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Thanks for your support PianoStudent88 and Cheryl!
Hard times for me, yes. But I tend to be a positive and controled person, so I think I can manage my stress about this situation. Thanks again.

My best wishes to your family, Carlos.



Another silly achievement of mine: I’ve spent one month learning a new piece, and right now I’ve discovered how to play the first eight bars. Well, better late than never.

Btw, in my city there are little earthquakes often. Until now, they are almost imperceptible.

Carlos, glad to hear you are coping well with the stress.

Recaredo, I am very curious about what piece has been so tricky as to need a month for 8 bars.....???
Sounds VERY challenging! I wonder if it is .....Chopin?

I'm glad your earthquakes are almost imperceptible.- Very glad!

It's Beethoven, Cheryl. It’s too much challenge for my level, and I don’t know how far I can go, but I'm having fun for now.

Ah! As long as you are having fun! There is no deadline!

I never memorized the Beethoven piece I was assigned - and I never got it up to performance level either.
I enjoyed it up to a point, but found it very stressful.
I really have strong reactions to certain types of music it seems!

I'm so glad you're safe Cheryl. I've only ever experienced minor tremors and the worst we get here in Florida is a bit of wind and rain. I can't imagine what's like to have your whole world shake.

I'm glad to hear you and your family are safe, Cheryl! I live in Japan, though in Okinawa, where there aren't usually big earthquakes. We get small ones all the time though. We had one at lunch the other day. We all looked at each other nervously as our cafeteria trays rattled. Except the mainland Japanese, who probably didn't even notice it.

Thanks for the concern HeirborneGroupie and MaryAnn.

HBG - I think in your area storms - and big ones are the biggest scare, and that has to be frightening. We had wind coming down from the mountains so hard one day that it took 2 of us to close the windows! That was a bit unnerving, but not a tornado by any stretch.

MaryAnn, I had a similar experience in California about 10 years ago..... I was there fairly soon after a big quake and I was very jittery- my American family were all very calm about the tremors.

Apparently near the epicentre there have been about 800 shocks in the last 2 weeks - as well of course as the 3 significant quakes - 6.0, 5.8, 5.6 - those poor people must be bundles of nerves.

Many are living in tents, and I'm seriously wondering how long it will take to get them into proper housing - when there was the big quakein Assisi people were living in trailers for YEARS - and in Aquila where there was an earthquake 3 years ago are still far from being put back in order.

Italians are really good at rescue and emergency situations but it seems not so good at managing the recovery processes.

Thank you all for your support, Mom and wife are getting better. Now it's time to return to my other love: Piano

Recaredo: 8 bars in one month? Well, fun is important, but beware of not turn it in frustration.... Earthquakes: Glad to know WE are, for now, safe in the Iberian Peninsula.

Casinitaly: I also tend to have some (body) reactions when I play some pieces (not all). Sometimes I'm so involved with the music that I feel a kind of chills... I understand that very well.

Nice to know that everybody is safe although we are all in different places in the world.

CarlosCC- I am glad to hear that your wife and Mom are getting better. That is a lot to deal with at once!

I don't so much have an achievement this week as a realization-- I have a lot of work to do! I had my second lesson with the specialist this week, and learned two things. One, she told me that I don't look like I know where I am going, because I do not position for the next group of notes quickly enough. The result of that is I play tense and with a lack of confidence. Secondly, I need to do exercises to activate and strengthen my hand and finger muscles away from piano. So now I can be seen at dinner surreptitiously dropping my hand on the table supporting the arm weight with one finger while relaxing the others, or squeezing my kneecap with straight fingers under the table. My husband just rolls his eyes. He knows that though I am listening to what he is saying, one channel is on piano!

Gosh, it seems like Mother Nature is reminding a lot of people that she is in charge. June 1 is the start of hurricane season here. At least we get warnings of what is on the way thanks to weather satellites. Best of luck to everyone.

My achievement this week has been a seeming breakthrough on reading the notes on the staff. All my progress has been in micro steps but they do accumulate after a while.

Carlos, I am sending good thoughts for your mom and wife.

MaryAnn, congrats on performing in public. If they gave out brownies at every public performance, more might volunteer to play.

As for my week #12, I continue slow progress up the hill that is Ashokan Farewell. This is my fourth week working on it. Some sites say it is grade II or III in terms of difficulty. I think part of the problem, is that the tune doesn't have lyrics, making it more difficult to memorize. I tend to be pretty good at memorizing if I can hear lyrics, or if I wrote it.

I printed out some chord charts, and a Circle of Fifths chart. I'm not sure what to do with the Circle chart, but I hear so much about it, I thought it might be good to have.

I scrapped the original composition I was working on last week. After a few days, nothing was coming of it. So I started fresh on a new one in A major, which one pundit says is a good key for themes on "innocent love."

Because of hand issues, I continue to limit my practice time to at most one hour per day. This gets frustrating especially when composing, because an hour a day is a good minimum if a person wants to make progress writing original pieces. That would leave zero other time for practice.

I bought some thicker warmer gloves to use when playing. I cut off the finger tips. The other day, I got myself in a laughing mood, and that seemed to help.

