Wow...even the ambitious stuff at the end of book 3?

...you must be playing great

One of the ambitious pieces I played about 8 months ago and is part of my repertoir. It's nothing really. The alfred arrangements aren't challenging for me but the music she gives me is. So I wouldn't say "I'm good" based on that.

If you learn to play originals that challenge you a bit you advance a bit quicker. Anybody can do it, it's just the way she teaches and the material she uses.

I still have a long way to go, I don't think I'm good but I believe I will get better.

OG,

It sounds like it was for the best that you decided to ditch the Alfred's 2 book. Are you going to be working in Book 3 any further?

I'm on "Theme from Festive Rondeau". Finally, I was formally introduced to trills. I love trills and triplets!!!

After that there is "Canon in D" and I'm done with Book 2. I'm pushing myself to finish Book 2 because we have been working on Christmas music since the end of August. So I don't think I'll be moving into Book 3 right away but we'll see.

Cyborg - The "Canon" should be a little bit of a challenge, especially the 2nd half or so, but it's manageable (and can be a delightful piece if practiced enough and played with feeling) - I'm reviewing selected pieces at the end of Book 2 exclusively at the moment (just to "polish them up") and will start on Book 3 when finished with that (maybe sometime in Oct.) - just had an 8 day layoff for vacation, but surprised at how fast it all comes back now (with almost 3 years under my belt) - used to worry about "down time" while on vacation, but not any more (even makes the vacation more enjoyable!)

Keep up the dedicated study, JF

Just writing to say I’m still here in Book 2. I’ve just started on Etude, Op. 10, No. 3. Progress has been a lot slower recently. Part of this is due to the longer selections taking exponentially longer to finish, and then on top of that I’ve been spending more time (about equal parts) on some supplementary pieces.

It had been bothering me that while I could enjoy playing some of the recent pieces in Alfred’s, only a few were pieces I’d want to “add to my currently limited repertoire”. Adding these supplemental pieces has helped in that regard and brought back some of the fun that had been waning in my practice sessions.

Undone

Undone - good to know you're still with us and plugging away on Book 2 - the Etude is a little difficult but well worth the extra effort it requires - it's a shortened and simplified version of the "real deal" but still an excellent arrangment - some of us consider it the best piece in the 1st 2 books - I submitted a recording of it for Recital No. 11, which, if you're interested, you can hear here (see No. 9):

Etude, Op.10, No.3

Regards, JF

Hi All - I have just began Book 2 and I'm excited about it, after 9 months of playing Book 1. I'm not playing the last tune in book 1 perfectly but I decided to move on. New stuff keeps me interested and at this point I think remaining excited about learning is more important than being perfect. I plan to go through Books 1-3 with a teacher then stop taking lessons and practice on my own for a while before resuming lessons. I used the same approach with guitar except that I found that once I got better with guitar it became more difficult and a lot more expensive to find an instructor.

Middle_pedal:

I'm at about the same point. I finished the Basic #1 snd am now starting the #2 all-in-one. I've got the bridal march runnin' scared and am about to get serious with Guantanamera spelling?) -woo hoo!

Good luck.

Thanks jrcallan - speaking of the "bridal march" - I know one should play the music as it is written but there's an F note (RH in 3rd or 4th bar) that sounded so out of place (based on what I've heard played at weddings)- so I play an E note instead.

Middle_Pedal - been awhile since I played "Bridal" - went back & played it both ways - while the F (last note in 4th measure) doesn't sound especially bad, you're correct in saying that substituting an E "sounds" a little better - good observation - I've done the same thing in a couple of other pieces myself (surprised a little I didn't catch this one) Thanks, JF

JF,

I happy to see that you are still hanging around helping folks out on Book 2. Also, you contributions by providing recording of numerous pieces is greatly appreciated by myself and I'm sure others.

I'm glad to see some more folks working their way through Book 2. I was afraid once JF and myself finished up that the thread might die down for awhile.

