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I have a huge AOTW. My teacher officially bumped from from level 1 to level 2 yesterday. She told me to sightread through till I found something I couldn't do that with, so I ran out of stuff in level 1! I'm short on some theory stuff and a few chords but she's covering that and I move along!

So for a few weeks I get to work on two songs I really wanted to try and then onto my level 2 books!

I feel fantastic. Before our lesson I thought I was doing so badly and would have to repeat even more and here I'm further then I thought! Turns out I should not listen to my self talk cause it's way off base! I'm so glad I got a teacher!

Becca, that is awesome. Sightreading everything definitely means you can level up!

Yea Becca!!

Haha, the gold star is awsome! :-) good work becca!

Congratulations BeccaBb! It is always a major milestone to move to the next level, and how wonderful to find out you are further along than you thought.

Three cheers for Becca! How exciting!

Thanks everyone! Jim that star is awesome!

I auditioned for and got into a piano performance class at my local college.(I almost chickened out!)

Yay Starr! That's a huge achievement! Woot! Woot!

Thans BeccaBb. I'm rooting for you, too. Root a toot toot!...It's great to see you maintaining your enthusiasm and playing what you want with lessons.

Becca, congratulations for passing the significant milestones.

Starkeys, congratulations for getting into the performance class. Passing an audition is not an easy thing to do.

My AoTW - I did better in my studio class today. No more shakey hands. I think I am getting used to play in front of other people. As my teacher said at the beginning, the only way to get better at performing is doing it. I'm happy to say that it is true I had a couple of memory issues but i continued played. I stopped thinking about mistakes made and concentrated on playing the rest of the piece in the way i want. In a couple of spots I applied pretty good coverups for errors. I also usednew fingerlings that I changed in the past 24 hours. My audience gave me my first bravos. It made my day.

This week was my first week back to the piano in about 12 years. I broke down last weekend and bought a Kawai CA65. I literally can't get enough of this thing. I'm worried I'm going to wear it out prematurely. With that being said I'm working through a few pieces I played back in high school in the late 90's. They are The Entertainer, Prelude in C sharp minor Rachmaninov, and Raindrops Prelude by Chopin. I am very rusty but I can tell that I have defiantly made a lot of progress this week. My fingers are struggling though. I've started playing Hanon exercises and my left hand appears to be worthless and weak. But I am making progress. I think I'm going to start scouting out a good teacher. It's great to be back!

Dustin, welcome to the forum. I'm came back to piano as an adult as well. My first attempt to come back was when I was in graduate school, quit again (due to marriage, work, sit for certification exam etc) and restarted about 4 years ago. I remember my shaking and weak fingers when I came back first time. I too tried my old pieces and was surprised I actually remembered my old recital pieces. Good luck with your piano journey.

Great news Becca, it's a good feeling to realize you have come so far and having fun to boot.

Congratulations on level 2 BeccaBb, that was quick. Welcome to the thread Dustin, this thread is my favorite one across all the forums. Farmgirl, you may not feel like you have talent, but you do. It may not be top 2% talent like some others on the forum have, but if they tested folks for aptitude, you'd be in the top half for sure, maybe top 10% considering how far you have traveled on your piano journey. Remember, most beginners give up after 2 years, mostly due to frustration at their inability to advance past the beginner stages. Ragdoll, ouch about cutting your hand. I am clumsy at times too, so can relate to the story. The bit about the word mandolin did liven up the thread.

Week 46: The big news is that my new digital piano is here. The Casio PX-150 arrived on Friday and is a significant upgrade from the Yamaha NP-11 with its 61 plastic keys. I was concerned about the piano being bigger than the desk, but it is working out. I can sit and improvise at random and go to a far away place, away from the concerns of daily life. The sound is different, though the classic setting sounds similar to the main Yamaha sample.

I am back to poking at Canon in D. I don't have enough technique or speed to play the fast part, but the slow part sounds like music. The two arrangements I have are confusing because playing the notes in the notation sounds wrong, and it too fast for my ear to pick out. I performed Shadow last week, but am still working on it. I am adding or changing a phrase here and there, to give it more of a shadowy mood. I may do it for the ABF recital, I may choose an older original piece. I uploaded my live performance of the Pentatonic improvisation Black Hills. It has a jazzy feel and was recorded with an electric piano sound and strings.
https://www.box.com/s/jtobbtvil1jdf5fbkhn1

Being self-directed is good and bad. I explore the C minor scale. I want to write to the title Equinox, but nothing I play seems to capture the spirit of that word to me. I want to play for hours and hours, but remind myself that with my history that is the road to injury, so am watching the time.

