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

Farmgirl, what a great update. It is wonderful you were able to get your parents out so (relatively) quickly.

You will all be so much more relaxed once you are together.

I think it was great that the piano just helped distract you from the stress, even if you didn't really know what you were doing - it probably soothed your soul.

I'm also glad to hear that your other relatives have found shelter - it is very sad about the lovely piano of course, but at least the people you love are safe and sound!!!

Thank you for updating us, - may your parents have a safe and uneventful trip enroute to your loving arms.

AOTW (and maybe AOTY) I bought my piano!!

There's a post about it on the piano forum if interested. Its a new Estonia 190 in ebony and it should be delivered in about 4 weeks. I can't wait. She has a gorgeous lush voice with a buttery smooth action. And yes, I will post pics when she arrives.

How exciting!!!!!!!!!!!

We will be watching carefully for the pics of your beauty!

Congrats JimF - that sounds like a great piano. I bet you can't wait - I know it seemed ages for my K3 to show up. That's quite a way to go to buy a piano - I was complaining about anything > 20 miles!!!

Congratulations! She sounds like a beauty!

After three years of lessons, I've been discouraged recently about how sucky my sight reading still is. Of course, I realize my assignements are getting proportionately more difficult, as my skills progress. I asked my teacher recently if we could focus on my sight reading development and he agreed, assigning pieces to sight read way below my current level. I don't mind at all playing these rudimentary songs, if it will build my reading skills.

On a whim, I replayed some of the easier pieces (but, not exactly 'baby' songs) I had worked on long ago. In my mind, I had a preconceived notion that they'd be a disaster on the first attempt, thinking the familiarity of these pieces, along with muscle memory, were long gone. To my surprise, I hadn't butchered it too badly. By the third attempt, it was good enough as not to hurt my ears.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could sight read those pieces played years ago.

This discovery got me excited and provided much needed encouragement. I wouldn't call this an accomplishment (in the sense I've reached a goal), but I'm happier about the situation than I was yesterday.

Teodor, sorry to be slow to reply to you - I really like hearing your updates because we started at about the same time (though I think even from the start you were ...(and are!)more skilled than I am. I 'm really happy to hear you're getting on well - I hope you are pain free now?

Akira - getting excited and feeling encouraged is what we're all about in this thread! Being happy with whatever progres we notice is what we aim for - we're happy for the small steps!

FarmGirl - hope your parents are thriving under your tender loving care!!!

Akira,

Don't get too down about your sightreading. I don't think it is something that comes automatically, at least not to most folks. I've been doing 10-20 minutes daily for a nearly a year and sometimes want to scream at the rate of progress. But there is progress. Also, I have to remind myself that my real goal isn't the sightreading itself, but to make myself a strong reader of music. Hopefully that will facilitate my learning and musicianship in many ways other than just de-novo playing of random pieces.

Hi, I am so sorry that I could not post here for a long time. Yes, my parents are here with me safe and sound. I feel much better. My parents are so exhausted from the ordeal they went through that they’ve been sleeping most of the time. Thank you everyone for keeping my family in your thoughts and prayers.

Jim F – Congrats for your piano. Cannot wait to see the pic.

My AOTW is that I somehow practiced every day. I am grateful that my parents have great tolerance for Piano practice noise. My teacher says that I actually got better this week and can resume Rachmaninoff prelude that I pushed it aside in order to prepare the piece (the 1st movement of Pathetique) for the recital in May.

My mom played the piano when she was younger and she is a pretty good dancer. She starts counting like a human metronome when I was playing and bugs a heck out of me. Whenever I get off beat, she says, “1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 oh… what happened there”. Unlike old days, she stops when I tell her “PLEEESE!!! I cannot concentrate”. She says she just is happy to see me playing again – it means that her money spent for my childhood piano lessons are not wasted. I did not remember but she says I used to do all kinds of things trying to escape from piano lessons (LOL). Anyway, good to be back to the AOTW and ABF.

Farmgirl - it seems very reasonable that your parents want to sleep! What a tremendous amount of stress they've lived through in the last few weeks.

Good to hear that despite your stress, you've managed to make some progress!

My AOTW is that I took an old book of guitar music and played almost all the songs, adding in the chords for the left hand - I mean that I had C EM AM B7 D D7 etc written above the treble clef and I had to figure out all the notes to play for each chord. The first few took a few minutes, but as I got rolling it got faster and faster and I was really pleased with how quickly I could figure out the 7th chords. (and how to "cheat" so as not to put too much tension in my hands stretching! )

All in all it was an amusing session.

My first AOTW post, wow.

Well my AOTW is that me and a couple of mates have been playing a boogie woogie on a few occasions (we've played public two times I think). My drummer and bassist have been getting a couple of phonecalls, and we'll probably have like 4 gigs in May...That is huge for a newbie youth band like us. We live in a small commune of 1300 people so it's really fun for us to be called to play different places.
I really need to start practising every day again....

