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

I have copies of a number of arrangements and they run the range of difficulty and length and listen-ability. I've played a few of them (mostly the easier ones). The version I'm learning is the arrangement Monica K plays on her YouTube channel (and I think in a recital here in the last year or so), where she's added a section to the score. I very much enjoyed that version and Monica's playing, so I took it on as a long term project for myself.

I am really enjoying my lessons with my new teacher, who specializes in the physiology of playing piano. On the one hand it is daunting to see how much I need to improve. On the other hand, now I have a clue of what needs to be fixed! This week she video taped me from the side and back while I was playing. That helped to clearly pin point what I need to be aware of. She is addressing everything from hand and arm position to seated posture at the piano.

I have also learned that my "memorization" isn't nearly as solid as I thought, because I have not built adequate preparation into my playing. This teacher has commented that I play OK, but my hands never look like I know what comes next. Although I thought I had fully memorized Chopin Nocturne in Eb major, I found I could not play it starting mid phrase, or hands separately. So, it is back on my active work stack. She is taking it back to HS and building it back with improved technique. So, my achievement this week is learning the importance of building in the preparation right from the start.

I am making some progress on mastering faster preparation (prepositioning) while playing. CPE Bach's Solfeggio has been a good test of this because it is quite fast, so the preparation has to be in place. It is very obvious when I let the preparation fall behind. It is getting there!

SwissMS, I hope you had a chance to read the recent thread on memorization.
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1915661/Deep%20Memorization.html#Post1915661

I am trying some of their suggestions, including slowing down, and spending focused practice time on a small segment, hoping to memorize it during each practice.

As for my week #15, I attended a wonderful concert with Jenni Olson on flute with friends on bassoon, harp and piano, followed by Ohtae Kwon on trombone and Tae-Yeon Lim on piano. I believe Kwon & Lim got the gig by winning a local competition. The young virtuosos are amazingly accomplished musicians. Being a flautist, I am partial to flute music. I bought Olson's new CD "The Dreams of Birds." Olson enlisted friends to compose new pieces for the album. Nature themes and metaphysical themes are near and dear to me, as I often compose along those lines.

Back to me, I felt like I made good progress this week on Ashokan Farewell. After seven weeks on this piece, the summit is in sight, though might still be a month out. However, it no longer feels foreign to play the four finger chords, or to have the hands overlap. Keep in mind that before this, I never really played the 7th chords, and if they showed up I would simplify them.

My new original composition in A major reached week four in the oven. It has the tentative name "Ribbon of Leaves" and may be near as finished as it is going to get. If I was doing a songwriting immersion exercise, it certainly would have been stamped "done" long ago.

That reminds me, 50in90 is about to start again (July 4). I credit my participation in an Internet group 50in90 for doing more for my songwriting than anything else that I have ever done. I won't do it again this year, but for those that have any interest in songwriting or composition check it out:
http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/
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Between July 4th and October 1st, participants attempt to write fifty songs. Songwriters will test their creative mettle by trying to create a finished song in less than 2 days every day for nearly 3 months.
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Sounds impossible? I thought the same thing, before I signed up for my first time. Again, I highly recommend it, especially for those interested in songs with lyrics. Before 50in90, I had written about 12 songs in ten years, or about one per year, and none were particularly good. Those that have followed my reports on this thread, may remember that I wrote five original piano compositions in my first six weeks on piano, and got decent praise on the one I submitted for recital "Bargain with a Genie."

Like piano, for songwriting steady committed and focused time produces results. If a person spends an hour a day on songwriting for a month, I guarantee that they will have something. Especially, as they learn to disregard the inner critic and try to get as many rough ideas on paper and recorded as possible. Songwriting might be the opposite of the slow practice themes. Instead, work fast, focus on flow, get a lot of ideas out there, and then rework the best of those ideas, then move on and come back later as needed or desired.

Also this week, I finished reading the book "The Musicians Way." I got many useful ideas book, including:
* how to structure practice time (20/20/40, basics or hands separate, old material, new material, 20% free for whatever needs help)
* more relaxation techniques
* more on posture
* tips on handling injuries and how vital it is to listen to the body

The Effortless Mastery book thread has dropped away.
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1899529/1.html
The idea came up again in the recent memorization thread, to slow down enough that practice seems effortless. Obviously, this is going to vary depending on experience, proficiency, level of difficulty of the material. However, just as obvious, it means avoiding the tense, mistake filled, "bonking oneself" practice sessions, which is the way I started with Ashokan Farewell. I was making so many mistakes, freezing so often on the chord transitions, hitting the wrong keys so often that it wasn't good practice time, and worsening the tension in the neck.