Have a good week everyone. For those beginner beginners reading along, don't let your own expectations or comparisons with others get you down. Most beginners feel like they are not progressing as fast as they would like, including me, including many of the high achievers. Most get frustrated at times, so reading about others leaping ahead, or listening to their polished recital pieces can be intimidating. Each person is at their own pace. It isn't a competition. The journey is its own reward. For me, that feeling of losing myself in the music is so powerful, so rewarding unto itself.

Well ...

New here, and pretty excited about a few things I did this week:

1) Finished (I think) the first movement of the 'Moonlight Sonata' (my teacher would probably slap me for calling it that, seeing as Beethoven was German). It's still on my WIP list, because I haven't had a chance to let anyone hear it, and there's still some serious work to be done regarding micro-timing within the piece. Plus, so long as my teacher doesn't say it's done, it isn't. But I'm thinking I might participate in the February ABF recital with it. Maybe.

2) Sold my Roland RD-150 digital stage piano, which is to be replaced by a Boston Baby Grand in a few days. I'm pretty excited about getting to play an acoustic all the time now (not to mention, a grand piano), even though the make and model is likely not the one I would have chosen for myself, had I had that opportunity (my grandparents bought it, and I'm paying them back to make the instrument mine in two years).

3) Found this forum, which seems like a really fun and supportive place for late starters like me. For clarity's sake: I'm not an absolute beginner, in that I had about 1-2 years of formal piano lessons in my childhood and teenage years, spread over several soon-aborted attempts at learning to play. But I've been taking classes again for about five months now, and am more serious than ever about playing the piano.

StarrKeys - sorry , I mised your post about your successful audition! wow, HAVE FUN!!!

FarmGirl- Glad things went better this week! Good for you for getting back on track after a memory blip!

Dustin- Welcome! We'll be very interested in hearing about you gettting back in musical shape!

SandTiger - congrats on the new instrument-- I am looking forward to hearing it. With regards to some parts of your Canon sounding "off"... this might be because you're playing it slowly. I've noticed that when slowly there are combinations in many pieces that sound awful, but when played at tempo they sound really interesting.

I also like your words on not getting discouraged by how well others are doing. I need to remind myself of that often, especially as I feel that I could have/should have made more progress over the past year. In some ways I'm disappointed about that, but in another way I know I'm really on track with this new teacher and things are going well. I'm enjoying the journey again, and I wasn't for a little while. All is well

Saranoya - welcome! You're playing some interesting pieces there! Your new piano sounds exciting - and you sound very "high" on getting back to piano playing. I think we can all relate to that!
I do hope you join in the February recital - there is a tremendous range of ability in the performers - some have a lot more experience than you would expect and others have joined in after just a couple of weeks of lessons. It is really wonderful to hear how people improve from one recital to the next, and to be introduced to music you might not ever hear (as well as some famous favourites!)

My AOTWeekend is to have made some delightful progress on the dynamics of my jazz piece, and to have gotten a bit further along with the barocque piece. I had put it aside in my enthusiasm for Melody last week. I have done just a bit on Melody. My focus was getting the jazz piece ready for the recital. I think I'll be recording tomorrow

I hardly ever get in here anymore, so I may have missed an earlier post - which Melody are you working on?

Schumann's. From his Music for the Young OP68, N1 I think it is very sweet.

Thanks Sand Tiger, Got the stitch out Saturday so only a light bandage. I found a work around for RH playing at Office Max in the form of a rubber finger stall that bank tellers use for counting money. Split it 1/4" the length so I could bend the knuckle and VOILA! I can play with BH again now, albeit rather clumsy still .

Also, I have ordered a ZOOM Q3HD (be here thursday) to record some stuff for self evaluation and possibly participate in some of the piano bars in the future. Very excited to get this. I tried recording my digital but couldn't quite get the hang of it and the sound was bad. I want to record my U1!