As for myself, I finished up "Festive Rondeau" this week!

I'm moving on to the variation of "Canon in D". I've been anxiously waiting for this moment for over a year. I'm so excited!!! Once I get it down, I plan to keep this piece in my repetoire.

I can't believe I'm going to be in Book 3 in the near future. I remember thinking that it would be so great if I could make it. Well, I'm almost there and I haven't been this excited since finishing up my first series of non-Alfred's books.

Hello, I don't think I've ever introduced myself even though I've posted a few times. I started playing 1 year ago this month and am also working through Book2. How long do you work on a piece before moving on? Totally error free and at full tempo with ease?

I really love this forum and am trying to pick a song for the next recital.

Thanks for all the great tips and discussions!

Cyborg - I'll probably hang around in the Book 2 thread for some time to come to see how others are doing and offer some tips and hints and encouragement whenever I can (I still do the same thing in the Book 1 thread occassionally).

Also, thanks for the nice comments on my recordings.

Your excitement over finishing up Book 2 and moving into 3 is contagious - I share the feeling completely!

---------------------------------------------

ohitpro - welcome back - I would say to continue working on a piece until you can play it reasonably "error-free" at tempo - but don't obsess over the error-free part - chances are real good at this stage of our developement that playing a piece thru error-free is the exception rather than the rule - no matter how many times you"ve practiced it. Move on when you're reasonably happy with how you consistently perform it - but, it's very important to come back later to review many pieces - you'll find that after your technique and skills have improved somewhat by playing slightly more advanced pieces that you'll be able to play previously studied pieces better the second time around - continual review is essential to improving in the long run - I do what I call "concurrent review", which means while I'm working on my current, new piece I'm also working on one or two pieces that I studied say about 6 months ago, and keep moving forward on both ends. It seems to work well for me. Good luck.

Regards, JF

Hi Ohitpro, The topic of “how long do you work on a piece” comes up from time to time and there are as many different answers to this as there are participants on the forum. Personally I work on a piece until I can get a recording of it that I am happy with (I have recordings of every piece I’ve played in both Alfred books so far). I don’t insist that I get this “good recording” on my first try of the day, but if I can’t get one after four or five run throughs I’ll stop recording and practice the piece some more. I also work on several pieces at a time so I have something to “move on to” when I’ve had enough of one piece for that day.

Undone

This book seems pretty difficult. I'm going much slower than the first book. I'm currently on the Hungarian Rhapsody #2, and whenever I play it, it doesn't seem to sound right, or like a song at all, maybe I'm playing it too slow though.

Extraghost, here’s a video of someone playing the Alfred Book 2 version of this piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86_iEEmOsoQ

Wow, nice link. Thanks

He has most the songs in the book up to about page 100. This should help a lot to know what the songs are supose to sound like.

Should I start off with book 2? I've been toying around for a little bit with a computer-based training method. The level I'm at is equivalent to Faber & Faber's 2B -- I can play several pieces out of there 2B-Chord Time book (actually only took a couple of days to get reasonably comfortable with some of them).

I went ahead and picked up Alfred book 2, but I think there might be some holes in what I've learned so far -- the broken chords threw me for a loop at first (and still don't sound natural to me, even when I listen to the recordings posted on this thread).

The method I've used up to this point is Software Toolworks Miracle Piano Teaching System. I'm about half way through that one, and want to switch over to using my digital piano instead of the Miracle keyboard. But the Miracle system hadn't taught any theory (such as how scales or chords are formed) -- they just present new chords in different lessons and say "This is a D Minor chord", or "Now we will learn the G Major chord" (but without teaching how chord inversions work). I've since picked up most of the theory from online resources though.

Derekp,
I started book 1 after working with Learn and Master Piano for about 4 months. It took me 7 weeks to get thrugh it. I have now been working on book 2 for several weeks. I think the time spent on book 1 was well worth the effort even though I felt I was going backwards for a short while.

