Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Achievement of the week - what got you excited?

Christine - Yes, you are right, and I do feel good about being able to hear what I may not quite be able to produce. My teacher always puts the smiley face on this issue too.

Cheryl - It is Handel's Gavotte in G Major, which I think is a pretty standard piece of the Baroque literature.
How is the Chopin Waltz going? Have you gotten to the tough arpeggio yet?....your speed comment in another thread made me think of it because that section really tripped me up.

I really like that Gavotte - I asked because I'm pretty sure he wrote several and, yes, I think you're right, it is well known, and a standard for that period.

I played page 1 of the waltz for my teacher today - I was a bit "spacey" as I woke up with a migraine this morning, and though the headache was gone, I was still a bit dopey from having taken some meds to get rid of it. We laughed a lot.

I have indeed reached the fast arpeggio - and I can play it.... but not fast! lol What was funny was she said she'd play the left hand and I should just play the right.... and I did, but she missed her cue! I got it right, and she didn't - we laughed quite a bit once again because we both knew it was a bit of a fluke.

I can play the first page, slowly and started on the second page today. I think that I'll soon have the whole thing committed to memory (which is necessary because I have to see what my hands are doing part of the time!!!)
But for getting it up to tempo and sounding charming....well, that's a long term project!

As I mentioned in the DP forum, my achievement is finally ordering a PX330. So, around the start of April, I should be done with my 61-key "toy".

Did that get me excited - nah, not really.

Have fun! I really enjoy my PX-330. My favorite is making it play one hand's part for me while I practice the other hand's part (or you can make it play the other part of a duet). The built in metronome has pretty nice sounds, and if you're playing more modern styles, it can be fun to use some of the backup patterns as a jazzed-up form of metronome.

Last week I found the ABF following a lesson where it became clear I had practiced fervently, diligently, but incorrectly for a week. It was kind of demoralizing but comments on this board helped me realize that all learners face such situations and prevail. This week I'm happy to report that I succeeded in unlearning errors and getting the hang of those quick little grace notes in Toreador as well as the 1/8 notes followed by 1/16ths that bedeviled me last week. Listening carefully to the CD that goes with the Thompson grade 3 book really helped.
Also, I see others who found it odd to not polish pieces but move on to others at the teachers' behest. That got me too, but now I see the logic of getting the technical skill and polishing on my own. That's even more fun done at my own pace.
Finally, My teacher does a really interesting mix, Thompson for skills, Big Note Piano Best Songs Ever for contemporary variety as well as skill. Off to Fly Me to the Moon with a jazzy bump to it!

I agree Manyhands - it is strange to get used to not polishing pieces, but at our early stages it is more important to grasp the concepts that are introduced in each piece.

I think that for a lot of the pieces we study, we're much better off studying them for a bit and then putting them aside and LATER :):) coming back to them when we've got our skills a bit more under control.

I've been doing a bit of that recently and find it very satisfying to see that I can do better on pieces I struggled with a few months ago.

And.... I was inspired by JimF and downloaded the Gavotte in G . Started working on it this morning

Manyhands,



Don't you just hate it when that happens? Been there, done that, lots. But even an old thick-headed guy like me eventually gets the message and begins approaching pieces, especially new ones, with deliberate, mindful awareness of the pitfalls that early errors can bring. See there, you've been acquiring a new skill and didn't even know it!

Glad to hear you got the kinks straightened out. Fly Me To The Moon? Now, that's something I could have fun with.....have to check to see if it is in one of my jazzy books.

It is in your Dan Coates Jazz book, with the blue cover (I have it too ).

It's Christmas! My "new to me" Yamaha U1 arrived today. sounds so different from the Baldwin spinet. great resonance, a bit brighter treble than I remember, makes those oldies just pop. Moonglow's base never bounced this well. Just sat and played lesson pieces and pops to see how each sounded on new instrument. BIG. grin.
thanks for the affirmation Jim n Cas

The full resonance of a bigger acoustic can be a bit intimidating at first, but it seems you're coping well :):)

Congrats on your new-to-you- Yamaha! May you enjoy many happy hours making beautiful music!

Congrats on your new piano Manyhands! Isn't fun to hear the Big sound? As far as learning things "wrong" it happens to me regularly. I am so sure I have things right, then I go to a lesson and find out my accent is wrong, or my breaks are wrong or.... it is normal! I have decided that is why I take lessons!

My AOTW is playing the first two pages of Chopin Waltz in C# minor to my teacher's satisfaction. She focuses on correct phrasing as a primary point of learning from the very beginning. That means how each note or chord is played must be right. She works with me a lot to play from the shoulder, not the wrist or hand. Today was almost comical. My teacher is very physical in her teaching. She held my wrist down with one hand, and moved my arm with the other, while I was trying to play a rather complex phrase. I was trying not to giggle the whole time because it must have looked pretty funny. How something sounds is so related to touch, and it is hard to describe how to do it. She is trying to teach me how to gracefully move, with the energy coming from the shoulder. Eventually I did get the movements right, with her help. So, my teacher just makes me do it. It feels great when I get it right.

