I over slept this morning and had to reschedule. Now I have to wait until like the 14th or something. Bummer.

WiseBuff - Both my kids swim competitively and I spend a lot of time driving them to and from the pool, sometimes at 5am. I myself also swim, for fitness; so does my husband. Swimming is a great sport, I highly recommend it. And if you don't know how to swim, it's never too late to learn - just like playing the piano. I found swimming can be enjoyable, relaxing and frustrating; also just like learning to play the piano.

I would think your son will go back to play again in the future, and he'll be happy that he learned to play when he was a child.

January is gone, and I have been faithful. In fact I may have over practiced. But that has been a good thing. I have found practice time to be therapeutic; playing takes me away from the daily grind and allows for peace and solitude. I can not be more happy that I have finally started to learn.

Casinitaly, may you put me on the excused list (2 - 10 February)?
I'm going skiing with husband and children, no piano and no internet.
Now I have to practice, I'll come back in 9 days!

Have fun!

After one month, I'm hanging in there. Only 11 more months to go.

Great to see how well everyone is doing!

I'd like to join in. I took lessons for about 6 months before complications from eye surgery sidelined me for four months. Just when I got passable vision back, my Father-in-law went into the hospital .. where he's been for the last 3 months. *Sigh* I need to get myself back up to speed so I can start lessons again!!!

How much is enough?
If anyone is wondering how much practice is enough,
I'd like to pass on the advice a teacher once gave me:

It's better to play 5 min EVERY day than an hour or two once a week!

Those 5 min will often turn into an hour;
but the day will come when you don't have an hour,
so you skip it. And another time; then two days in a row.
Before you know it, you will have missed a week, a month, a year.

So if there's a piano anywhere around, I at least touch it.
How long does it take to play once thru that piece you're working on?
Or review one you've already learned?
Or if you don't have music, a scale or chord progression your'e practicing?

Now I don't know how the "rule makers" would feel about this, but I've got another idea.
I'm coming to believe in the value of listening.
Have your teacher make you a recording of that piece you're working on,
or try to find a recording on iTunes, YouTube, etc.
And listen to it every day.
(This technique is integral to the famous Suzuki method.)

So I would say, even if you won't be near a piano, put the piece on your phone or music player,
or find it on YouTube, and at least listen to it. That will help you learn to play it.

TinMan,I fully agree with the idea that 5 minutes a day, every day is better than days with gaps! Plus the truth is that even if you say "well, I will get in at least 5 minutes" that REALLY does lead to more playing. I think that in 3 years,there have only been a handful of days where I really only did play for about 5 minutes - and they were generally days where I was either departing for a trip or I had returned home late and just wanted to get my MOYD achievement in!

I also agree with you that listening is important and useful. I have started recording myself more -at 2 weeks into learning a piece, at 4 and when I think it is ready. By listening to myself when I'm not playing, I can really hear where I need to work. The resources available with youtube recordings are also fantastic. I like to find a good recording and play tricky parts over and over til I really have them fixed in my mind. Sometimes you can see exactly what the fingerings are too, and that helps.

Listening, however, no matter how wonderful it is, doesn't count as a MOYD activity

Please sign me up for 2013. I have not missed a day so far this year. I was actually doing very well last year until I ended up in the hospital in December. I know I will miss a couple of weeks in the fall because we are going on a long vacation.
Thanks, Judy

I thought I was doing pretty well until this last weekend when I missed practicing both Saturday and Sunday. Ding-double-ding, darn it!

Back on track now as of yesterday 2/4.

Thought/query for the day: My teacher knows I've been struggling to work regular practice into my schedule, so we've talked about all sorts of things ... Just as I was leaving my lesson today, she stopped me to encourage me very strongly to practice everything we'd just gone over tonight, not to wait until tomorrow. She considers a lesson day "the most important day" for a student to practice (and to specifically cover the material from the lesson to reinforce it).

I thought of the MOYD rules and how we consider lesson time a fair replacement for practice time. My teacher's been teaching a long time, and she's very, very good at it, so I'm taking her advice to heart ... but I'm curious. What about the rest of you? Does your teacher say to practice at home after a lesson? Anyone particularly in favor of (or opposed to) practicing after a lesson?

