 |
Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums
Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments.
Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
|
|
|
|
43 members (AlkansBookcase, Bruce Sato, APianistHasNoName, BillS728, bcalvanese, anotherscott, Carey, danno858, 9 invisible),
1,245
guests, and
297
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,539
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,539 |
Just bumping this thread up so that it isn't too far down the list. LOL
I've pretty much shelved AIO 2 for now, and in fact, because of eye problems and hip problems, have been spending a lot less time at the piano than previously. I'm mostly just playing pieces that I already know and like, and not worrying about learning anything new for a while. Enjoying myself with the Pop Songbook and the Greatest Hits.
mom3gram ![[Linked Image]](https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/gallery/42/full/10987.png)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 175
Full Member
|
|
Full Member
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 175 |
Bumpity bump! My recital is next week. Time to FREAK OUT!!!  I've been working on the Chopin Etude in Alfred's for a couple of weeks now. It's coming along, but I seem to be progressing slowly. I know, I always say that....I always seem to move slower than I think I should LOL. But it's excusable this time, at least, as I am really focusing my practice time on my recital piece (Gounad's Prelude in C minor) and just fumbling through the Etude a couple of times a day. This one does seem a step up in difficulty, though. Sifting through some older posts, it sounds like several of you guys struggled with it too.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 245
Full Member
|
|
Full Member
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 245 |
I've been working on the Chopin Etude in Alfred's for a couple of weeks now. It's coming along, but I seem to be progressing slowly. Best piece in the book! Everything after is a slog, I have taken a break from this book to work on some supplementals I found in the graded pieces xls file.. 3 little Bach pieces. Back to this book now  Up to V7 and inversions.. wtf is that about.. 1st, 2nd inversion on triads is cool, but 7th's and inversions grrrr...  Probably will need to post back here to confirm my answers to the little quiz on page 95 Sad to see this thread buried on page 5, but this little post will bump it
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,479
3000 Post Club Member
|
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,479 |
I still play three pieces from Book 2 as warm-ups or warm-downs: Etude. This is probably my favorite from the book. It took me a long time to get past hesitations and to get some feeling into it, but I'm glad I've kept at it. Fascination. Okay, I don't know why I love this one. It's short and either (1) snappy or (2)languid, depending on my mood. I have the original sheet music for this and will probably dig into it one of these days. Love's Greeting (Salut d' Amor). I did not care for this one that much originally, but I've come to love it, especially as I've improved at playing it. It is, however, very very very humbling to look at the original version and hear it being played. I think it is just gorgeous. The piano score (E major) is towards the bottom of the page and the recording by Felipe Sarro (Piano Society) is near the bottom as well. IMSLP Piano score in E; Felipe Sarro mp3
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/15854.png) Yamaha C3X In summer, the song sings itself. --William Carlos Williams
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 1,588
1000 Post Club Member
|
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 1,588 |
Calling book 2 horrible is an understatement. I would relate it to the word horrendous.  It's not ALL bad...just most of it  LOL. It helps me to think of it less as music and more as a lesson. That's really what Alfred's is to me anyway - it's not a music book, it's a lesson book with the lessons in a musical format. It's easier to plod through when I think of each piece as a lesson where I'm learning something specific and then moving forward (and remembering that when I get this LESSON learned, I won't have to play it again!), rather than letting myself think, "I don't like this kind of music" or "this arrangement is HORRIBLE and ruins this song" etc. I just glanced back through the threads, and noticed that I've been working on book 2 since May of last year! I didn't realize I'd been plodding through book 2 this long. Almost a whole year now, and I'm only maybe halfway through it! And I zipped through Book 1 in like 4 months! Of course, I am concentrating MOSTLY on my supplementary stuff now and I've only been taking one piece from Alfred's at a time now, so that makes a huge difference. I really hope it doesn't take me another whole year to get through the rest of this thing. I think when the time comes, I will request that we not do book 3 at all and just have my teacher keep throwing other classical stuff that I like in front of me. I have been in book 2 for quite some time as well now. I finished book 1 in a few months but this one i believe i started last june. so over a year but i was also working with a teacher supplementary material and other problems as well. just starting back up though to focus on alfred strictly just to get through because it does have some good lessons. i think book 2 was hard for me because it focuses mainly on harmony which is avery intricate complex subject for music.
music to me is kind of like putting together pieces of a puzzle
i call it the paino because its where i put all my pain
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 245
Full Member
|
|
Full Member
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 245 |
Book 2 is becoming a slog.. I find myself printing more and more other pieces (mostly Bach) to supplement this book.. Some pieces are not as enjoyable as the progression in book one 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 175
Full Member
|
|
Full Member
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 175 |
Book 2 is becoming a slog. I know! I've gone NOWHERE since my last post. My teacher goes on vacation every year for 5 or 6 weeks in June-July, so I've been on my own. I've got Étude pretty much done, I think....it sounds good to me, at least. I guess I *could* have gone ahead and started working on the next piece in the Alfred's book, but I didn't LOL. Instead, I decided to try my hand at Tchaikovsky's Sick Doll. It's a very simple piece, but it's very dark and moving when played well. I can pretty much sight read it...but it doesn't sound good yet. It's getting better as I get smoother and get the dynamics working better.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427
6000 Post Club Member
|
|
6000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427 |
Maybe I'm the only one, but I like book 2! I'm in the Mexican section right now, having just finished La Bamba.
