Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum OT, Tell us about yourself

Hello Everyone

I am new here although it's been almost a year since I've joined the forum. Never got around to posting until now.

Anyway, I am 42, female, married with two sons and live in the Chicago area. I had piano lessons as a child from ages 7 to 13. I played the piano on and off since 13 but never really seriously until now. I am planning to resume piano lessons this summer and looking forward to that. I'm not quite a beginner but I'm certainly not an advanced piano player. Hopefully one day I will be considered an advanced player!

I am currently working through the Anna Magdalena Bach 1725 piano book. I am trying to master the simpler pieces such as the minuets and the marches before going on to the more difficult pieces. I am currently trying to memorize the Prelude in C (my favorite piece in the book).

I like most kinds of music. With regards to piano my taste ranges from classical, gospel, jazz, pop, rock, big band, almost every type of genre.

Currently my favorite piano composers are Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Grieg (only because so far these composers are the ones that I have been most exposed to). I am planning to listen to more classical composers on a serious basis as well as other composers from other genres particularly jazz in the near future.

In my non-musical life I work as an actuary.

I guess its time for me to write a little about myself, after all I do spend a lot of time over here.

I'm 35, I live in Amsterdam (Holland) and I work as a software engineer for a small internet company.

As a child I was interested in everything besides school. When my sister took recorder lessons, I listened in and sometimes played on the recorder. Later we got very simple electronic organ for my mother to play (she used to play the piano as a kid), but nobody used it, except for me trying to figure out tv tunes (right hand only). All this without any lessons. Since I was doing pourly at school my parents felt that additional lessons would be too much for me...

At age 13 I got my first computer, things started to get much better in school too. I went to university to study computer science and even entered grad school. For years I forgot all about playing music.

About a year and a half ago I had this idea about buying a simple keyboard, to connect to my computer, just for fun. I never thought I would get hooked. I read a lot about music, score reading, playing etc. About 6 months later I bought a digital piano to replace my keyboard, which I sold. About the same time I broke up with my girlfriend so I quit for a while but now I'm back.

Besides the piano and my work, I love reading, movies, fotography, politics and just hanging out with friends. I also try to collect just about every book about Leonardo da Vinci.

Welcome Piano Rocks to Piano World Forums. Glad you finally decided to post. This is an interesting place with a large variety of thought (and thoughtful people). Nice to have you.

Welcome Laurens. I missed listening to your songs, but will get a chance to - and I'm sure I'll enjoy them - based on the reviews of the other guys and gals. You have a nice background - nice varied interests...kewl!

What if I promise not to sing unless asked to?

........oh wait, it wasn't about the singing, was it?



Ps. I did successfully reassemble it with no parts left over.

Hello, I'm pretty new to this forum as a lot of you are. I'm originally from Iceland, but I have lived in 4 different continents and 5 countries in my life. I reside in Orlando Florida, but I work out of Columbus, Ohio as a captain for a regional airline.

I began taking piano lessons when I was 13 or 14. That only lasted for one year, because I wanted to become a professional skateboarder. I still played as much as I could without a teacher, but didn't play for about the last 9 years until I decided that there shouldn't be anything preventing me from reaching my goal of becoming an accomplished pianist. I'm not expecting to become Daniel Barenboim or anything, just the best I can be.

This January, I finally decided to invest in a piano. I believe it was the best thing that I ever did. My piano playing is better now than it ever was. Also, I guess, if you play piano it makes you smarter? Everything started to become a lot clearer. It's easier to concentrate at work and so on. The brain is a muscle right?

Whenever I'm at home, I don't leave the house too much, because I'll be playing Scott Joplin tunes, which is my favorite music to play. I also love Chopin, and I would like to be able to play all of his Nocturnes (the music I use as a sleeping aid) one day. In my dreams...we'll see.

Because of my job, I split the week in two places which I live, but I only have one piano. I'm currently putting money aside to buy another piano so that I won't neglect my skill;) I'm obsessed!

My other hobbies are woodworking (I 've built most of the furniture in our house and I build for friends, too [adirondack chairs and entertainment centers are my specialty]). I also love to paint, but that takes time away from the piano.

I feel like I've said too much. Oh, I'll be 32 in August. Glad to read about all of you.

Thanks, iceland767, for sharing. You've got quite the range of diverse talents! But you never told us what came of the skateboarding...