Hi derekp welcome to the Alfred threads,

It might not be a bad idea to get book one and go through it. If it's easy you will go though it very fast and if you hit any bumps, it will let you know that you just need a little work before moving to book two.

Think of all this as your under grad degree and it will pay off big later on in your studies.

And the book one people are really nice too,,

Mark

Hey Cyborg,

Sorry I haven't been to this thread for a couple weeks. I blame it on the week long beach vacation we took.

We decided not to continue with the Alfreds method book altogether for reasons stated above.

I learned and still play one of the ambitious pieces in book 3 8 months ago. Chopins prelude Op 28 no. 7

It was quite a challenge in technic 8 months ago and now it seems so simple but I still love playing it.


Right now I've finished a sonatina she assigned to me and Clowns Opus 39 No 20 (Kabalevsky). Clowns is a neat little piece and after a week of studying it, she sat down with me and told me to get the following pieces to start working on them.

I am so excited. One of the new pieces is Chopins Waltz in A minor Posthumous, not to be confused with Op 34 no.2. Here's a link to the one I'll be learning.

http://chopinproject.com/2008/06/10/waltz-in-a-minor-kk-1238-9-1843/

The other piece is Brahms Waltz in A flat Op 39. no. 2. Here's a piece of it not played by me.

http://www.box.net/shared/5rkjtzv9qm

I'm beside myself, I can't wait to start these. They're not hard note wise, the challenge is going to be in the musicality.

I do miss discussing Alfred's and I feel alone sometimes since my pieces don't match these but my teacher is always available and she loves to discuss music even if it's not on our lesson day.

Hi, I've moved on to book 3. Just posting to share my 2 recordings of :

The Polovetsian Dances
&
Pomp and Circumstance - Sorry, I dragged too long during the ending.

OG - nice job on the Brahms Waltz!

Sherly - good job on both pieces (but maybe just a little too much pedal?)

I just finished up reviewing "Musetta's Waltz" (hear it in the October Piano Bar) in Book 2 and am currently reviewing one of my favorites from there: "Ballin' The Jack" - OG, did you ever get around to working on that one? Great piece with a few tricky finger moves.

Regards, JF

OOO JF, that wasn't me playing Brahms. I haven't started learning it yet, it'll be a couple weeks. We're cleaning all my assignments right now and once we're done then I'll be working on brahms and chopin.


No JF, we abandoned Alfred's altogether. The last piece I did was "The Magic Piper".

Lots of great info in here. Just finished browsing over some of these pages,

I'll be starting book #2 this evening and will take the usual approach, discuss theory and details and then I'll spend the week practicing it..

Looking forward to some of these new pieces for sure. I probably won't be able to go as fast as #1 but hope to be 3/4 through by Xmas (we'll see)

TTigg - if you're just starting Book 2 and if you get 3/4 thru by Christmas that'll be amazingly fast progress, which would demonstrate a rare and incredible gift - maybe 3 to 4 times faster than the average (assuming you study all or most pieces) - congratulations, good luck & have fun!

Regards, JF

Thanks for the kind and encouraging comments John,
We'll see how it goes. I can for sure see this taking longer since the pieces are fuller and are more complicated, but that's what pushing the envelope or learning is all about

I do have a kind of a special gift with regards to my memory (semi photographic) but this can sometimes be a bad thing when trying to improve my "sight reading skills". Once I've played a piece various times (for practice etc) I have all the notes memorized.

Looking forward to making friends in this thread as I continue the journey on through #2..

TTIg- I have the same problem in regards to memorizing. I memorize too quickly and don't realize I am not site reading at all unless I forget a part. I am trying really hard not to do this because I want to improve my reading.

In regards to the alfred books series. Maybe someone can give me some recommendations. I am already familiar with theory. I am working on improving my site reading. An example of what I can play would be Greensleeves, fur elise (the whole thing but I am relearning it from years ago and working out the kinks). Any suggestions as to where to go from here? Some good pieces to work on? I have some songbooks at home but I am feeling a little scattered. Thanks