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But the fingering for those three keys at the bottom of the circle of fifths - Db, Gb, Cb (or C#, F#, B -- is so lovely and logical and natural. Seriously.

BeccaBb, congratulations on your scale and key signature achievements.

This isn't quite an achievement, but exams were talked about on this thread, so, inspired by albynism and ZoeCalgary, I'm going to be preparing for the TAP level 5 exam. (This is the U.S. offshoot of Canada's RCM exams.) My teacher thinks I'm crazy but is game to work with me for it.

BeccaBb - glad to hear your aha moment with the scales! Keep at it and they will become second nature I'm sure!

Pianostudent88 - Prepping for exam! Awesome! My best piece of advice is to keep doing other 'fun' pieces through the exam prep. I found when I was too focused on the exam stuff I started taking myself too seriuosly and my playing suffered. Good luck!!! We sound close in level (well actually you sound more advanced than me in all areas!!) I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as you go through this.

Also, thanks to your comment on theory I have started going through my Furst book. I didn't know you could skip theory exams so probably I won't do the RCM theory until I'm ready to do intermediate or advanced level.

ZoeCalgary, do double-check with the RCM that what I said about skipping earlier theory exams and taking later ones is true in Canada and not just in the U.S.

I love love love theory . Once a mathematician, always a mathematician, I guess.

Indeed. There's a lot to be said for making E or B major the FIRST scale you learn. There are so many wrong ways of fingering C major!

I find it interesting that many people are so keen on taking exams. My teacher asked me if I wanted to do one and though I considered it for a bit, I decided in the end that it would just add an aspect of stress to my piaon time.

Given that my piano time is very much geared to combatting my stress, I decided to decline taking the exam.

What I'm terribly excited about this week is the way my Chopin piece is coming together. I made a recording on Sunday, and after listening to it I really realized where my hesitations were and where I had to focus.
I've been able to spend many short blocks of time just focussing on difficult areas and I'm really feeling good about the difference from Sunday to today.
This piece has been a catalyst for improving my skills set, no doubt about it!

Now of course we have to see how I manage playing it for my teacher this afternoon!!

Congrats Cas! It's a great feeling when you realize that your making huge improvements! I hope your lesson today will go well!

My teacher just sent me a text message, she had to cancel the lesson. :((((((((((((

I am sooooooooooooooooooooo disappointed.

Casinitaly - oh no! I hate when I have to miss my lesson! But just think...another week of polishing up you piece and you will have even more to show your teacher!

Piano Student 88
I'm preparing for Level 5 as well. Where will you take it? I think I can do Boulder. Started this goal last year but some health issues got in the way so I'm starting over with prep. Have you picked your pieces? I've never done a piano exam and my teacher isn't familiar with them...they are relatively new I understand in U.S. I'll cheer you on to fabulous scores.

To stay on topic in this thread...my achievement this week has been to dust off the four scales and get them up to Level 5 tempo

WiseBuff, I've answered on the Exams thread.

This week for the first time I played Chopin's Winter Wind Etude all the way through! I played it very slowly and it still needs lots of work. Also I needed a little help from the score on one of the pages but otherwise played it from memory (the memory needs lots of work too which will help with the tempo). So fun (and challenging!) to play from start to finish!

This is my seventh week with the keyboard. I recorded about 20 minutes of practice time and got useful feedback from listening to the recording. Some in the useful category, some humbling. Some sections needing more finesse, less volume, some need to sound “prettier” on the chord selection. There are sections where I am hesitating and need a smoother transition, many could use more tempo.

I learned the term rubato (slight variations in tempo). Someone on the forum suggested scales with emphasis every 2nd note, every 3rd note, and I found those exercises useful. My scales feel smoother than say three weeks ago, but I still struggle on some. I am only practicing scales that I use on the six pieces that I can play. That includes C major, D major, D minor, E minor. There are five original compositions, the sixth is a cover of Over the Rainbow.

I am still keeping to a consistent practice schedule of at least one hour a day. At some point, I know I will have other demands on my time, so want to stay with that as long as possible. I confess, that on one or two busy days, I wanted to skip or cut it short, but reminded myself those days will come soon enough.

The logic continues if you keep your 4th finger on F# in LH (instead of C fingering in G, D and A) just as you use your 4th finger on B flat in RH.

I had my first recital on Thursday after 3 months of a piano group class deal at my college.

