I am struggling with La Bamba. It seems as if there was an abrupt learning curve vs. the previous Theme from Solace. Can anyone corroborate this?

Hey Mark - here's a new, improved version of Danny Boy for the OP - and this one is more faithful to the book - if you will, delete tha one you already have there and use this one instead:

Danny Boy

Thanks, JF

Waltz, I’ll corroborate that and add that you’ll be running into this sort of thing much more often in book 2. That’s another reason why this book takes more time to complete then book 1 did. But the good news is that the opposite sort of thing occurs from time to time too. You may finish a particularly challenging piece and find the next one in the book to be much simpler (it’s probably introducing something new that you will be seeing again in one of those “more challenging pieces” very soon).

Undone

Thanks Undone. Your rendition sounds much better than anything I've pulled off as of yet. This my fifth day of working on it (at around 2 hours per day). How long did it take you to reach that level of fluency for the recording?

I posted about La Bamba when I came across it. I agree about the leap in difficulty. It also resulted in painful hands so I pretty much abandoned both the piece and Alfred at that point. I had already extended my focus beyond Alfred so I wasn't short on pieces to play and there are plenty of theory resources. I dip into it once in a while, I do like Light and Blue for instance, but it is now very much a supplement on my shelf.

Waltz, I don’t remember exactly how long I spent on La Bamba (I could look it up in my practice log if I were at home right now, but I’m not), but I can say that I often spend three or more weeks working on a piece. That said, I don’t work on just one piece at a time. I usually have two or occasionally three Alfred pieces going along with one supplemental piece at any point in time. I just can’t bring myself to spend all my practice time, day after day, on one single piece of music.

Thanks for both replies and I agree that it is probably best to "move on" with the subsequent pieces. The hardest part (for me) is keeping the rhythm and sound level even. Certain parts elicit me to play faster (the inverted chord segments) and afterwards the entire tempo is off. Also, certain Chord transitions are difficult to make smoothly and the end result sounds "choppy". At least La Raspa seems easier (the next piece).

I came over from the Alfred book 1 thread to take a peek and admire what will be ahead for me. It was one month since I started book 1 and have now covered about 3/4. Had one year of lessons 20 years ago.

If I could play this great in one year from now with realy hard work... where do I sign?! My compliments Undone!

(BTW I am also enjoying my current level and progress )

Undone

Ok so I'm beginning to get to grips with the 16th notes . Did ok this week and teach let me go onto next song, just have to polish up the Musette a little.

It is sometimes frustrating how book #2 is not moving as fast (in my head) as book #1. Still, it's to be understood I guess since the pieces are much more advanced and involved..

I must get my noticeboard this weekend so I can pin up my mini repertoire (based almost all on Alfred) and begin to get more practice on those pieces in...

Nice going TTigg!

I'm just starting to speed up the tempo a bit with "Guantanamera". I'm going to have to remind myself of the same thing as well in terms of the speed with which I should be moving through the difficult pieces, and to enjoy the process of learning (suffering?) , and progress will come soon enough.

Happy playing to you!

Key Notes

Currently working on Mexican Hat Dance. This piece is challenging but overall fun to play. The piece before such, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, was both fun and easy. These are the first two pieces I have found enjoyable since Light and Blue.

To Key Notes: after Guantanamera you have (I believe) Theme from Overture and Light and Blue (in that order). They are both great. After such, you are in for a few weeks of misery (including La Bamba; which I absolutely loathed).

Thanks! Good to know regarding Overture and Light and Blue. And thanks for the heads-up regarding La Bamba. I see what you mean, all of those treble clefs' chords is going to kill me. But, I'm excited about learning those new "repeated" music note notations, such as CODA and the fancy S symbol.

Thanks again and good luck with your Mexican Hat Dance.

Key Notes

Finished up MHD, working on Festive Dance now. Its staccato pattern is reminiscent of Theme from Overture. Overall it's very nice to play.

An observation: thus far, the 6/8 introductory time scale pieces have all been played in an allegro tempo (or moderate allegro).

Working on Battle Hym as we speak, good god man those left/right hand changes and the timing (16th notes) are a real challenge to learn!

I took a look at Battle Hymn and it did look rather dense. Also, the time scale had a "c" mark or something to that effect; I won't speculate .

The "C" means common time which is 4/4 time...

