Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and ALL in One Adult Piano Course Book #1

That website has a few songs I'd like to play, but it seems they are all dumbed down to a beginner's level. Personally, I would prefer to wait until I can play the actual songs, even though it might be months or years before I'll get to do them.

lvp, I can't get 'Blow The Man down' smooth. I'm clomping through it and have taken up banging down on the keys because I keep messing up.

I want to play the piano for fun sometimes. I don't always want to be working and learning. Know what I mean? In the front of Alred's book, I wrote down page numbers of songs I like and enjoy playing. My favorite are page 69,71, 77. So I'll play those for fun and I have Alred's Sacred book of songs that go in order and incorporate things as we learn them. Maybe think about getting Alfreds All Favorites or something you'd enjoy that goes along with Alreds.

I'm also working through 2 other method books at the same time. I use Alred's as my main source. Bastiens book is similar in what we are learning in Alfred's. The songs in that book aren't any better than Alreds.

I realize all the pieces have something about them they're trying to teach. I really appreciate how they add chords and all to make the children's songs more fun for adults, but I can only take them in small doses. LOL Keeps me working hard so I can get through them.

I do plan on continuing with book 2 in Alreds and probably Bastien as well. I probably won't have a teacher until fall. My neighbor is a gifted pianist. It's amazing to see her moving both hands up and down all over the keyboard. It gives me goosebumps. I'm planning on playing for her today so she can watch my posture and encourage or correct whatever she sees. She's not a teacher though.

Gracie, don’t be too hard on yourself. It’ll come. Just don’t give up on that piece. BtMD is the first piece in the book we encounter with Left Hand and Right Hand not moving in tandem, LH chords play steady beats but RH melodies are all over the place. If you look at any song, it’s like that, not always with quarter notes, LH & RH always move beat by beat side by side. Practice makes perfect. Keep working and it’ll become second nature… like everything else you have done so far.

I got bored with Blow the Man Down and skipped it. No point not enjoying learning.

I don't believe this song is crucial.

To anyone stuck on this, just move on. Don't worry, there are even harder songs later, but which are more fun, sound better and are more rewarding when you "get" them.

I agree, if it’s too tough, too boring and hurting your enthusiasm more than helping, it’s a good idea to move on. Please don’t forget though, method books are design for practice, and practice isn’t supposed to be fun. If you only practice what you like, you’ll probably skip half the book. Fun is later when you get fundamentals down and start building your repertoire.

Blow the Man Down haters - I feel your pain. That song and my inability to get anywhere with it, caused me to stop playing for a month!! I hated that song with a passion. But I came back to it and eventually conquered it. I wasn't going to let it beat me and it feels sooooo good when you get through it without a mistake!!! Nguyen is right about each song contributing something to the learning process, no matter how much you "dislike" an individual piece - there is always some little thing that enhances your musical knowledge in each one. I learned to enjoy BtMD and got it to sound about as "musical" as it could ever be. I start off playing it at each practice session. Now if Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Carribean would only do the vocals...... LOL

I figured Jericho would be easy and it's not really that hard, but I'm having trouble keeping a steady rythm in my right hand with all those 8th notes. I try to sing along like '|one-uh two-uh three-uh four-uh | hmm hmm hmmmmm |", which would be the first two measures, but it's not working that well. Anyone got some tips?

Slow it down Physics. Really really slow it down and do what you just described, count the rhythm then play it the way you count. Speed will eventually pick up itself when you no longer have to count.

Thanks for the advice. I played the song for my teacher today and it went very well. I'll just go back to it a few times while starting new songs to make sure I've really nailed it.

Blow The Man Down... seeing so many complaints it seems the title is truly appropriate.I am one of the man that got blown down too. sigh. work hard work hard.

cheers to all

I'm working on BTMD right now. I have a digital piano and something that is helping me is I recorded the left hand separate and I play it back while I play the right hand along with it. That is giving me the sense of the rhythm and teaching my brain how it should sound based on what my hands are doing. Then I play it again both hands with no recording and I seem to be slowly getting it. It is still very difficult. I am also carrying a copy of the sheet music around with me and every chance I get I count and tap out the beats with my hands. My teacher marked up the first couple measures with the counts and said to "just play what you count". I

I spent a great deal of hard effort and excessive time on BtMD too. I may be a little weird about it – because I actually like the song very much. Like it or not, I still had the same struggle to learn. I agree with most all the learning approaches spelled out in the forum. If for no other reason than learning how to struggle and learning how to learn, BtMD must be worth the investment.