Do you have recording equipment? We didn't get much (any?) ragtime music submitted to the last recital, so I'm sure we'd love to hear from you in the upcoming one.

I'll read through all these in a wee while.

In the mean time.

I'm Ant, 18 years young and live in Blackpool.

Started piano aboot 4 days ago. Love it!
Mainly started because it just sounds so good, and is a better relaxment (is that a word?) than guitar, which I've been playing for about 3 years. I love heavy metal, punk, live music ect.
Love final fantasy! Saw Advent Children earlier today, and it is the greatest film I have ever seen.
I have the piano collections (CDs) and the music scores for Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, X and X - 2. Going to spend this YEAR learning how to play them. Most of them just seem too difficult to jump right into, but, I'll get the hang of them.
I like and drink beer way too much.
I'm shocked by the lack of off topicness here! (or is the law strict? heheh, you should check out thew intermusic guitarist forum, now THAT is off topic :p )

Anyway hi.

Welcome to the forum, Ant. There are quite a few Final Fantasy music fans here, as well as anime fans. If you search the archives for "Final Fantasy" (search this one and the non-classical forum, too), you'll find a fair number of threads with some good links to sheet music websites.

Yeah I have all the sheet music for all the soundtracks!

I've learnt little bit from a few but must start work on full songs.

It's getting the right hand and left hand to sync! Luckily I have 3 years of guitar under my belt, so I have a good ear and finger dex. However I've been spending pretty much all day for 4 days (when I started) playing and reading thoery, so I hope I progress faster. Been reading a bit of that C CHang book, so I'll try learning the whole song left hand, then right hand, then try and put them together!

Once I get the hang of 'em I'll put up some recordings.
I have Fur Elise and Cannon under my belt now. Aswell as some of Prelude (Wohltemperierte Klavier 1-1) by Bach too.

Basically I'm striving to be the best (that I can be), so I think I should pregress pretty quickly (Not doing too bad so far ), but I know it's only a matter of time before I hit the 'Wall of Progress' heheh.

I'm old, fat, ugly and drunk!

Thanks Monica. I never became a professional skater. I wanted to expand on that, but due to poor revision and sloppy editing, I didn't catch it.

I do not have recording equipment yet, but that's something that I will be looking into.

And all the furniture I make...a bunch of junk, but it works. As with the piano, I'm getting better.

I would like to do the recital eventually. I would like to submit the Maple Leaf Rag, which is my biggest accomplishment so far:) I'll need a few tries to get it just right before the recital.

Hey Anthony, I lived in Hale/Altringham (I could never figure out which) in the Manchester area. I used to go to Blackpool for amusement. I wish I could go back to live in England. It's my favorite country in the world. Don't ask me any questions about Blackpool and where I hung out, because the alcohol always made me forget.
Go Liverpool!

I want to live in America. Will do later on in life.

I used to BMX for a few years. Still wish I did, was damn good too if I may say so. Had ambitions of going pro. Then I started drinking and what not!

Hey Anthony

Blackpool?...now I'm sure I've heard of there before, somewhere?


Lee

Seaside(?) Lee?

I'm guessing you live here!

Correctamundo...I sure do


Lee

icekid, you should think about buying a stage piano for your second instrument. That way you can take it with you when you go on trips out of town and you can play at your other residence much sooner. A Yammy P90 only costs $1000 and a Casio is even cheaper.

Icekid: I second Bob's opinion and would like to add that late night practice is also easier on a electric. Also curious what scott joplin you have and what the best beginner books are in that area.

Hey Bob and everyone. I currently have a Yamaha CLP130, which is perfect for me right now. My girlfriend usually turns in early, so I tend to play soft tunes after she's asleep (even with headphones on, she complains when I play louder songs because the banging of the keys wakes her up).

As long as it has 88 weighted keys and acceptable sound, I don't care what it will be. I'll check out the Y P90.

Tenuki, I just have "At the Piano with Scott Joplin." I look at it as his "Best of" original work, but I'm not totally sure. I'm also not sure about which books will help you, but I used to have "The Easy way to play Scott Joplin" (I think). I didn't enjoy that book too much, because it only had parts of the songs in it. I've always had the book mentioned first and I always kept it close so that I could check when I was finally ready to play it. I still struggle a bit and I'm thinking about looking for a teacher who can teach me to play it right.

At The Piano With Joplin Level: Late Intermediate/Early Advanced (6/6+)

oops, might be a bit much for me right now.