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Good on you, Recardo. I will never be able to play classical pieces or anything requiring really using two hands.

CaptainKawai, I bet you’re able to play classical pieces. Just try it. I had also the same thought when I played with both hands for first time.

Captain, thank you for your suggesion but I already have a rolled up piano. No, it does not work. I cannot work on technique on the rolled piano. I also attempted to buy a shorter electronic keyboard to bring with me. However, when I saw the size of the piano in a case (i have to fly on the plane), I stood aghast at the sight of the black mammoth keyboard case and cancelled the purchase immediately. It was big, much bigger than before it's cased! I cannot travel with such a huge item on top of my carry on suitcase, backpack with a laptop, related gadgets (noise cancelling headphone, airplane laptop charter, ipod) and documents. So, I am stuck with asking around for piano:)

There's unresponsive and there's unresponsive! Those roll-up keyboards are so COMPLETELY unresponsive that they have little connection with normal playing technique. You can pick out a tune on one, but it isn't "playable". It's the extreme case of why piano technique only partially translates to an un-weighted keyboard. There aren't only un-weighted, the keys don't go down at all!

I've almost memorised the second half of Bach's prelude 999. It's been a lot more difficult than the first half.

Hi Everyone, finally back from vaca. My AOTW is practicing this morning after 10 days of NO PIANO, eeek, I don't even like saying it. After practicing every single day for about 2 years (with a few individual days off) it was so weird to not play. Even moreso because the ship I cruised on had four different pianists on board, with some form of piano music going at almost all times of day and night - a soloist doing jazz and pop standards, a jazz quartet, a jazz trio, and a pop/rock/oldies group. There was also a marvelous strings trio that played terrific classical rep. So I heard lots of music, but no practice. Reaquainted my fingers with the Beethoven today and will be working on dynamics HT this week. Also started a new assignment - Bach's C Prelude #846 from WTC. Still trying for a recording of Shadow of Your Smile.

It was a nice vaca, but I'm glad to be home.


Captain,
You will be able to play two handed pieces - it is just a matter of systematic practice and taking things one step at a time. Play slowly and count out loud. Play HS until the notes feel natural, then slow down even more for HT. You can do it if you want to.

Glad to see you back, Jim. I’m sure you are going to do fast progresses on your repertoire now. It’s not bad to have a break at all, especially if that break has been a nice vacation.


Carp, you have a good memory. That prelude has not to be easy to memorize. Congrats!


I’ve started to learn my first piece outside baroque period: Chopin’s Prelude Op 28 No. 4. It’s being difficult for me, with all those chords on the left hand. But I’m really excited about this piece!

Regards.

BWV 999 with nooo music in front of me, this morning. Scareeee-ah! But I must do it... What is it with Bach?

Recaredo - this one - 999 - is frankly scary. Why is this? I'm not sure. Someone else posted that the second half of 999 is "all over the place", and from my perspective that seems about right. It's not easy to memorise. I am trying to find the patterns, the clues that take me from one measure to the next... But once memorised, the piece does become in some senses easier... (I no longer have to guess about the keyboard jumps, for example, because I'm looking at the keys).

Tonight, black will become white, and white black on the harpsichord with reverse keys (which I like). So even such comforting things disappear. Sigh.

My biggest excitement this week is realizing that even though I didn't do as well on an exam as I had hoped... it's NOT the end of the world, and I will continue on with my studies and not give up!! I am also planning on starting a new contemporary piece as well!!

I'm finally able to go inside the music of one of my pieces. After months of trying to play it. Now I can live it instead of worrying about the notes which I found difficult even though I am playing the easier version (I found nothing easy in it believe me...) I feel I am really on to something here. It's only "To Zanarkand" but still I am excited because I might play it at the winter recital on a nice grand with a huge audience to make the whole experience even better. The games are not very popular in my country, nobody will have heard it and it's a beautiful piece of music, no one has to know it's from a game ^_^

Edit: Will have twice the recitals this year most likely! What a motivation this is to push to the limit and advance as quickly as humanly possible without going crazy.

My ATOW is I practiced a week worth. Last week was a very busy week in Utah. I worked from 7 am to 7 pm everyday and could not practicee. It's all my choice. I had to squeeze in my normal workload with the special work at the location. No worries my friend. It's all my choice. I love piano but I also love what I do. I have been a bread winner in my household.

Anyway, I am now trying to up my technique while doing my pieces. In order to increase my scale speed while keeping accuracy, i decided to spend 10 min for focused scale practice. I set the metronome at 76 metronome for 4 notes over 4 octave scales startig from a minor natural harmonic melodic. I plan to "perfect" in the best of my ability before moving up the circle of 5th chain for minor scales. It took a long time yesterday to do this because I noticed that I was playing the 4 notes like a triplets... It's not together at many spots especially at the turn, thumbs and the next finger that comes after the thumb. Ahhhhh! For the Rach piece (prelude g minor op. 23 #5) I have been working on, now I am finally on C section. Finally I feel like I can get the piece under my fingers. It still is not easy to bring out the melody.

I wish I had more time though. I used to enjoy just playing, maintaining my repartore and sight-reading around Chopin, Shubert, etc.. Can't do it now. I only have just enough time to do scales and pieces.

My achievement this week, though minor, was to learn the songs out of my Alfred's Basic Adult Piano book that my teacher assigned me for the week. While not "ground breaking" its still a sign of forward progress in my learning.

AOTW getting a fair way in learning "Walking on the spot" (Neil Finn, Crowded House) and finding I could transpose it into several keys (trying to find one that suits) without too much difficulty while at the same time exploring inversions, inversions, inversions.

Last week I was on vacation with no piano so I decided to try to memorize a simple piece away from the piano. It was Gurlitt's Morning Greeting #1 (Op. 130). I picked that piece because it was in the Pianist magazine I was reading, it's simple, repetitive and I felt I wouldn't have a problem with the fingering.

Well it worked! I sat down yesterday for my first practice session without the score, played it through - pretty nicely too!

I'll try this some more. I did realize I hadn't thought about pedalling which I need to. But I had the fingering (it was well marked in the magazine) and that was what I really needed.

Haven't read this thread much, but had to pop in after my breakthrough...

Been working on The Entertainer for a few months now, and my teacher and I finally figured out what was holding me back. I was pedalling every 8th note for most of the piece instead of every 1/4 which made it sound stressed and took more effort to play. Changing the pedalling pulled the whole piece together and now I'm just about done with my first foray into Ragtime!

Just for me, try it completely without pedal. And LISTEN. Do you like it completely un-smeared?

I've practiced it without pedal quite a bit... mostly when I was trying to get the notes down, but recently as well. I think some rags sound better with little to no pedal (like Easy Winners), but not The Entertainer. I like it a little slower than other rags (it says "Not Fast"!), and the "smearing" gives it a more laid-back feel, in my opinion. :P