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

FarmGirl, you are a kind soul indeed - I'm sure that your friend really appreciates your thoughtfulness.
Thanks also for your tip on elbows...I am always fighting tension so maybe that's something that can help me too.
Your experiences with your new teacher sound wonderful!
(btw since you asked..... usually the expression is growth "spurt" - and yes, after a long plateau I feel I'm growing again!)

MaryBee your experience without power sounds positively poetic!!!! Mind you I was forgetting about the heat being off. hmmmmm well, still, a special atmosphere indeed!

Edwardian Piano - what great news that you're feeling happier about your reading. I've started looking at Brian's book too, but I haven't read past the intro yet. Tomorrow I plan to sink my teeth into it

so my achievements are that I got a decent recording of my second little piece-- though I know it could be better, it is pretty representative of where I'm at right now.
I just got home from my lesson and talking to my teacher about how the metronome is not my friend. He understood but did not relent He said he probably wouldn't have introduced it just yet except that we'd come across a situation in which he felt it could really help, and so.... time to learn to work with it. I was very excited because he has been thinking about getting me into playing a longer piece - sometime before Christmas. He's going to bring some samples and we'll decide together. He's thinking of Mozart or Beethoven - something 4-5 pages in length (possibly just the first movement of a sonata or sonatina...) I feel very excited about this.

Ciao for now folks!

I can play the whole middle section (the arpeggio / scary part) of Clair De Lune. It ain't performance ready by any stretch, but my ability to touch all the notes and make something sounding like music out of it is pretty thrilling and a huge step up for me.....

Also, decided to take on Schubert's unfinished 571. It's gonna be a project, too, but a worthwhile effort.

Wow so much good stuff going on here!

Farm girl: thanks for that info on the elbows! I didn't realize that they should be tucked in. You might have just saved the day there!

Warlock: How did your lesson go? First lessons are really exciting.

House: that is awesome! It is a huge step. Congrats!

Cas: I am working with the metronome myself right now. They are horrid to get used to but really do help! Let us know which 4-5 pager you pick! How exciting!

hmm my achievement.. well I hurt my wrist again so I'm back in a brace but I can still play for short periods of time. So I decided to use the time to work on basics. I got the old metronome out and have been going through all my beginning pages of Faber and Alfreds. It's going well so far (hard to believe some of this I spent a month or more learning! LOL) and I'm glad I decided to use this time to go back to the beginning. I'm more focused on what I'm doing and it seems easier. Hopefully it will really help me cement my basic skills while I heal.

Househead, that does sound exciting.

Becca, I hope you heal quickly.
I worked with the metronome again today after the lesson and it was actually a bit better. Perhaps the fact that my teacher acknowledged that it wasn't easy to get used to using it helped me relax and strangely enough, do better?

Going back over old pieces never hurts - and can be very satisfying.

I will indeed let you know when we've picked the longer piece!

Great work! I love Clair De Lune.

I have read Brian's ebook- it's good. I am now going to put some dinner in the oven and practise then have dinner and watch Lang Lang in concert on iplayer- he is over here for the Leeds Piano competition. He played Franz Liszt in this concert.





All sounds exciting! I am getting on better with the online metronome- don't dislike it now- finDing it helpful now LOL.

hope your wrist gets better soon

I think I must be improving sight reading wise, because I tried Alpine Melody from Alfred's and before dinner couldn't play it- was applying Brian's method to work out L hand notes then after dinner I started working on it. I actually started practising BH together because I know the R hand chords ( R hand is chords). Suddenly something in my brain clicked and I was playing it quite fluidly in 15 minutes! Not sure the timning is exact yet but getting the right notes and doing the chord changes faster. Something like this would have taken me days to play a few weeks ago. I raised my arms and said AWESOME at my improvement LOL. It's a small beginner's step but I feel the improvement.

Now that is something to be excited about ! I'm delighted for you! Have you mentioned this to Brian yet? I bet he'd be tickled pink too !

I told him to have a look at this thread ....

Hi everyone! I love this thread -- and since I just started lessons myself, I figured I would join the conversation. I just got back from my second lesson. I played the two pieces I was assigned last week for my teacher and he was very impressed! Much to my delight(since i spent a lot of time on this facet), he was genuinely shocked by how dynamically accurate I played the pieces. There were lots of crescendos, accents, staccatos, etc, and I nailed just about all of them (FIST PUMP!). Needless to say, I am very encouraged after watching his reaction to my progress. Unfortunately, sight reading and quickly translating the note on the page to its appropriate key on the piano still takes a long time for me. My teacher says that will come with more practice by learning the pieces. Are there other exercises someone could suggest to help speed this up? I feel like that particular part of my learning is far behind where my overall ability is(just beginning, but i guess technique-wise I'm a little ahead of average). Thanks!

Well done justjeff!

Congratulations on your awesome lesson, justjeff!

There are a number of computer or smartphone based trainers to help with learning to translate notes on the staff to keys on the piano. I can't suggest smartphone options since I don't have one, but for computer based trainers I like the exercises at Teoria.com and the multiplatform computer app PrestoKeys

And he just did. I'm not sure what color I just turned (pink is for girls), but tickled definitely!

Edwardian - Thanks mate

Tangleweeds - A smartphone app would be most excellent. Going to look into that, thanks for the tip.

Finally, finally got a good recording without red dot incited black-outs, nervous finger slips, mind wandering and fingers wandering another way, or similar funny business breaking concentration. My piece is ready for the recital Happy!

1. I got my first (digital) piano - allowing me to practice for the first time in years.

2. I could still make a decent effort at Chopin's Em and Bm preludes

3. My sightreading seems to have improved while I've been away - basically sight-read Bach's Prelude in C with little slowing down/wrong notes and caught myself actually reading the bar ahead of the one I'm playing, which I don't think I've ever been able to do before on piano.

I just played my first whole page of sheet music acceptably (to me anyways) since when I was a kid, weee.

LOL! Did you know that in the early 1800s pink was for boys and blue for girls?

Appreciate your help Brian- this forum is so good! I am finding the tips, encouragement etc a great help on my piano journey.

Sounds good Allard! I know what you mean about funny business- I have a lot of that ha ha!