Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and ALL in One Adult Piano Course Book #1

Thank you for answering my question. I realise my old Casio 61 keys keyboard was no longer working just when I was going to start practicing so I purchased a newer Casio model 61 keys keyboard. It has full sized keys compared to my older keyboard and touch response, if I'm saying it right, which I think is pretty pretty for a standard keyboard.

I guess if I can play songs and I still have the interest in approximately six months, I'll get a portable piano as I have no space for an acoustic.

The information you gave was very valuable and I've played a little on an acoustic piano and am able to tell the difference! I have not tried playing on an electric piano before though.

Flowerpoddess

Thanks for the replies GlassLove, GracieCat and mooshinator! I don't have a teacher at the moment, so I think I'll do a combination of playing until I get can through without errors most of the time and/or can't stand the song anymore.

FWIW, I played an hour each yesterday and today and after starting from the beginning again, made it to pg 27-29 (When the Saints Go Marching In). I'd play each piece until I figured it how it should sound and could play through at a reasonable pace without errors. Most only took a few tries, but I guess they're either simple and/or already familiar.

This weekend I'll try to finish Saints and then start page 30+.

I dont have a teacher either and I dont really have anyway to measure how well I'm doing working through the book myself.

Any ideas on what I should do with the certificate at the end ? lol

SmokestackLightnin, Perhaps you could record yourself playing and ask people on this forum what they think of your execution.

SmokestackLightnin - You could date the certificate, just so you know when you finished Book 1 and moved on. :-) I don't think I did anything with mine. There have been some self-learners that have stated that they did fill in their certificate. LOL

Thanks for the great ideas. I never thought of asking other forum members to rate me. Its definetly better than just leaving it unused. Its a nice wee certificate !

I am now working on Greensleeves and The Stranger. I have mixed feelings about that. It is probably me, but I find ‘exercise pieces’ like The Stranger and Good People to be souless and unrewarding. I do not enjoy them. They have no emotional appeal. They come out like Hanon or scales. On any and all of the standard song pieces I find some sort of connection to musically. They are expressive and musical. Exercises are cold dead fish. I just don’t respond to the exercises the same way. I do them as a matter of course, but feel no joy in the effort.

Now that I am really into that section of AIO Book 1, I like playing the minor keys. They are very moody. I like the major keys too, but find something extra in the minor keys.

I am also working through Alfred's Jazz, Blues and Rags as supplemental – currently I have the first five pieces in some sort of smooth. We don’t really spend much time on the supplemental during teaching sessions. I am going to have to figure out how to sign off those for myself. I have the teacher’s guidance moving forward in AIO. I am trying to define personal criteria for approving outside pieces and moving on. That is the only thing I really struggle with right now. I am challenged by many things, but only my self evaluation is troubling to me. I find musical challenges and directed learning to be enjoyable. Self criticism – not so much

I guess that I was able to separate in my mind music that I love to listen to and music that I'm able/learning to play. So for me, playing these pieces was like trying to solve a puzzle. It was fun to figure out the puzzle and learn to play the pieces. I was not expecting them to sound rich and rewarding, and to have emotional appeal - musically speaking. The "emotional appeal" came from the satisfaction of being able to play what was to me a challenging piece. And yet, some of them did have emotional appeal for me - like "Greensleeves". That was one of my favorites.

As for self evaluation, I'm sure that I let things go before a teacher would, but I also go back and review and find more to learn from a piece when I do. Sometimes it helps to move ahead and then pick up a piece again later.

You should be at a point where your teacher can suggest some more satisfying side pieces for you to work on. Some teachers leave method book pieces entirely at your level.

Up to page 39 today, "Beautiful Brown Eyes". This is the first piece to give me trouble. For whatever reason, switching between the second and third measures keeps giving me problems. My brain just doesn't like the idea of going from chords to broken chords with my left hand.

I had trouble with "Beautiful Brown Eyes" too at first. Take it slow, and in a day or two you will nail it. It's partly a rhythm thing. It will just click for you.

Ive just gotten to "Blow the Man Down". Id noticed a lot of threads concerning this piece on this forum and now I can see why. The difficulty just jumped up a few levels !

I play classical guitar and can play syncopated pieces no problem but I cant get my fingers or my head to play this at all. Im surprised there werent any technique notes on syncopation before this piece.

Is it better to get the left and right hand parts down first individually or is it better to read the music as a single piece ? im confused ! help !

Try going r e a l l y s l o w, hands together, one beat at a time. I actually made a copy of the score, and drew lines to separate each beat in each measure. Then I slowly played whatever note/notes were in that beat, whether a single hand or both. I only had to do that for a day or two, and then I could play it more or less correctly, slowly. As I progressed, it got faster until I was playing at tempo. I hope that helps. I occasionally listened to it on youtube to remember what it should sound like - but I never got as fast as PianonoobAlexMan who does the youtube version. LOL

Thanks for the advice mom It did seem to help actually. Ive been at this since 9am this morning and its 2:26pm now! time to give it a break I think.