I played a Bouree in G minor by Handel. I didn't do as well as I wanted, but I'm still pleased considering how nervous I was and that I had only played on the piano I performed on once before for about one minute.

Cabazon - that's a great post to start your Piano World posts with Congratulations!

Glad you feel good even with the nervousness and the new-to-you piano - that approach will be really helpful anytime you run into little glitches, which, life being life, we all do I'd guess it went really well and the audience loved it.

Cathy

Achievement this week...learning my minor scales. Well...one anyway (it's a start).

Congratulations Cabazon on your courage and good perspective on how to assess your experience. So many newbies won't even try the recital and you accomplished it.

My achievement this week was playing in front of my visitors from the US, and not being nervous at all! The last time I played for anyone other than my teacher, my foot was literally shaking on the pedal. This time I just relaxed and let the music flow. I knew the piece very well (Chopin Waltz in B minor) from playing it in the last recital, so I was completely confident. So, I guess all the work polishing a piece for the ABF recital pays off!

I have Clementis op 36 book. 4 or so months ago I was trying to read/learn op 36 no 1 and it was just like the notes on the score overwhelmed me so I stuck it in my bench and forgot about it. Long story short about a month ago my teacher assigned me op 36 no 1. It came a lot easier than in the previous months. It wasn't as confusing at all. The achievement I am proud of though is that 2 days ago I started working on op 36 no 2 and reading it is so much easier than ever before! I'm pretty excited and next lesson, after I show my teacher how I've come with 36 no 1(she has been on vacation for a month so hopefully she'll be pleased with my progress!) I'm going to see if we could work on 36 no2 or another one of Clementis works.

It's weird how when I first started I had no interest in baroque esque music at all but after this Clementi piece that's all I want to learn. It feels great under your fingers. I don;t post much but felt compelled to tonight for some reason!

pckhdlr305, congratulations on your reading achievement.

My achievement is playing two pieces in my teacher's recital today. I wasn't nervous at all. I had a memory lapse of about two measures in one of them, but just kept playing chords and melody approximately in the style of the piece, figured out what came next, and blended back into the proper notes.

PS88 - Congrats on the recital performance. Staying calm enough to wing it when you hit a glitch is a skill I wish I could develop.

pckhdlr - Sometimes that is just the way piano goes. One minute you think something is out of reach, then you wait a while and, pow!, magically it has come under your fingers. Read below for more on that.

SwissMS - Good to hear that your hard work paid off. Better yet with a beautiful piece like your Chopin you can look forward to a lifetime of playing it for your own and others' enjoyment.

Wisebuff - Kudos for taking the exam route. Not something I would want to tackle.... I've enough issues to deal with. Out of curiosity, you mentioned the level 5 scale requirements.. what are they exactly?

Cabazon - Welcome to the thread and congratulations on your first recital. The first time can be very nerve wracking, so just showing up and getting through your piece is an accomplishment. Most of the time audiences don't even know when you've made a slip up, so you may have done even better than you think.

Speaking of nevous wrecks, my recital is coming up in three weeks and I'm feeling those unmistakeable signs of butterflies already. I have to choose between the MacDowell and the Ravel soon.... and neither is ready! I'm recording them both every other day, I've arranged the rehearsal recital get-together, and I'm practicing like mad, but still have a ways to go.

My AOTW has to do with scales and weird jumps through imaginary walls.

I have been back to working on speed in our scales again (four octave, two hand) and had been stuck for a while at 72 bpm, 4 notes per beat. Then last week I had an awful lesson... started out couldn't even play my scale of the week (f-minor) at that speed even though I had been doing so all week. It went downhill from there...my piece fell apart and I couldn't recover (something we've been working on), I messed up the easy Handel piece. Nothing worked. Plus my teacher thought she saw the reemergence of some hand tension that I'd previously worked hard to eliminate. I left feeling pretty rotten.

On to this week and I slowed the SOW (D-flat major this week) down a hair and worked hard at maintaining a very relaxed hand as well as a few other pointers she gave me. Did this all week. Then this morning I bucked it back to 72 bpm and started slowly just playing it in eighths (2 notes to the beat). That was so relaxed that I just slipped into playing it in sixteenths ( 4/beat). Although it felt fast, it was there and I could do it without strain. Well, willy nilly I look at the metronome and I'd misread it! It was set on 92 not 72!!! So I had just played a full 20 clicks above my "wall". Go figure. Sometimes piano is just weird.