Thanks Mark. They have not yet covered that as of Scherzo (on which I am currently working; highly enjoyable and somewhat simple in structure; repetitive so to speak).

I love "Theme from the Overture". So beautiful. :3hearts:

To Key Notes:

It is certainly a nice piece. I want to correct something about which I misspoke. I took a look back and actually after Light and Blue you have Hungarian Rhapsody and Morning has Broken. They are both fine pieces. There are only three which I did not enjoy: Alexander's Ragtime Band, La Bamba, and La Raspa. I spent nearly a week at two hours or so a day practicing La Bamba and still could not play it "well". Those experiences overshadowed everything else in the general vicinity of such.

Thanks Waltz, not a problem. I did noticed that La Bamba was five songs away still for me, but figured that anything before that could also be potential problems for me regardless of how nice, or not, they may sound, so not to worry. Thanks for the heads-up and clarifications though.

Now you've got me even more curious about those challenging pieces.

Key Notes

Key Notes,

Alexander's Ragtime Band was fairly easy to play; the reason I did not care for it was because it was a little dull and perhaps even "childish" in sound and rhythm. La Raspa is a traditional and easily recognizable piece and it wasn't too hard to play. I enjoyed it at first but as I tried to "clean" it up it grew rather irritating (perhaps also due to the fact that it succeeded La Bamba :p ). La Bamba was the major challenge and also was clunky and a drag to have to learn.

I am on Scherzo now and loving it .

How quickly are you playing Theme from Overture? I fist learned it at an Andante tempo. Later I sped it up slightly after hearing a performance of it at a faster pace. I am interested to know what your thoughts of it are.

Finished up Scherzo and am currently on Introduction and Dance. Sounds oddly like the Rolling Stone's "Paint it, Black". Is there a connection? Wiki wouldn't tell me .

TTigg,

I listened to your performance of "At Sunrise". It was marvelous, a job very well done.

Waltz,

Interesting to know, and I'm glad that you enjoyed Scherzo.

In regards to Theme from the Overture, I was quite slow to moderately slow yesterday when I first started working on it, but today I've managed to get a recording of it at an Andante tempo I believed (I'm not sure).

I've also watched a couple of YouTube video performances, and decided that I still like to play it at either Andante or even slightly slower (Adagio 66-76 bpm?), with some extra emphasis and dynamic accents on the last two notes in each measures of the melody lines, as well as play them slightly legato instead of staccato as indicated.

Being such a beginner, I'm not sure if this is the best or correct way of playing this piece, but I do like the sound of it. In fact, I'm quite thankful for anything that I can play that would resemble a recognizable piece of music, since I've only begun on this piano journey 11 months ago.

Thanks for asking and happy playing to you.

Key Notes

Thanks..

My 1st recital (online) and I can see I'm going to have to invest in one of these Zoom things. The other pieces I'm hearing sound "amazing!"

TTigg,

Congratulations on your very first ABF recital! I just listened to your piece as well. It's beautiful, and beautifully played. You surely deserved that Zoom.

Cheers!

Key Notes

I don't know about any connection with "Paint it, Black", but its definitely the tune used for "Those were the Days": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5pkkAhETYg

Undone

Thanks Key Notes. I'm quickly learning that even though we are our own worse critics (didn't like this, or didn't like that) it's great to get the "pats on the back" form our peers. It's especially great to get them from those who've been playing for a lot longer than me.

Finally starting my "Piano" journey was one thing, it's been so much more of a richer experience with the help/feedback/encouragement from ABF!

Thanks for the reply. The adagio "portion" is where the Paint it, Black similarities (at least supposed) were for me. Perhaps I'm speaking nonsense.

Hi, Can someone please tell me how I should be playing the final (ending) chords in the piece "Light and Blue" on pg. 17 as "Tremolo"? I haven't encounter this technique before so I just wanted to make sure that I'm learning it correctly.

I listened to John Frank's example posted on the first page of this thread (very nice btw JF), as well as try to look for some YouTube videos but couldn't find any.

I recognized that they have an illustration at the bottom right hand corner of pg. 17, and it looks like I should be playing the notes seperately, kind of like an Arpeggio style? Except in this case, play the bB and the D at the same time for the right hand, then the E?

And for the left hand, play the low C first, then the high C?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Key Notes