I think this piece is going to take a lot longer than the previous ones to master. Like a week or two instead of a day or two probably.

My biggest problem with using these books without a teacher is my own impatience. I cant wait to see whats on the next page or to get to pieces which I know and love. I sit and look through books 2 and 3 at the pieces in them and ive only just got the half way point in book 1 !!

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M-Audio Prokeys 88sx

I had a difficult time with Beautiful Brown Eyes for a rather long time. It was just killing me to struggle so. I eventually got through it. I was doing some supplemental sight reading on a book of Christmas songs at the time. I discovered the same broken chord pattern in several. One in particular I recall was Christmas Don’t Be Late by the Chipmunks. So I started playing that one and Brown Eyes as a pair. Then I started to get it.

I passed BTMD some weeks back, but I continue to work on it today. It is the first piece I ever did with improvisation in mind. I pick up some left hand ideas from this forum. I also play in thirds and octaves and other tricks with the right hand. I play it pretty much every day even now. I happen to like it – not something everyone is going to say.

I do quite like BTMD. I like the ragtime feel of it. Have to fight the temptation and reach for a flagon of ale or rum and run off and join the navy !

SmokestackLightnin, I hope you are not like Samuel Clemens, who could resist anything except temptation. Ha ha.

That is an interesting observation, about the ragtime feel of BTMD, one that I did not connect. But I get your meaning. BTMD has an interesting history. You might check it out on Wiki. For its era, BTMD was as popular and powerful as many latter day anthems. I would not doubt it was in some way contributory to the eventual rise of ragtime. Maybe a stepping stone on the path anyway, I am not a scholar on the subject. Its instant association with the romance of the sea is pretty much culturally ingrained. But that is just the opening paragraph of a deeper story.

That is something I like about Alfred’s. There is exposure to a variety of music. I like to explore songs outside of the spiral sheets of the book itself. There is a lot interesting (and probably arcane) background and connections to be discovered.

Slow methodical repetition and patience are the key on any difficult pieces. I don't recall having a difficult time with Beautiful Brown Eyes and Blow The Man Down came fairly quickly to me. However, after saying that I had quite a time with Lavender's Blue and am now having a fit with Good People. It's slowly coming together but I have spent a LOT of time on it over the past week.

I have a lesson tomorrow and should be able to get passed on Why Am I Blue but Good People isn't ready for prime time. I was also supposed to be ready to at least get through What A Wonderful World slowly hands together but that one took a back seat during practice time and I can only do HS in the right hand. I had to work on scales too.

I am seeing progress on 3 octave C major hands together and can do F & G major HT one octave and sometimes 2 octave. I had to do those very slowly over and over again slowly picking up speed. It really works if you have enough patience. My teacher wants to add another scale and start arpeggios this time as well. I sure am glad the lessons are only every other week. No matter how often or for how long I practice I never feel like I did enough.

I do enjoy it though.

Yes, Doug, I feel the same way. I am playing Raisins and Almonds (a really lovely song actually) and my teacher asked me to stick with it one more week. I had a bit of difficulty with it in my lesson, and I also didn't apply the overlapping pedal technique to her satisfaction. I think that the final pieces in the book are much more difficult than the earlier ones. My teacher usually gave me two or three pieces each week, now I have just one (the other piece I am playing is Purcell Minuet in A minor which she asked me to work on for another week too). While I would love to finish the Alfred book, I was really glad that she asked me to play the piece one more week. I feel like I might be able to perfect it (as much as a beginner might be able to).

Captain Zero> I know what you mean about the song choice in Alfred books. Its usually pretty eclectic and whilst not everyone is going to like all the songs for the most part the pieces are pretty popular. what I like is as a Brit a lot of the songs are popular American folk melodies that ive never come across before and vice versa.

What im worried about is that with some of the pieces I still need to listen to the CD to get the tune right. Obviously the whole point of music notation is that I shouldnt need to do that. by the point of BTMD should I be able to play something without listening to it first ?

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M-Audio Prokeys 88sx

Hi Smokestacklightnin,
I don't think that there is a problem with what you are doing. I do that too. I don't have a CD of Alfred songs, but I always listen to pianonoob and others on youtube to hear the songs performed while I am learning a piece. I think that hearing it and seeing the musical notation simultaneously helps you understand the musical notation better. While I am not a very good sight reader, I am certain I have improved during the last 6 months. Another thing that I enjoy doing (and others can tell me if I am wrong, but I think that I learn a lot from it), is to listen to pieces on youtube that are far too difficult for me to play right now but for which I have the sheet music. I follow along looking at the music while listening to the piece (in between vivid daydreams of actually one day performing the piece).