piano ensemble at the last minute and my other personal engagement this weekend (piano recording for ABF for example). It is very frustrating. Good luck to everyone. I hope at least I can get to listen to it. I will post the piece I intended for the recital to the Piano Bar later.

MaryBee - that belongs in a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movie! I laughed at the end.

Cathy

MaryBee,

Re Ravel, have you listened to his "Sonatine"? Very lovely, especially the 2nd movement.

Jim

MaryBee, that was.....gruesome! I can just picture the scene. Loved the sound effects.

Karel - what a great experience... Isn't it fun to play lovely big pianos?

Swiss MS congrats on getting your recital piece in!

Bessel, you 're really coming along in leaps and bounds these days! Good for you!

Eglantine, I love hearing about your adventure on the harpsichord. I love the sound of those instruments. Do you find it alot harder to play than piano?

FarmGirl, I'm sorry you won't be joining us in the recital but look forward to hearing your piece in the piano bar.

My AOTW is that I finally did get my blues piece recorded and I swapped it as my recital piece, so I dropped from 11th position to 42nd... but I'm happier with it. Also, I submitted the "rejected" recital piece to the piano bar, thus starting to fulfill one of my goals, which is to participate at least 5 times in the PB.

This is my first time posting on this thread. It's great to see a multi-multi-paged thread of achievements!

My achievement this week was to get enough speed going on the ragtime piece in the Alfred AIO book 3 to make it actually sound like a rag.

I like ragtime alright, and my DH plays rag almost exclusively, but deep down, I don't see a lot of ragtime in my playing future. There is one I would really really love to play: Graceful Ghost by William Bolcom. Maybe someday.

During these few weeks, I have been studying and playing "Beethoven Opus 129" piece page by page. Before started learning this piece, I told my teacher for my concern as I watched those Pianist played so quick on Youtube..but my teacher said this is a good piece to study. I just need to play smoothly first and go as fast as I can. I just had a lesson today and my teacher was satisfied for my playing. I also feel so happy and excited that my fingers are moving quickly than before!!! The Phrasing and Dynamtic are also good. Oh Yes! Every time when I play this piece, I was imagaing the story of this piece with smile- A lost penny by Beethoven, so he composed this piece.

Really want to shout on bus now: I am learning Beethoven's Piece, I am loving it!! :P

Here is the piece I got from YouTube for your ref:
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=HK#/watch?v=ZHetvDqnkzE


Have a nice weekend

Stubbie - welcome ! yes, it is fun to hear about everyone's progress, isn't it? And remember that we work in babysteps, so every success is worth reporting here!

I did my first ragtime just before Christmas and had a lot of fun with it - it really puts a smile on your face, doesn't it?

Yuki Yuki - your enthusiam is contagious! I smiled when I read that you want to shout on the bus! The link didn't work properly for me, I got just an index page...?
I found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zPAYPnfdas
This young lady plays it in 6:27 minutes.... I see that Kissin plays it in 5:24 minutes. I did't have the courage to even open that video!

wow..... Even if are playing it slowly it must still take significant concentration!!! What FUN!
I hope you will record the piece and let us hear you playing it later!

I have just started working on Chopin Waltz in Aminor. Here is what I hope to sound like some time in the future...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smqj_z04i4A

Ah, just had a whole afternoon to myself and the piano. Bliss!

Also, next week will be accompanying the "treble" choir (K-3) in church. Luckily it's an exceedingly simple accompianment (really - open fifths in the left hand, single note melody in the right; I have to refrain from embellishing it too much!!). But it's the first time I've actually played during the "adult" church service.

Andy, that will be really fun. K-3 is a great age, so I'm sure you'll enjoy this debut instead of getting stage fright

Cathy

Because i dont have many achievments, I have never posted here before, I am an achievement virgin.

However, this week, I did do an amazing achievement for an ABF'er:

I got the very last word in on Pianist corner on the David Helfgott Thread, before it was closed.

Without getting told off or put on time out.

I believe for an ABF'er to do this is a unique achievemnet. (Bow)

It's not the treble choir I'm worried about (I know most of them pretty well and my son sings in that choir) ... it's the congregation: They aren't such a great age

Maybe they're a different kind of great age?



At any rate, I bet it will be fun.

Cathy

Casinitaly,
Haha,I really want to shout at that moment.
Opps, not sure why the link does not go directly, but I also watched the piece played by Kissin, that's awesome. I have few more pages to learn and hope I can record a nice video in future.

Chopin Waltz in A minor - I learnt this piece before, it is full of romance Hope to watch your video soon.

I don't know. I think in general I like music that is a little more lyrical.

I hadn't heard this piece before, so I listened to it. Yikes! That looks like a tough one, especially at that fast tempo.

Oh, FarmGirl, I'm sorry that work got in the way of getting a recording done for the ABF recital. Let us know when you post to the piano bar, and I'll listen to it there.

Cas, I just saw that you've posted to the piano bar too. I think I'm going to have to find some time to start following that thread.

Lately I've been struggling with left hand trills in a Mozart piece. At my last lesson, I mentioned the frustration of knowing what I want my fingers to do, but having them refuse to cooperate with my brain. My teacher said I just need to work on them the same way I did with right hand trills. But I didn't have this kind of trouble with the right hand, I told him. "Oh yes, you did," he replied. "When you started, your right hand trills were much worse than your left hand ones are now." (I think that was meant to be encouraging. ) But I am continually reminded that you cannot have an ego in this business. And I guess that qualifies as an achievement: my right hand trills are not terrible anymore!