Cheers.

Farm Girl - what good news! I'm sure there is still some stress because of having more to deal with for you and your parents, but at least that extra worry about them being safe is gone. I am so glad for you. I hope your aunt, uncle, and cousin are doing ok, too. What a lot for them to deal with. Maybe some day a new piano will bring your cousin the kind of help yours gave you during this time.

Auver, a boogie woogie band! What a treat! It's so much fun to play for a crowd that can dance to your music - love those gigs

Cathy

I finally got the hang of 4 against 3's, in particular doing 4 note chords with my right hand:

2nd inversion C+,
1st inversion F+,
1st inversion G+,
1st inversion A-

while doing octaves on the left hand:

C, B, A

This really gave me a richer way to transition from chords, and I think it's given me an "epiphany moment" of understanding.

"... was blind but now I see ..."

(how fitting lyrically, anyone get the irony?)

Wow.

I can't believe we let this thread slip to page four. Everyone must be very busy achieving great things!!

Schlittk, congratulations, those polyrythmns are really tough. Did you use any particular drill or technique for getting them down?

Not much going on for me this week. The Manon Lescaut aria is coming along and I put it hands together about a week faster than I thought I would. But it still needs lots of work. At last week's lesson we tried some things to "train-wreck proof" the Tosca recital piece by having my teacher constantly interupt me so I had to restart at odd places without the score. She would also stop me and ask me to name the next base note, for instance.

Cunningham Piano was kind enough to send me a paper footprint of a grand piano so we can move it around the living room. The delivery date for my new baby should firm up in the next week or so. The anticipation is building!!

Hi Jim F, I am with you. What's up everyone else! I have been so busy with my parents living with me until May. But the No1 reason why I could not write a post her is my mother - she belatedly DISCOVERED Internet and hogging my personal laptop. I am writing this using my work laptop. She is a semi-professional Japanese dancer. So she's been practicing dancing every day and watching youtube all day - I think she is trying to learn someone else's choreography.

I am also practicing everyday. My parents have much greater tolerence to piano sounds than my husband. Since my mom used to play when she was younger, she actually loves to listen. I love to play to someone else - so I really enjoy it now. I think the 1st movement of the Pathetique is somehow getting there. I need to fine tune the dinamics and work on memorizing teh piece. My speed is still very slow. Well, I will do my best. With my teacher's approval, I am working on Rachmaninoff's prelude again.

I will be out of town for a week next week on business. Yes, I have to leave my parents with my hubby. It's tough to leave piano as well. I think this is a common challenge to adult beginners. It's just for most of you, it's the kids not aged parents.

How does it sound?

Schlittk--- got it Good for you!!!Farm Girl, you'll have to rent a second computer for your mom!
Jim, sounds like you're making good progress - how's your Italian coming along?
YOu must be very excited!

I've been resting and going slowly - I'm making progress with the muscle control and my technique is changing. I'm much louder, which was an unexpected change!

I'm working on 2 small pieces, taking them slowly (not because they are difficult but so as to keep focus on relaxing my arms).

I've been a bit blue with not looking at new pieces so hope to perk up a bit now....

Not strictly an achievement, and more a thing of 2 weeks ago, but very exciting nonetheless.

I signed up for a course 'piano tuning for beginners'. Having the courage to sign up was actually an achievement in itself. It's a course of 1 week long, with a workshop every morning. The rest of the day we have for ourselves. That's the second part that got me excited: the course is in a beautiful part of France, so it's also my first vacation in years (the first time I spend a vacation somewhere else than in my own home).

So looking forward to it, both the course, and meeting like-minded people.

Only one minor issue: I have to leave tomorrow morning, so I'll have to pack today, but unfortunately I don't have much time to pack... I have a ticket to see Maria João Pires tonight Talking about a perfect way to start a piano-related vacation!

Farmgirl, Now I've got this image in my head of your mother dancing while you are playing. What's Dad doing?

Oudeis, Wow, a piano tuning vacation in France. I could really see doing something like that. Keep us informed how it goes.

Cheryl, My Italian is really kinda just about as good as a parrot's italian might be. Yes, I can say (or sing badly) the lyrics to the arias. And I understand the translations. But the subtlty of meaning and nuance is faked. Just copying the recordings I've heard. I actually find it easier to "read" the emotional content in the music. Glad to hear you are back on the new pieces. That should chase the blues away. I assigned myself Gypsy Legend as a throwaway this week. I think its probably too hard for a throwaway, but I'll see how far I can get with it. I'm using the one pager that you put up on these threads a while back - assuming that's all there is to it.

Jim

Very flat!