Thanks for all the comments and for all those that report their progress. More digression than report for me this week, but I also felt like I made some good progress.

pianolove61 and bessel: I keep aiming for slow practice, but it isn't easy. The lack of "musicality" is rather maddening. Plus as soon as the music starts to get into the fingers it's natural to rush the parts that feel known/comfortble. Still, that might work if it weren't for a rather astounding talent that I possess: I learn mistakes much faster than anything else. Fantastic, huh? lol

SwissMs, your new teacher sounds wonderful. I imagine you will be learning a lot and looking forward to hearing about tips and techniques for better preparation/memorization. I think that's going to prove a weakness for me and I'm hoping to lay as good a groundwork as possible early on so I don't find myself having to retreat and relearn tooooo very often. (Creature of habit, learn the wrong things fast, learn the right things sometimes not at all. Sigh.)

Sand Tiger, 50in90 sounds very interesting, and I might try it sometime. Have I ever written a song? Nope, not a one ... but I do write, I love to make up lyrics to existing melodies, and I have this hankering to try my hand at composition. I also have done similar challenges (National Novel Writing Month = 50K words in 30 days) and it can be an amazingly freeing process. Forces one's inner editor to take a vacation, or a hike, and allows the creative juices to flow unhindered so to speak. Mixed metaphor, but I'm rushing to post this.

Kudos to all on the continued progress!

i don't have achievement like achievement this week. I was so frigging (the word I learned in this forum from Mr. SH, and I love using it now all the time) busy for one thing and nothing new to say for another. I am still doing the Rach 23-5! I feel like I have a big "L" on my forehead. I am increasing the tempo notch by notch to get it to a semi performance speed. I love my teacher but, oh boy!, she would not allow me to put a piece down until I polish it. Not all the pieces but some pieces.. I recall that frigging Christmas song I had to play until almost easter a couple of years ago. This week she ordered me to play through it without the pedal so that i would hear it better. Especially in a so-called c section of the piece, she wants me to achieve the "pure" sound where the melody is in my thumb in the bottom of the right hand chord. She would like to also hear the top note (in my pinky) not too loudly but in a way it's anchoring and enhancing the melody while two other notes in my second and third finger should only be there as a distant echo (BUT HONEY IT SHOULD BE THERE). So in a way, my thumb should play on the louder side of pp, my pinky slightly lower and my 2nd and 3rd finger like the quieter side of pp but not ghost notes.. they all should be there. That's friggin' hard. Ok. that's one challenge. Another is the tempo. Let's say I have a measure where many things are happening. I set my met to 132 to an 8th note. The measure starts with 16th note. she told me to chop up those measures into 2 and start playing from the 8th notes with the metronome and then start adding the 16th notes sections. I have to repeat it for all the tricky measures like that this week. So there is no visible improvement to speak of...unfortunately.

For all non-native speakers of English, I find the word friggn' to be quite satisfactory. It seems to take all my frustration out instantly and does not offend so many people unlike it's notorious cousin - whose name I dare say not here.

I friggin' love that word. Use it all the flippin' time. Especially after a freakin', frackin' farked-up practice!

Sorry the Rach's so hard right now, FarmGirl, but you are going to own that piece. And we are going to applaud like crazy when you post a recording/video.

Funny how words change! "Friggin'" started off as a cop-out when you hadn't the nerve to say "Fu**ing" (doubtless the actual word would be censored here). There's an alternative definition meaning female masturbation.

But you all say it's quite acceptable in your territory?

My great-grandmother would call you a "bugger" as a term of affection. My mother would have been most insulted. It seems to be in common semi-polite usage again. I doubt if anyone considers what it actually means!

And a lot of Americans apparently think "H*ll" is a swear-word.

Exalted
That's very funny and it's good to know. I work with British people quite a bit. It's all via conference call but I am good friends with them for years.

I noticed there are quite a bit of differences between UK and US version of English. I was a frequent visitor to UK from 2005 to 2010 on business. I learned that "pants" means trousers in US but knickers (underwear) in UK just quite by accident. Also "nappy" (light sleep) as in "take a nap / nappy" is actually diapers in UK. Well, what happened was that American Airline lost my luggage for 10 days. So I went shopping and bought cheapest pair of trousers etc. I told my friends in the office that I went a local store in a town called Burgess Hill and bought a pants with rubbers around waist. Perhaps it's a old women pants. Then they erupted into non-stoppable laughter and I did not understand what was going on for a while.. They were just picturing me in a Big Old women Pants with rubbers in the waist!! Folks, my apologies for deviated from the subject of piano and music.

It's funny you should mention "learning mistakes"... at each of my last two lessons my teacher pointed out (recoiled in horror?) that I was playing a chord wrong (different chord each week), ie just messed up one of the notes. I had read them wrong in the beginning I guess, and just practiced them that way for a week each. Ouch. He was surprised that it didn't sound wrong to me... I guess that says something about my ear.

Up until now I've never had that problem... practicing the wrong thing for a week... I guess that's another sign I should slow down (and check the score!).

Bessel, I have done this a few times too. When I learned the Chopin Waltz in B minor "C" section, which has a key change from B minor to B major, I managed to miss the A# for three weeks. Boy was that hard to fix! I did not hear a problem because it sort of tied in with the minor feel. NOT! My teacher apologized for not catching it sooner. So I have learned the value of slowing down, and reviewing the score away from the piano!

apologies for going OT: FarmGirl, I am curious whether there is a Japanese equivalent of friggin'.

