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

This week has flown by. I had my lesson on Tuesday and my teacher wants me to get back into scales and arpeggios (I knew that was coming, I had already started reviewing them).
I have to play C G and D for him next week, 2 octaves.

What he would like to do over the next while is focus on some of my technique. He has me working on some of my favourite pieces that I feel I should be able to play better -and I've seen some really splendid results. I played for my husband yesterday and he noticed a big difference. He said "It sounds so much more like.....music". I had to laugh, but I know what he meant. I was using the pedal and got a lot more dynamics worked into the pieces (Gypsy Legend and Doll's Complaint). I feel that I'm getting marvellous direction on how to build on what I've learned in the past couple of years. It is pretty exciting.

I have been really slow off the mark for selecting my pieces for the ABF recital. I decided on 2 shortish pieces but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with one...it is a Christmas carol, one of my favourites, (Oh Holy Night) but ..... something isn't clicking and I'm not convinced.The other is a very short, quick piece that I think is terribly amusing (wait and see :J) ).

Toastie, I'm glad you're over the hump on your problem area!

MaryBee, in re-reading some posts I realized I missed your birthday!!!! I hope you had a super day.

Dbush - very cool you're getting into the theory that will help you with composing.

Edward - you're amazing - you're really being wonderful about cheering us on!

FarmGirl - I am sorry you're facing another business trip. Finding a place to play in London or Brighton might not be too difficult, Jersey may be more of a challenge.
When are you going to get a business trip to Italy? You could play my piano and I would cook for you!

Oh and by the way....... have you noticed that our thread has hit 100 pages?

Wow. That's a lot of support and encouragement!
What a team!

Great isn't it! My friend and I went to a concert tonight- Vasily Petrenko conducting. It was Brahms and Shostakovitch. The pianist who played Brahms was brilliant- an elderly guy called Joaquin Achucarro. He signed my friend's programme in the interval and I shook his hand and told him how brilliant his playing was!
He played another piece entirely with his left hand (don't know what it was)- which sounded amazing- the sound was like both hands.
casinitaly sounds like you are doing really well!
I feel I have got worse- was terrible in Wednesday's lesson ( the fact I had had caffeinated coffee by mistake when out earlier didn't help as it makes me jittery- I drink decaff). Was rubbish at the timing in the Brahms Lullaby and hopeless trying to play a note in time to the online metronome. Yet I can tap my little drum to it right.
Threw the Brahms sheet into the recycling bin- it's too hard for me.
I want to concentrate on chords for now- I think if I leave sight reading for awhile and get good with chords then go back to sight reading later it will make more sense. I spend every lesson so embarrassed at how bad I am- getting harder to hide it.

Think I'll work on the chords and progressions and Rule The World by the lovely Gary Barlow for now.

Cheryl, that's amazing. 100 pages!
It just shows how much everyone loves the thread.
I love it because it's positive and kinda low key at the same time.
It makes me feel good about posting even if I don't have a real achievement to speak of.
I wish I could go to Northen Italy right now, hahaha. I tend not be able to go to nice places like that. I love English countries but I seldom get to go such places.

It's only one week until I get a piano!!!!! I only have one lesson left being pianoless. And then I shall spend all my time practising and hopefully making amazing improvements (well that's the plan anyway, we'll see how that works out).

My teacher said I am doing well today, but I am not entirely sure whether this is true or whether she is just being motivational. You see, as a teacher myself, I say the exact same thing to my own students when I want to encourage them, if I can see they are rather weak but I can see they are trying really hard. I spent a difficult afternoon trying to motivate some really low ability pupils and then when I went to my piano lesson my teacher said all the same things to me ... and this made me cynical and paranoid about my lack of ability...

I think I must be a little mad. Someone says something nice and I analyse it carefully to convince myself they didn't mean it.

Toastie,

Give yourself some slack. You are doing just fine. It isn't a race...its all about the journey.

