Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and All in One Adult Piano Course Book #2

I really enjoyed this one too, but I saw immediately that I had to memorize the LH chord progression from the very beginning (and luckily it's short), otherwise I would never learn it. I still hesitate here and there.

One thing I like about Alfred is that sometimes a song is easier than the one before, it allows me to feel better about my playing. Right now I'm doing You're in My Heart and find it far easier.

Thanks for the repertoire ideas MaryAnn. I'm going to supplement some of those for Alfred. I've also found a new Ludovico Einaudi piece that looks like it will take a while to learn which will keep me motivated.

Right now I'm between House of the Rising Sun and Waves of the Danube and all those pieces are about 85% so I'm just working through them all. It's surprising how well muscle memory sticks with you as I learnt them all a year ago and they're going by pretty quickly. Hopefully I can take advantage of this bank holiday weekend and make some real progress because some of the pieces later on sound like they might be nice to play.

House of the Rising Sun can be practised in four separate phrases. Practise the first phrase using block chords in LH. When your hand is used to the motions from one chord to the next and all the fingers go to their target note in one beat put it back into apreggio form. Work each phrase this way and (only) then put the four phrase together as one song.

The technique can be used elsewhere too.

**blush!**. LOL :-)

Thanks, I'm enjoying working on the Rebikov piece so far. I checked out your recording - I thought it was great!

Wow! there are so many of us; Party in Book 2!!!

I have a huge assignment because my teacher will be out of town next week.

gahdzila, thank you for the kind compliment on my recital performance. I'm glad you liked it.

I bought Adult Basic book 2, but it's not all in one. Is it the same level? Are the pieces similar? Not sure what I'm missing or if this is the right place for me.

For what it's worth, I like the way it progresses. I was just playing songs, but didn't feel like I was learning any technique and I was frustrated. This book is better.

I've not seen the book that you have, but my understanding is that they are basically the same book, but the All In One has more theory lessons. You might want to pick up the accompanying theory book also.

Time to bring this up

I'm having fun with the key of D Major, it looks like the pieces here are easier and more pleasant than most of the previous ones. I wonder if they do this to give the student some rest and a sense of achievement!
Anyway, I really enjoyed Divertimento in D and Brahms' Lullaby (which looks quite close to the real thing, isn't it?). Now on to Lonesome Road and then the chromatic scale.

What about you guys?

I should finish up Burlesq this week...which I just realized is on page 100 of AIO. So that's a milestone, right?

Started on Arkansas Traveler yesterday.

We are in exactly the same spot!
A bit of rest seems right. My teacher is also out of town for a week, and my private client today is cancelled, so I am practically on vacation!

I want to prep the current crop of D major pieces to play them well when my lesson comes around. I've been gradually able to avoid complete catastrophe in front of my teacher, but still, my playing has been a bit botched an bungled, so I'm hoping to raise the bar a little!

You seem nice; you're welcome to hang out with us here!

The Adult Basic shares most of the same pieces with the Adult All-In-One, but the theory and technique are in separate books in the Basic series. In the All-In-One series pieces, theory and technique are combined in one book, but AIUI go into less depth on theory and technique than in the separate Basic series of books.

gahdzila - I don't know whether you realize this, but when you're playing Burlesq, you're playing a cleverly-diguised version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or as it was known then - "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman". Mozart was 5 and a half or 6 when his father composed it, to give his kid something to do. If you play TTLS in G (GGDDEED) and then start Burlesq very slowly, you can clearly hear what he did! Good job, Dad! Better than having to hear TTLS over ... and over... ad infinitem!

Of course, when Mozart was 25, he did his 12 variations of "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman" K300e(265) which will give your fingers and brain a real workout!

Well, yes, but to steal from Tom Lehrer, when Mozart was my age he'd been dead for nearly two decades. That being true, can I say that for my age, I play better Mozart?

malkin - I sense that you thought my last remark was meant to be disparaging, but that's not the case at all! I learned Bourlesq less than a year ago and put a lot of work into it! Months after I learned it, I found out about the "TTLS" connection. I just find it interesting that Mozart played around with it as an adult and came up with those variations. But, by the time I can make K300 sound as musical as the recording I have of it, I'll have been dead for 200 years!

It's good to hear from you guys

@gadhzila Page 100! A milestone indeed. You're just 40 pages away from the Canon

It's definitely recording time for me, so I can see if I'm doing something right. Usually when I have a few pieces ready I unplug the headphones from my DP when family and neighbors are around. My fingers start to mess up and the sounds get uneven. To avoid making too much noise I don't use the right touch and start missing keys... this gives me a much needed reality check. I must say that my DP doesn't sound very nice where it is placed now, against a high concrete wall. But well, I want to play piano for somebody to listen, not just for myself, so I need this exercise.

Can't wait to get to Hava Nagila, I love klezmer music, it's one of the reason why sooner or later I want to buy an electric fiddle!

That's neat, Craig! I certainly did not notice it until you pointed it out, but once I listened for it - yep, it's there!

Nah. I was just poking you back.
I don't have the energy to really fight on the internet.

Cheers.

Puff... I did a few recordings today, and how depressing that is! Fingers going everywhere but on the right keys, weird dynamics, uneven tempo... The red dot makes me more nervous than I already am. Well at least I can say that's the reason why my playing doesn't sound very nice I think I have about 150 hours of practice behind me by now. When will things start to get easier? Never, I guess, because the things one studies get more and more difficult.

Working on chromatic scales now... I got Village Dance down very quickly but as soon as I speed up the tempo I start hitting the wrong notes. Can't wait to go through the huge part on triad inversions to reach the two-part playing lessons culminating with Chopin's etude.