Thanks for your concern. Mom and wife are getting better and better.

SwissMS - Nice to know that you are getting interesting tips with your piano lessons. It's important to have the opinion of a specialist and to do the appropriate exercises.

KeysAngler - Hey, I don't believe mother nature has a calendar... So, always be carefull, and good luck. Someone said "A long journey begins with one small step"; it's better to do micro but solid steps, than an huge but fragile one.

Sand Tiger - Cool point about lyrics and memorization. I never though about that... interesting. I tend to "listen" the melody in my mind while I'm playing wich has some similarities with the lyrics. LOL, I'd love to see a picture of your gloves!

My AOTH - I had little time this week, but I still managed to work on the piece of Helen Jane Long. Already go in 2/3 of it, it's memorized, and I'm enjoying it. Meanwhile, I'm starting to concentrate on the best software to do the recording for my mother.

As for the gloves, the new pair is similar in weight to the ones in the picture. I cut about an inch off from each tip. Gloves of this quality are often sold in the U.S. at the dollar stores, though they usually cost more at other stores.

I tend to wear gloves for many tasks including typing at the computer, and whistle playing. So when I started having hand discomfort, I put them on for the piano keyboard. They seem to help.

CarlosCC - my apologies for completely missing your post on your mom and wife. I hope the best for them and for your family. After all family is all what we got on this earth.

So, my AOTW - I am still diligently working on the same Rach 23-5 prelude. Currently at 102 for 8th note. I would like to bring it up to 90+ for a quarter note. Beethoven pathetique 3rd movement is going well. This is just perfect for my current level while the Rach piece was a bit of stretch and I suffered from it. one night while I was doing my usual sleep playing, I realized that I have to be completely awake to play the piece. And then, the next moment I realized why my teacher assigned me the piece (LOL).

Speaking of a teacher, really strange and good thing happened to me lately. I was going to write about it but did not have time until now. I might have written about my former teacher. She is really my first American piano teacher since the very first one only lasted for a month. She found me in Linkedin and so we got reconnected. She had to move to other state due to her ex-husband work. I would not disclose her name here but she is a fantastic pianist. She won some well known competitions and finalists on some. She was on NPR as well. Unfortunately, At that time, I just came back to piano after 20+ years of absence and perhaps I was not ready for her. I did not understand half of what she was telling me during the lesson. But we hit it off at personal level. we were very close until she got divorced. I think it really was a painful experience for her. Then we drifted away for years. Lately, I listened to her recording of Brahms again after so many years. It brought tears in my eyes. It was so good. I thought it was good when I listened to it long time ago but not like this. I now know how sensitive her playing was, how bold she became at times when she needed to be. Then all the sudden this e-mail.. as though she responded to my feeling. I really like my current teacher. She taught me everything i got now. But my friend was special. She is art itself. I am going to meet with her in the first week of August. I am planning to play the Rach piece that i am studying right now and one of the Mazurka that she taught me. Although I have to bring it up the latter to life...

Ok, one more post from me. It's a funny one. I thought about posting it to the 1st Bach invention thread but did not want to hijack the thread.
This is more like my dog Charlie's (7 months old puppy) achievement.

I read somewhere pianist corner that I should use Bach invention for warm up instead of scales, etc. So I thought, all right, haven't played them for a while. I decided to use Bach to increase my sight reading skills. I am working on playing by feel (not looking at the keys). So Bach invention seemed to be perfect. I was trying to have my fingers to figure out the feel for the steps by 3rd, 4th, 5th, octave and so forth. 1st one went darn good. So I was feeling great. Of course, I was not playing the trills but with pretty good speed, slower than it should be but not too slow. So I went on second and third.. Then I heard the sound of someone screeching my piano bench! Yes, it was my dog Charlie. I was so focused on not to look down that I did not notice the bugger chewing up my artist bench. I spanked his a** and called pet hospital immediately to schedule neutering. My husband thought I was awful but I felt good. Lately, he has been acting erratically - chewing stuff and stealing food etc. I think it's all his hormone doing this. Don't you agree?

Well, if you're sure you want no more children, castration may be an answer. Not sure whether it will do anything about the tendencies to buggery though.

Anyway, if it all goes wrong, you'll have the dog for company.

I am hoping it will calm my dog down. My friend told me that it worked for her dog. We won't breed him anyway and it's probably a good thing. He will be free from all those worries that come from being an intact male. Besides - he really shouldn't have eaten my piano bench!!

I think you missed the Wombats attempt at humor ...

I notice people here talking about dynamics all the time, and while I know what they mean, it's not something I've incorporated yet. Not knowingly anyway. Until my lesson last night. I'm a little surprised at myself for over looking all the marks (p, mf, crescendo, etc) for so long. It's like i just don't see them. Is this normal for a beginner struggling just to hit the right notes? Anyway... HS, I was fine with all of this, so I'll call that my AOTW. HT, however. Everything we had practiced just flew out the window.

I'm really worried my teacher will have me using the pedals soon. Yikes!

I am curious at what stage the rest of you started incorporating dynamics and pedaling into your playing.