Your self-doubts are just the adult in you poking its head up for a look-see. Read this site whenever that happens; link to Musical Fossils

Party Time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week 31: again practiced every day of the week (2nd week in a row). I am still working on the new piece, the working title is “Shimmer.” I uploaded recordings of five of my early original pieces. The curious can find them at the signature link (my_piano_uploads). The “best” of the five might be March to the Sea
https://www.box.com/s/gwjxx1io2cjulo5iglbi

Practice time and progress remain in limited supply, with a median time of 20 minutes per day.

Congrats to all on 100 pages. This is my favorite thread on the forum. I report in most every week, come rain (or a week off for hand pain), come shine (a good live performance).

Well done Sand Tiger! Toastie, I feel the same as you sometimes, as an ex EFL teacher I know teachers have to be encouraging- spurs the students on. I bet you are doing better than you think.

Just played The Cuckoo from Alfred's and suddenly morphed it into G major arpeggio going in l hand alongside melody in r hand- so two hands doing two different things- never done that in my life before- just happened - how I don't know but it felt brilliant!!

After a frustrating couple of months of left wrist injury and being too busy to properly practice, I feel I have finally gotten the hang of the final sequence of chords at the end of Erster Verlust, playing the right hand only very slowly. I do have a dumb question for you guys, though: Is it ok to hit two keys at the same time with your thumb? The next to last chord is A B D# F#. I'm supposed to be playing it with 1 2 3 5. It's easier, though, to take the A and B with my thumb.

I have a feeling I know what your answer is going to be, but it's allowed on guitar, so I'm hoping I'll get away with it on piano.

Yes it is ok to do that. It's called as "BARing fingers" (hope I spelled right) and widely used. I have to use it a couple of times in Brahms piece I'm working on.

MaryAnn

I'd agree it is fine and have had to do the same in certain situations in pieces, usually a thumb on a chord that has your hand totally splayed out...like playing an octave with the leading tone added, but also when necessary on two adjacent notes in the middle of a chord.

But you do give up control of voicing so I wouldn't get in the habit when it isn't required. I'm curious why your ABD#F# is troublesome with 1235. Is it your injury? Seems pretty standard as long as the B(2) is played toward the fallboard a bit.

Thanks FarmGirl. What a relief. I suspect my teacher will still try to talk me out of it, but at least I know it isn't an absurd option.

JimF, it's not injury related (only my left hand is injured); it's more an inflexibility thing I think. As soon as I use finger 2, I lose control over 5 (that doesn't always happen, but in this case, trying to use so many fingers at once, there seems to be a connection). I tried moving closer to the fallboard, but my fingers are kind of fat, so I don't like playing between the black keys if I can avoid it. I should probably keep working at it, though, because my teacher probably won't like the thumb playing two keys at once option.

I wish block chords weren't such a struggle for me. This piece is really good for giving them a workout, but not so much of one that it has put me off. I was trying to work on the Eminor cadences alongside, but gave up because I was finding it too tough for similar reasons. I'm probably giving up too easily.

MaryAnn, I can understand why your teacher wants you to learn to play it with all the fingers. She wants you to learn to play chords . I would use baring option (1 finger pressing two keys) sparingly, particularly I the following situations.
1) When I cannot stretch - say, you have a DED chord in the right hand and you must hold the DE in the bottom while the top note D (an octave higher than the bottom D) moves down to G. I can normally stretch to 9th without any problem but it's hard to play this movement if i have yo keep my 2nd finger to the adjacent note.
2) When I don't have time to perfect it (ok, u can call me lazy a**). As your teacher may insist, it is actually very important learn to play the chord together. I used to suffer from the dribble effect - the chord sounds broken, does not sound together. Many times top note had the melody. I not only could not play evenly let alone making the top note sing. It used to take me a couple of weeks to fix it. So I used to make a conscious decision to get around it. Basically I ran out of time to fix all the chord. But I got better in time.

MaryAnn

Glad to hear it isn't injury related.



Doggone pesky fingers. Yep, they can be troublesome little buggers with a mind of their own, can't they?