Andy - that sounds like fun. Perhaps the congregation really is a great age---- as in great-grandparents or just GREAT! grandparents, and they'll be so focused on little Johnny and Susie that they won't even pay attention to you Don't let it get to you, you're more than able to handle this, and help the kids do a great job!

Rossy... well, that's not the typical achievement here, but hey, whatever turns your crank

Yuki - I will be thrilled to hear you play!

MaryBee, yes, I did submit to the Piano Bar. One of my goals for this year was to do that 5 times. I lucked out in February because I had the Romanza ready for the recital (submitted actually) then I got my blues piece organized well enough to present and I re-submitted, so Romanza went for a walk over to the PB. I have found that recording really helps me focus on the weak areas and have a MUCH clearer picture of where I am in terms of overall smoothness and speed. I tend to think I'm doing much better than I really am, so it is a powerful reality check - and not at all discouraging, because each recording tends to show an improvement in some area.
It was fun to go to the PW, the only "problem" there is that it is hard to keep up with - there are so many submissions and feedback posts -but it is great fun and you hear a lot of original work too.

VERY interesting comments from your teacher about your trills and your difficulties. One thing that I did a lot for the first 18 months of playing was to make notes each week about what was difficult/getting easier - When I look back and read what I wrote I can see concrete evidence of what is no longer a challenge, and what I just couldn't do. In many ways this thread serves the same purpose - we can go back and see what we talked about and mark our progress. And yes, I agree that your right hand trills are not terrible - they are quite lovely!!!

Wishing everyone a good week!

I should have checked in long before, but here it goes. I've been working on the first dance of 3 by Jurriaan Andriessen (3 dansen voor piano/ 3 dances for piano, short pieces, but very fun to play, try it!). For me, it has quite a few challenges:
1. A right hand trill, the first time for me.
2. Pedaling (getting it coordinated while playing at tempo)
3. Tempo (my hands aren't fast enough yet to make the little jumps at tempo, G-D or G-Eb to Bb and back).

The last 2 weeks I've been focusing on my first trill and the pedaling. I'm at a point where I can actually produce a decent trill (decent to me anyway) most of the times, but getting out of it and controlling the volume is still way beyond me.

Somehow I had a lot of trouble with the pedal when I started this piece, but suddenly it clicked, and it makes the piece sound so much better.

Another step was that I'm not afraid to disturb the neighbours Right after the trill there is a section that really begs to be played fff, and it feels so great to play it, giving it all, and the best part is that my neighbours haven't complained yet. I guess that means I must be doing something right

The piece I'm refering to (not me playing, 1st dance 0-1:00, 3rd dance starts at 3:12)


Progress is slow (sometimes it feels very very slow, if I can notice it at all), but at least there is progress . casinitaly: I really like your idea of making notes, I should have done so too, maybe I'll start now. Gives a bit of perspective.

I haven't visited this thread in ages, because I haven't achieved anything in ages...LOL. Anyway, February has been a great month. I "came back" to piano after a 2 month hiatus. I didn't really quit, but really didn't spend much time either - and almost NO TIME on anything new. Anyway, I've gotten over the hump on my Bach Invention 1...I'm through the difficult measures now, and can play it at tempo. It's such a lovely piece of music and I'm happy to hear myself being able to play it. It's also my first "non-ragtime" piece (in a long time) that I'm actually going to finish, and my first stab at Bach as a grown up. I played a couple of pieces from Anna Magendela (sp) notebook as a kid...anyway.. NOW...all I have to do is get my phrasing and refine my trills a little. I never realized how much I sucked at trills until I started learning this piece...LOL.

Anyway, I really need to stop quitting piano and then re-starting. I spent about a week just trying to shake the rust off! I wrote it here, so maybe I'll commit to this statement this time!

Welcome back, Cebukid!

My AOTW is not really piano playing related. I am learning to tune my piano. I enrolled with a correspondence course last December, but I was so overwhelmed by it that after studying a few chapters, I put it aside. Yesterday, I took the plunge and started pulling on those strings! I have to put in 15 hours of practice and am just doing 30 min a day. It's really interesting. I can imagine after a few years of tuning the piano, I can listen for pitch better.

I really enjoy reading everyone's AOTW's. keep sharing!

WannabePT - That's neat, that you're doing your own tuning... it *seems* like it ought to be an easy business with one of those electronic things, but I imagine there's more to it than that...

On the Pianobar, which it sounds like more of you are posting to... I wish I could listen to that more. I'm often surfing this site at times when I can't blare the music, so end up never going there... sounds like it's worth trying to find the time.

My AOTW is that my sonatina is really getting there, only a few rough spots that I can't play through at speed yet. My teacher has me doing those spots in "groups and rhythms", ie pausing on different beats of each measure as I play, as a way to really get it in hand. It's also great counting practice.

And my piano-related fun of the week is that today we went to a piano dealer and looked at nice pianos. Yamaha's, Knabe's, and Bosendorfers, mostly. Tried out the AvantGrand's as well as the real grands... it was an educational mission, to get a feeling for a variety of sounds and actions. Some of those pianos were *really* nice, gorgeous to play and hear, and we are now really in "want". Very fun...