Playing Mozart K545 is interesting with this teacher. I think this sonata is a right of passage for many beginners, but it is not a beginner's piece. My teacher said she felt the first movement is the hardest Mozart to play well. I still have a long way to go!! At least my arpeggios past muster today!

SwissMS, - I'm listening to Chopin's Waltz in C# minor ask I type. wow.....


Your teacher sounds like mine - she has gently shaken my elbows to keep me paying attention to staying relaxed. She has nudged me to make me move my hand into a new position faster, stood behind me and tapped my shoulders to help again with the relaxation - and we laugh too.

and " my teacher just makes me do it. It feels great when I get it right". Bingo!

I had to look up Mozart K545 - and glad to say I recognized it as soon as I heard the first bars. I certainly wouldnt' call it a beginner piece - especially if you were trying to play it at anywhere near tempo.

Congrats on your arpeggios :J)

Hi there! I regret not being able to write to the forum as often as I used to. My life has been somewhat chaotic in the last 2 months starting from unexpected reengineering in my group and a friend's death in addition to my new puppy rearing. These are my excuses. Due to reengineering, I am busier than before but the situation did calm down now. What did i learn? Well, I really cannot live for the future. It may be meaningful to prepare for retirement, but hey, being here and now seems to be much more important. I am glad I have piano in my life. It's my best friend who I get back to all the time. Anyway, I have been practicing the same pieces off and on throughout the time. I am going to play the Rachmaninoff prelude 23 -5 for the recital coming up in May. I read Jim F's posts with interest. I too have to play with a bunch of kiddies. Unfortunately, I have to play in the end. I think it's much nicer to go first. I did it only one time 3 years ago because I had to fly out to Paris on business on Saturday. The recital started at 10:00 AM and my flight was 1:00 PM. I figured I can spend 15 min at the recital since it's only 20 min to the airport. It worked and it was actually better than last year. I don't like to sit still and listen to all those different pieces. It was pretty bad for my fragile memory... While I was listening to those, I realized that I cannot remember the second line of my piece any more. I peaked through my book but it made it worse... I started feeling exasperated. Yes, I had memory loss last year. This year I am going to have to come up with a different strategy. I will be playing in the end again. Do you have advise for me?

Good to see you FarmGirl. Sometimes memory just needs a refresher, but it's still there if you shake the rust off.

sometimes once you start it just flows. my teacher says "trust your hands." Haven't done a recital. you are brave!

I just have to poke my head in...

I can't understand why anyone would dislike the first Gymnopeédie or Gymnopedie (there seems to be a controversy over spelling). If I have a student who has the ability and hand size to play it, it's pure fun to teach. And it stretches tonality quite a bit.

Why do teachers want to stay in rigid little boxes? I would NEVER tell students that I don't like something they like when it is correctly written and part of any musical world that is respected. Hmm. <scratching head>

I think you'ld like my teacher even though she tells me flat out she doesn't like Gymnopedie #1. She's so honest about it and jokes about it - you can't really take her too seriously. And even though she doesn't like it much, she works me just as hard on it as any other piece.

I kind of get why someone wouldn't like it and she was actually a little upset when I mentioned the remark about it being "furniture music" (made in this very thread).

May I ask, what makes it fun to teach? What are the things you need to teach in it? What makes a piece less fun to teach?

What abilities are needed to play it?

I'm going to have to petition LoPresti for my claim of bad ears back, because I don't hear it as stretching tonality. It just, I don't know, sounds like itself. On the other hand, I have gotten so I can hear the difference if I get a chord wrong, so that's an achievement in the direction of good ears.

Manyhands -- that's such a memorable time when you get a new piano and start getting to know it and appreciate all its qualities. Enjoy!

SwissMS -- that's great on the Chopin Waltz! And once you learn the first two pages (sections A, B, and C), everything else is just repeats, right? I just started learning it a few weeks ago, and can now play through the notes, but not anywhere near the tempo it needs. My teacher warned me that this one was going to be a long-term project for me, but I think it's worth it. When I first heard this played years and years ago, it was only a fantasy to be able to play it one day. Well, I'm getting closer!

PianoStudent88 -- on Satie's music. I am also surprised to hear that your teacher thinks the Gnossienne No. 1 is beyond the audience, as I think it is very accessible. Now, I can't say the same of Gnossienne No. 6. That one took me several listenings and play-throughs to even be able to start to appreciate it! I had to wonder how you could tell if you were playing a wrong note. Here's a quirky version of it for those who might want to listen:

For me it is harder to teach something if:

1) I do not like it.
2) It is something that EVERYONE wants to play, meaning that I end up teaching it a lot.
3) It is effortless for me to play it and very hard to explain how to play it to someone else.

1) A solid understanding of how to use the sustain pedal.
2) The ability to clearly "bring out a melody", so that the LH chords do not over-power the RH.
3) A reach of a 9th in the LH (for example M. 24-26).
4) Not necessary, but what I would want to stress: starting on a I7 chord, a Gmaj7, is something we normally expect in jazz but NOT from someone born in 1866.

And by the way, I would not enjoy teaching this to a student who could not mostly play it without my help.

That's because you have a 21st century ear. It is certainly not atonal, but in the same way that Debussy's writing was shocking at the time he was creating new sounds, it would have been quite "out-of-the-box" in the 1800s.