Hmmmm, sounds like it would be a good time to ask your teacher if she can come up with an exercise to help you regain (or more likely strengthen) control of your pinkie. I say this because sooner or later you are going to increasingly be playing chords just like this one where controling the tone of each note will be important. And it is really common to have a four-note chord played with the right hand where you need to emphasize finger number 5.

By the way, feeling like you lose control of one finger when you are using a different finger is not unusual or anything. We all go through various versions of the same problems. Just another piano thingy that has to be faced.

I am VERY excited. I played through a few old pieces with both hands last night, with apparently no consequences to my left wrist. I took it really slow and easy, trying to pay attention to tension, and quit anything that seemed to be causing it.

I was starting to worry I'd never be able to play again, so this is a big relief. Though obviously, I need to proceed very carefully.

Thanks, Jim. I'll talk to my teacher about it. It's been fun doing challenging things with my RH while resting the left. I think even with the above, I'll have to carry on in that vein for awhile.

I just had a really interesting hour of practice time. I’ve been continuing to practice For River and for some reason tonight I changed it. I didn’t change the notes or anything, but I changed the feel of it. That, coupled with how I’ve slowed it down, has really given it a completely different feel to me. I still screw up some of the same places, but that’s down to about 4-5 spots. Sometimes I go through one or two fine but miss other spots, then the next time through I’ll flub those ones and hit others just fine. It’s annoying. But tonight, when I started to put real feeling into it, sure I screwed up a lot, but it didn’t matter. It was because I was now putting heart into it, playing some sections louder, while others much quieter and slower. After about 45 minutes, it got back to where it was before regarding missing notes, and every time I finished I’d sit there with a huge stupid grin on my face because it was really sounding like something from me, and not just clinical rote. I’ve really learned how the pedal highlights sections of the music and adds so much to it. I also think losing someone dear to me a couple weeks ago really affected my playing because it’s become much more… infused with emotion. I guess the thing about a tortured artist is a little bit true. At least something good has come from it, so I can have a little bit of comfort from that!

I actually played it for someone for the first time a few weeks ago. I said all the usual things; It’s my first song… I’m a total beginner… etc. When I finished it, even having missed a few spots, she still said it was really good, and unlike a lot of people’s first songs, this one was really a very pretty song instead of just an easy one. That was quite nice (although I think she was lying about having played it well ). So then I went to that piano store the next day where I had played the $170k Fazioli before and played it on a different Fazioli and another beautiful C. Bechstein. The incredibly smooth and fast action threw me off so much I was stunned! I still gave it my best shot. It wasn’t bad, but I really need to work on the pedal!!

Yup. Progress. No matter how it comes, it’s a beautiful thing.

nice achievement, stryder. The more I learn (so far it's only been like a year), the more it seems like slow and steady practicing wins the race in terms of learning efficiently. Keep working at things slowly (sometimes really slowly!) and consistently and you'll be better than us (or me at least ) in no time

achievement 1: I can (sort of) tremolo comfortably with my left hand indefinitely after some effort. There's only so long until I tackle you, Sonata #8!

achievement 2: I just got the second two pages of what may be next month's recital piece - they should be easier to learn, memorize, and get up to speed than the first two, god willing.

side-note: congratulations to all the thread contributors on making this one so successful!

Last night I played a few of the songs that I'm working on for my hubby. After I was done I asked him what he thought. He said that I can hit my notes faster and smoother and everything flows much nicer than before!

I consider that a huge achievement. I've been feeling like I'm sinking while trying to tread water lately and turns out I've actually been swimming! Ha!

Guess I'm in that spot where all I can hear is how crappy I sound, but I'm not sounding that bad to others.

Congrats on 100 pages! This thread helps majorly with inspiration to keep going!

This isn't piano-related, but I finished the Tough Mudder on Saturday! It's a 12 mile run, with about 22-25 military-designed obstacles. Took five hours, but I did it. Already preregistered for the next one here in April

If anyone's curious about it, check out toughmudder.com. They have a lot of the obstacles listed there. It's pretty crazy!