I always practice after a lesson for that very reason -- it reinforces everything we've just gone over, and prepares me for what I'll be working on the rest of the week. I think I would forget too much if I waited until the next evening to practice.

Please sign me up this is very good motivation to practice everyday:))

I almost always practice after a lesson. The school where I take agrees with your teacher that it is the most important time to practice. My teacher writes notes in my notebook and I also record my lesson but still feel it's important to practice after a lesson. I am fortunate that I do not work in the afternoon on the day of my lesson so I can often stay right at the school and practice until the kids get out of school as there are pianos available early in the afternoon.
Judy

I generally don't have time to practice after my lesson now.
I finish and then have to scoot home, have a bite to eat and get out to (teach) my evening class. By the time I get home I'm usually pooped and don't usually play.

When I had my lesson earlier in the day, I would go over what we'd talked about in class. It did help, and it is too bad I can't always do it now.

I've just discovered this web site. what a great idea.
Please add me.

I did practice material from my lesson that same day and think it was helpful to solidify what we had discussed, so I will be making a point of continuing to do that.

My biggest problem, though, is simply getting in sufficient daily practice. It's so easy to push it aside throughout the afternoon/evening, while telling myself that I'll get to it after whatever else is demanding my attention. Next thing I know, it's late, I'm tired and I'm just sort of fiddling at the piano for 10-20 minutes. That's just not enough time (and energy/concentration) to make any real headway. *sigh*

Priorities!

Please put me on the naughty list for yesterday. It was snowing outside, and I had muscle fatigue all over my body from a seizure earlier in the day. I just didn't feel like wheeling 3 kilometers in that weather to go play at the pub.

But I did take it upon myself later in the evening to go out for pizza with a friend, so I probably could have gone out to play, too. I was just lazy. No excuse.

Hello everybody! I'm back from my ski vacation. A very nice week, except for the polar cold on the slopes, especially from Friday.
We arrived at home earlier than expected, so today I could practice for a solid hour - Casinitaly, could you please modify the days in the excused list?

I had two days where I was really short of time but forced myself to play. One day I ran through a Hanon exercise a few times(hopefully that counts!), and the other I just ran through a piece I'm working on. I was just gonna skip it, but MOYD is making me feel guilty if I do nothing, so I guess it's working!

Of course your Hanon exercise counts !

Next time you think you're feeling guilty about not playing....try saying "I feel INSPIRED to play!" That's much more fun than guilt !

Had another seizure at work yesterday (yeah, it's been one of those weeks ...). Broke the backrest on my wheelchair in the fall, and was predictably tired and sore. But went out and found a cab driver who dropped me off, on crutches, at my regular practice spot.

Will never use being tired and sore as an excuse not to play the piano again.

Thanks, MOYD! It's working.

Oh my goodness Saranoya, that is terrible! I admire your resolve to still go out and play. That is really determination. I hope you are feeling better soon!

This is the third time in my life that I am undertaking a serious attempt at becoming a halfway decent (albeit decidedly amateur) pianist, SwissMS. The previous two attempts both ended very prematurely, and both times, I told myself that the reasons for it were out of my control.

But that's not entirely true. Life threw some speed bumps onto my path (as life is wont to do for everyone), and I chose to let them stop me.

This time, I will not let that happen. Because if I do, I will regret it, and I want no regrets. Regrets make people bitter.

So yes, I am determined, and I believe that if I commit to sitting on the piano bench for at least an hour a day for the next ten or more years, I *will* achieve something I can be proud of.

MOYD seems like it can potentially be a great tool to help me get there. But despite having kept my commitment to it today, I noticed it could also easily become a hindering factor if I let it. I was feeling really tired, even while playing (which isn't how it usually goes), and some part of me thought 'well, I've played for five minutes, which is all I promised I'd do. I could go home now.'

In the end, I still played for an hour, but mostly things I already know well. Didn't make much headway on the Moonlight part two. Pity.

Will do better tomorrow.

Please sign me up for 2013, under late starters.

With pleasure!

Two months down, 10 more to go!

Yes! Ten months to go.

During February, we lost power for a couple of days. But I still practiced scales and fingering without sound on my digital piano. Those practice sessions were quite interesting, as I imagined the sounds as I pressed the keys.

Did you imagine they sounded perfectly like you were playing a concert grand?