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

My AotW of the week is sort of backwards, but I think it represents forward progress for me. After spends lots of time on my Grieg piece for the recital, I've begun to feel really bogged down by the whole thing. I realized it's because while I have the middle section going at a pretty good clip, it isn't as fast as the professional recordings of it. After driving myself crazy about this for a few weeks, I've decided to live with my speed and spend the next week putting some finishing touches on it and then record it. I'm not sure that mentally holding myself to the professional recording standards is helping!

Casinitaly - 35 kilometers is quite a long bike ride in my book! That is a great AOTW.

Allard - It is great to get feedback from someone who has heard you play over time. It sounds like your sister heard the progress!

ATallGuyNH - I love the picture of your daughter at the piano. She looks like she is concentrating on her work!

MaryBee - I hadn't thought about how singing could improve breathing while playing piano. It would be a good way to recognize how and when to breathe with music. My teacher in constantly trying to teach me how to plan breaths, and unfortunately to stop holding my breath when the going gets tough.

I am without a teacher until August 20, and I am going into withdrawal. It is amazing how dependent upon her guidance I have become. So, I am trying to be my own teacher and structure my practices with specific goals. I am trying to apply the Bernhard approach described in another thread.

I have two AOTW to report. First, I achieved a recording of the Arabesque for the AFB recital that I am satisfied with. Secondly, my Grieg pieces are both at the preliminary recording stage. They are memorized, and near my final tempo. Surprisingly the "easier" one, Melody 38 3, turned out to be harder one. The arpeggio runs jump all over the keyboard with 3 over 4 rhythm. It will be the harder to get up to my desired tempo. The Waltz, 47 1, is fast but less challenging. Just goes to show I still cannot gage difficulty level. I didn't think Bach Invention 6 would be a challenge for me. Hah!

MaryBee, I get to ride to work too, but it is generally not more than 3 km That's one of the things I love about work the past few years.

FarmGirl- we all learn from every piece - we even learn things we didn't expect to be learning - you're lucky that this piece coincides with Summer Keys!

Malkin- I think you are exaggerating a tad! It will be fun to hear your anthem when you've got it under control!

AnneH - that's giving yourself some good advice- we can only do the best we can do at this time. Don't make yourself crazy about it!

SwissMS- teacherless! You have my sympathy and empathy. Me too. Nice that your Griegs are coming along so well! And you recital piece done! wow.

I am just about ready to try to record for the recital and I had a bit of a breakthrough on the Grieg today - thank goodness. I was starting to think I would never be able to do it.
(well, no, I wasn't thinking "never"...I was thinking, "not in time for September!"

My AOTW...

I finally started playing !

About a year and a half ago, I was hanging around in the forums, hoping to get a piano one day. Instead, I got a mental breakdown that resulted in my quitting my job and going independent. It's been quite a ride. Somewhere along the way, I happened upon a great deal for a piano with memories attached. Another short trip down memory lane: here in Leuven (Belgium), there used to be a bar where the grumpy and beardy owner only played classical music. It had been running since 1983 and when the owner died in 2009, me and a couple of friends took over the bar and kept the classical music idea intact. We also installed an upright for live music. Recently, we had to close down the place because the owner of the building doubled the rent. So, I acquired the piano a few months ago.

Today, I sat down and said to myself: wasn't this what I wanted to do some time back ?

So I opened up YouTube, saw the PianoWorld videos and then loads of others. Finally, I really got going with Für Elise, the video by Furmanczyk. Well, one has to start somewhere. I have a bit of musical feeling, know about chords but not how to play each one. So I'll have plenty of practicing to do, and very little time.

But so far, it's great fun. Für Elise is actually quite rewarding: the simple tonality is quite beautiful. That's another part I'm looking forward to: understanding music in a much more direct way. I like modern music, too, but I don't feel I can understand what's so revolutionary about it without having had the experience of playing a few pieces myself.

If anybody has suggestions of where to go after Für Elise, bring it on

Peter.

First off congrats to everyone on their accomplishments!

Peter, welcome aboard! Welcome to the wonderful world of piano! Have you checked into the methods (Alfreds and Faber to name a few?) There are many threads on them. (I believe they are stickied in the important topics.)

Also what about teachers? Live or skype ones?

Do we get a picture of your first love?

Peter
Welcome to the forum.

Well I'm still working with Mozart's piece. Mozart and I don't have a great relationship. It doesn't matter now. I need to change my attitude.
I received the letter from SummerKey that there is no other student who signed up for 2 pianos. I guess everyone else was smarter than me. The letter said that I would be doing duet with Bruce Potterton. Aaaaahhhhh! I screamed. I thought I was gonna do it with one of the students. Nothing against him. It's actually quite an honor but I wasn't prepared for this. I immediately IM'd my teacher and wined. She IM'd me back "Practice, meditate and conquer". I guess it's gonna be my motto for a while.