No accomplishment for me this week. I was having such a bad week at piano (and the rain from two nearby typhoons was so heavy) that I cancelled my lesson. A first for me. :-(

Hello our mellow ATOW thread! How could I put you down into the 2nd page. I love talking about my achievement and non-achievement (most of the time) on this thread. I am still working on the same piece. Increasing the speed notch by notch. One good thing happened to me is that i received another issue of the Pianist Magazine. I totally love the magazine. I have to prepare for tomorrow's lesson so I can't noodle around on the piano that much but I do treasure time to read around the scores in the book. I don't know why but it still takes months to get to my house from Canada. Last week a canadian person called me to see if I would like to extend my subscription one more year. When I told her that i only got 4 out of 6 issues, she was stunned. She said that we shipped the last issue 2 days ago and the 5th one a couple of months ago! Anyway, I got it and I cannot argue about the content. It's pretty good.

There is no curse word like that. We only have primitive scream to release frustration. BTW, how's Okinawa? I am so jealous that you live in one of the most beautiful area of Japan.

Thank you. You are so sweet.

FarmGirl, I can really relate to your quest to get the Rach piece to a high level. I'm working painstakingly through my piece, measure by measure, because I really want to be able to play it nicely. Hopefully in the end, if we put in the work, we'll both be satisfied with the results

Well, I have decided to make a big step, and discontinue lessons with my Russian piano teacher and focus on my English speaking, physiology based teacher. I had not recognized how much the language barrier was holding me back, and how frustrating it was for both of me and my former teacher. Also, since I seldom received much positive feedback from the Russian teacher, I was always very tense in lessons, and played with a lot of mistakes. (my problem, not hers ) The new teacher has a very relaxing style and I play perfectly at ease, hence a lot fewer mistakes. She still gets her points across and doesn't accept less than she thinks I can do. She is reworking my technique to incorporate better relaxation and preparation, which is invaluable right now. I have even had to go back and learn how to do scales very slowly, without tension, and with better thumb crosses and prepositioning. The two teachers have some conflicting approaches to playing, so I needed to make a choice of which was better for me in the long run. Still, I learned a lot from my former teacher, so I feel bad moving on.

My AOTW is being able to play Chopin Nocturne in Eb major HS from memory, singing the other hand's part. I am sure my neighbors think I am crazy. I have the headphones on singing the melody seemingly a cappella; or singing dum, DUM, DUM!

Sam, oh, yeah, I look forward to the day we can play the pieces well. It's encouraging to know I am not alone.

SwissMS, glad to hear you are happy with your new teacher. It's nice we are adults and can pick a teacher. That's one thing kiddies cannot do. Many of them outplay me constantly, though (LOL).

SwissMS - I can't imagine having two teachers... glad you found one that works for you.

FarmGirl - So, Pianist magazine... sounds very interesting, but I'm not sure I'm good enough to get anything out of it yet. It takes all my time to do what my teacher assigns me even halfway... and I'm so slow that I doubt I'd be able to work through the pieces they have. But, I love "avocation" magazines like that in general... Do you like it only for the pieces or for other things as well? Is it carried at music stores, or anywhere for that matter (like bookstores, etc?)

My AOTW is that I am finally, finally, playing "The Farmer returns from work" pretty well at speed... now starting on "The Wild Horsemen". Fur Elise has been moved to the back burner, but not forever...

Everyone has been wonderfully busy!

FarmGirl - I can not wait to hear your Rach, really --- I feel that I simply must hear it. Please promise you will present it.

Sam - I love your determination and positive thinking.

Swiss MS- I think using the video of yourself is a very interesting idea - and my teacher has made comments like "your hands don't seem to know what they're supposed to be doing" also..... I'm glad you find things moving along better with your English speaking teacher.

Sand Tiger - how great to feel in increased comfort level with something that felt so strange to your hands just a short time ago.

Bessel - isn't it great when you realize that scales are good for something?

Stubbie - I enjoyed Monica's Canon too - I don't think I'm ready for it yet though. I don't think I can maintain a steady flow for that long.

Valencia - Glad to hear your Chopin is coming along - memory work can be really hard - especially the way Chopin plays with leaving out different notes in chords here and there!

Carlos --- pre-recital stress already! mamma mia!!
I will have to record my submission early I think - because I won't be home when the submission thread starts.

Elysia - playing the Canon for your wedding - that's wondeful!

Mary Ann - I hope the typhoon didn't cause any damage.

Piano Deb - Welcome to ATOW - you're quite right - small steps, ...we're like the tortoise in the fable - slow but steady!

Pianolove61 - what an interesting perspective on slow playing....


My AOTW is having made some very good progress on refining the dynamics of my current pieces. Sad to say I have missed a slew of lessons - I've lost track. My teacher has been going through a rough period. I hope to be back on track with her next week.