Learner
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 245
Full Member
|
|
Full Member
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 245 |
@ malkin.. Yes, the first part of book 2 is great fun.. I found that after Etude, the book becomes not as much fun.. Perhaps that is because I thought etude is the best piece in the book, and after completing that, there isn't as much to look forward to.. at least until toccata & fugue in book 3 hehehe
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427
6000 Post Club Member
|
|
6000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427 |
Not worried.
My teacher is keep me busy with other stuff that is fun and I imagine he will continue to do so. He started me with book 2 because I have a bit of a rag-tag background he wants me to move quickly through a lot of music.
Anyway, my new thinking is that each week, I need to spend the most time on the piece I like the least (so I can be sure to get it passed off!)
Learner
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002
2000 Post Club Member
|
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002 |
So, I'm doing the first part of Book 2... I must say I'm enjoying it because these pieces are about the same difficulty (and I would say they are as difficult as The Entertainer in Book 1) so I can go back and forth between them as my mood goes. At first I had quite a hard time playing staccato with the LH and legato with the RH, but I'm getting there. My problem with these songs is I don't really want to memorize them, and right now this seems to be the only way I can play them smoothly. I think my sight-reading is improving but I still need to know what comes next, especially with a fast tempo. And yet I don't want to waste precious space in my brain for this kind of arrangements... even if they sound nice to me now. Anyway, I don't feel ready for other things - not even the popular songs from the Really Easy Piano series! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 4,048
4000 Post Club Member
|
|
4000 Post Club Member
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 4,048 |
Don't worry about wasting precious space by memorising these easy pieces.
Memorising a piece doesn't use space - it creates it. Memory is a series of neural connections; the more you make, the more you can make. Memorising these pieces will make it easier to memorise harder pieces later on.
Richard
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,479
3000 Post Club Member
|
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,479 |
I agree with Richard. Don't worry that memorizing these pieces will take up room that you might want to use for other, better pieces. When you learn to count, you don't have to shove out 1 and 2 to make room for 9 and 10. If you memorize them, and they stick in your memory, then they (the ones you like) make good warmup pieces. Plus, you will find that there's always something to work on, musicality-wise.
Yamaha C3X In summer, the song sings itself. --William Carlos Williams
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002
2000 Post Club Member
|
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002 |
I agree with Richard. Don't worry that memorizing these pieces will take up room that you might want to use for other, better pieces. When you learn to count, you don't have to shove out 1 and 2 to make room for 9 and 10. Yeah, nice analogy I don't know much about memorization processes, but I read a few things on neuroplasticity and it looks like the space you have is actually limited, like if you learn one thing really well your brain changes in a way that makes it harder to do some other things. The good news is you can always modify and increase the existing links and remodel your brain if you decide to learn something new! But I'm pretty sure this doesn't really matter at this stage Talking about piano, what I'd really like is not to learn simple songs that I can play to friends (who would like them just because they know nothing about music), but to identify and learn the alphabet, the building blocks, patterns, motives that will make it easier and easier to learn what comes next. Just random thoughts!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427
6000 Post Club Member
|
|
6000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427 |
I'm sure you can find "research" to support any belief you may have. However, there is much consensus that the human brain likes patterns, so learning and recognizing patterns is probably useful.
Right now, I am trying not to memorize, but to learn to read fluently.
Learner
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002
2000 Post Club Member
|
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002 |
Still in the review section of book 2... can't wait to move on to new keys and chords, but there's a lot of new stuff here too! I'm afraid I'm moving a bit too fast and skipping some songs - not altogether, but I just read them, play the two hands separately and then together very very slowly, and that's about it. Alexander's Ragtime Band is one of them, I don't like the arrangement very much and my Julie Andrew's recording is so much better and quite different. I guess I will wait until I can play the original version.
Right now I'm polishing Light & Blue (which I like a lot!) and Hungarian Rhapsody, but I've already done La Raspa and the horrible He's a Jolly Good Fellow. But I'm in need of slow, relaxed music right now, and the Alfred book isn't offering any at this stage, so I'm also starting First Lessons in Bach.
What about you guys, where are you at?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427
6000 Post Club Member
|
|
6000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 6,427 |
I am at Plaisir d'Amour.
I have to work hard on broken chords--the endless barrage of bass clef notes is slow for me because I cannot read them very efficiently.
Fortunately, my teacher has me playing Martha Mier, whom I now call Martha My Dear, because the pieces are so fun.
When I played Light and Blue, my fingers acted like crowd of drunks leaving a bar after last rounds and staggering around the sidewalk, crashing into sign posts, parking meters, and each other.
Learner
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 8
Junior Member
|
|
Junior Member
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 8 |
...my fingers acted like crowd of drunks leaving a bar after last rounds and staggering around the sidewalk, crashing into sign posts, parking meters, and each other.  Priceless!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002
2000 Post Club Member
|
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002 |
When I played Light and Blue, my fingers acted like crowd of drunks leaving a bar after last rounds and staggering around the sidewalk, crashing into sign posts, parking meters, and each other.
I really wish I could play this kind of entertaining little songs to friends, though... well, some day it will happen. I just got Alfred's Jazz/Rock Course, too 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002
2000 Post Club Member
|
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,002 |
I'm getting restless with the first part of this book and I keep going back and forth... I will definitely skip some pieces. Now that Hungarian Rhapsody is done I'm jumping forward to Scherzo - I really like arpeggios! Just watched a video of this song played by a real pianist and what a difference it makes even if it's an easy beginner piece! Oh the touch, and the fancy hand gestures... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC7kR12Pn6k
|
|
|
|
Forums43
Topics223,384
Posts3,349,159
Members111,630
| |
Most Online15,252
Mar 21st, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