I then checked Craiglist and found a free eclectic organ with full (32) pedal board. It says everything works. Someone donated it to a shelter and the people there want to move the damn thing out. So it's free as long as I take care of the move. I will go check it out tomorrow. I hope it's in a playable condition. It will help me tremendously since the church is extremely hot now (in Az it's tough to be in non AC'd room - takes a long time to cool the sanctuary).

Farm Girl, you will love Bruce. He is so kind and so non-threatening with a wealth of experience as a teacher. Enjoy that opportunity.

Welcome Peter to the world of piano...some may say piano addiction but it's a pretty healthy one.

Just read a book titled "The secret piano" about a pianist (true story) who grew up in revolutionary China and her saga through cooperating with the revolution, being in work camp prison, and finding her way out of the repression back to classical music. Engaging story of the saving grace of music.

Since Summerkey and passing level 5 I'm on a new intensity to improve my technique. I work at least 30 minutes to master scales smoothly and evening...some progress but FAR from where I need to be. Greig is coming along and I've pulled out the Carreno I played for one recital (it seems to have escaped my memory) and relearning it. It's a joy to be at the piano.

Wisebuff, I read that book a few months ago, such a great combination of piano and Chinese history!
I just finished Play it Again and will move on to Grand Obsession very soon. Can't get enough of piano books!

La-la-la I have an achievement... I managed to learn my very first Bach piece, after struggling with several among the very basic ones! It's a G minor minuet, not the most famous one, and IMO easier than that. It took me two weeks to bring it up to 2/3 of the tempo and I thought I couldn't do better than that, then I gave it a try and yay, it just clicked within a couple of days. Time to start struggling with something else...

sinophilia,

Hey, that's a good accomplishment...getting your first Bach piece down. The good news is that Bach gets easier and easier (relatively speaking) with the second, third and fourth pieces...unless you reach a bit too far in the difficulty range.

Good job

Oh I do hope so! We haven't had a good relationship until now...

And then look out for the fifth, sixth, and seventh. He gets tricky again. Yet we can never have too much Bach. At least that is what I tell myself.

Back to Bach for me too. He's not easy yet so I haven't done enough. My Summerkeys instructor suggested the inventions which I've always avoided. Time to meet him headon

Hi all who responded,



No methods, no teachers at the moment. Even worse, I only had a few minutes to practice yesterday and today, so I only got through the initial bars a few times. And they're getting boring quickly. I need lots of time urgently to work my way into the rest of the piece ! But from Friday, I'll be pianoless for 2 weeks. Bad time to start the piano ? No way, I'm a small little bit of experience in life richer




Sure, here's a couple. My baby in its full glory:


The sign on the left side reads: "Please don't put glasses on top of the piano !". It's a remnant of its pub days.

To prove I'm always ready to practice:



As you can see in the above and below photos, the keyboard isn't in the condition it came in originally:



(That's my son hammering away in the background).
The hammers are about in the same condition as the keyboard itself. This probably explains why some notes hardly sound when I use the soft pedal. I've even remarked some hammers stay stuck on the strings when played softly. Maybe it also explains the wildly enthusiastic sympathetic resonance, much more than I expected ?



Finally, to give you experts some research work, the serial number:



That's 141574. I don't know which type of Baldwin this is or what age it is. The tuning, to my not entirely untrained ears, is okay though it could use a good retune. If anything, it would do wonders for playing consistency to have the hammers replaced. All other thoughts and suggestions are welcome !

Peter, you`ve only got 7 posts. And you already know how to put pictures on this site . . . .you must be a prodigy or just bloody clever . . .

It's the computer science education that ruined me for life

Peter L.
I hope you have a bench so you don't have to sit on the tiny white chair or the cardboard box to play!

That's a lovely piano Peter! It's in way better shape then my old acoustic. I'd keep that sign too. It's kinda neat. LOL

I don't have an AOTW, per say. I'm just really excited because my books are in! I ordered two easy piano books of mixed songs (all classic rock.) I don't know where to start! One is arranged by Dan Coates and the other just various artists. I have 150 songs to choose from these two volumes! Oooh the choices!! HAHA

I'm trying out Glenn Gould style playing :-D

Yesterday evening, I finished the first bit of Fur Elise until the ascending Es ! I was happy to get a bit of time on the piano before leaving on holiday. I was mainly working on getting the fingering right because my kid was sleeping. Once I get the piano's hammers reshaped, I'm hoping it will be easier to play softly, it's a bit hit and miss now.

Welcome Peter! Your enthusiasm shines out of your posts!

BeccaBb, I'm sure you're going to have fun with your new music. I have a Coates book for jazzy tunes and it is great.

Sinophilia : congrats on the Bach - he is indeed a tricky fellow

My ATOW is to have made more progress with my Grieg - it is starting to sound pleasing to the ear I have also discovered two new pieces in my Music for Millions books - one is an Adagio con Espressione-Sarabande (de Neufville) and the other is Evening in the Meadow by Rebikov. They are really lovely pieces and I'm very much enjoying them.