So last night I inserted BtMD into my practice session. I was disappointed a little. I managed to make all the same mistakes as when I was first learning. I did have it polished smooth when I left it. I think there is a lesson learned in that. I previously spent most of my time with it making mistakes and getting it right. Once I had it right, then I moved on. So the long term take away was the time spent making mistakes. Perhaps I need to spend more time playing polished works I do well in order to reinforce playing things right? I cannot avoid the initial mistakes and learning cycle – but maybe I should give equal time to mastered (beginner mastered – not master mastered) works?

My teacher puts count marks on my songs too. 1 & 2 & 3 &. Do you think our teachers are trying to tell us something? No way, that must be pure coincidence.

They're not all "dumbed down" some are original compositions by De Benedetti himself, however have a browse through the music on THIS WEBSITE it's all original compositions and considered "easy", some of it written for children.
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That's a lot of music, I'll see if there's anything I like. Thanks.

On an unrelated note, if there are no finger positions given, does it mean you can just do what you like best? I'm working on Greensleeves now, where in the first bit I like to go 1, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 2, 1 with my right hand, but I see others playing it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Does it matter?

I'm far from an expert but I don't think it really matters as long as it works comfortably for you and you stay consistent. I find that when I am making mistakes it is usually because a finger is positioned on the wrong key. The right finger hits a key at the right time but it is on the wrong key. When I pay attention to the fingering I make less mistakes.

I am making progress with Blow the Man Down a lot faster that I thought I would. I am still slow (about half tempo) but it is actually coming together. The first 4 measures are tricky but coming along nicely, the next 4 are fairly easy as are the following 4 and the last 4 are somewhat tricky again. But I can make my way through it with only a few mistakes.

I must say that credit goes to the folks that have passed through this thread before me and have told of their trials and tribulations of getting through this piece. All those that struggled and eventually conquered it proved that with patience and practice it can be done! In the past I would have struggled with it for a couple days and then given up on it. I have been working on it for about 5 days now and can see that I will "get it" sooner than I thought and I too am actually enjoying the tune. I think it will be one I will return to frequently after moving past it.

Along with BTMD I am also finishing up Lavender's Blue and Love Me Tender from the Greatest Hits book. My teacher suggested that we do a little duet with Love Me Tender with me on the acoustic and him on his digital providing a bass line and drum beat. Should be interesting. I can play this one the first time through pretty consistently without mistakes but I make a mistake every time on the second pass. Don't know why.

If you're getting towards the end of Alfred's BK1, I'd recommend looking at the Burgmuller Studies Op100, in particular "La Candeur" and "L'Arabesque", both easy pieces, they fall easily under the fingers.
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Oh goodness, I've been gone for days during the BTMD hatefest that I re-started!

Well, I'll tell you what...I have a theory too: Stop playing things you hate if you are a grownup! I brought this to my teacher who agreed that the arrangement is dreadful and not to bother even finishing it (which is very unlike me!). I always work through everything that I have in front of me and I actually love tough practice, but this was making me have that "why the heck am I doing this?" feeling and I wasn't playing enough (partly b/c I didn't have anything else available and seriously, more than 30 minutes of scales and BTMD will break up any marriage) He gave me some Kabalevsky (Little Song) which is still pretty technically challenging for me(actually, I think he said more so than the dreaded sea shanty) and in two nights I am half way through it...it sounds awesome, and I am happy!

Joy and learning go hand in hand, and when I am miserable, I think sometimes things just don't work in my brain...esp. with music! I mean, we don't want to learn so that we can make sounds we hate!

So, I am resolved to skip this one...and come back later if I am curious. But I can't play it at speed, don't want to play it at all...so I'm not! Yeah for being a grownup! I'm just going to have to learn those lessons that Al was trying to teach me in other songs. I suspect this is possible and relieved to see that others agree!

Oh, and thanks for the link Crusader!

Thanks for the suggestion Crusadar. I have Burgmuller pianoforte studies and was going to take it to my next lesson to ask my teacher if she thought it was at my level. Now I just might surprise her with La Candeur.

You will see a small amount of the same pattern in Lullaby. Lullaby sounds so much nicer though. My eight year old son asked me to stop playing it during the day though....I guess it was making him sleepy!!

Sorry Physics I missed this question. It doesn't matter if you find another fingering pattern which fits, fingering is a matter of trial and error, you soon learn to look for which finger to start on so's you don't "run out of fingers", so to speak. However, I wouldn't recommend to a beginner any sheet music which doesn't give some indication of fingering, in the beginning there's too may other things to concentrate on learning without also having to figure out which finger should be going where. As with riding a motorcycle, everything is done without too much thought after awhile, you just concentrate on not running anyone down or being run down.
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