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

I cheated by using a wooden mallet and it worked. This was many years ago and the gangliom is still gone. THAT got me exited :-)

Rune

MaryAnn,

Well, er, um thanks FarmGirl but don't rush me I'm old enough already . My birthday is Sept 13

Hmmm. I swear I saw a cake. Am I having a vision? Not good. Anyway the point is I'm glad that you were born. For that matter I'm glad everyone was born. So let's celebrate it anyway.

Welcome back Mary Ann!
Happy Un-birthday Ragdoll

JimF - sounds like it was your turn to be chuffed this week!

Andy - that sounds like a great experience with the choir - good on you!

StarrKeys, thanks for the encouragement --- are we going to hear you at the e-cital? Hope so!!

Joyoussong Carol - I think it is nifty we're both working on Melody. I don't sound like the person in the video either.. maybe someday! That would be nice eh?


MY AOTW is to have recorded my recital piece.

I also had a very good lesson - my teacher was very pleased with my jazz and also with the progress on Schumann's Meloday and my Handel. If I get the last two into really good shape for next week, I'll be starting on the Heller piece. I think the Heller will be for May's recital..... we shall see!
I'm also going to start adding more scales - F maj and Bmaj (all those sharps lol) are on the menu. I am pretty sure I did actually work on both of them before but it has been along time so.... here I go.

Yes. I've been busy with classes and have had a lot to distract me, but I've got something up my sleeve. I may be last again, though. Thanks for your encouragement!

You've heard of mutual appreciation societies? I guess we're a mutual encouragement society

You are right! And this thread is specially supportive.

I have three achievements this week: the first, my lesson two days ago was nice. My teacher allowed me to stop studying the Czerny study, and assigned me the next one in the book; fortunately it seems easier, until the teacher makes a more difficult version for me! And, second AOTW, I played again the Chopin prelude I badly messed up last time and it was really better.

Last achievement, I had another crazy week (work, family, everything) but I managed to practice (sometimes only ten minutes) every day.

Hey, congrats! That's fantastic.

Me, I will be without a piano for about three weeks longer than planned. I need to find a good samaritan who's willing to let me play theirs for a few weeks! When I do, I guess that'll be my achievement of the week.

That's what I was thinking too.

A friend of mine received that diagnosis and the doc examined his hand while replying kindly to a question. Mid-sentence, the doc quickly and efficiently slammed the patient's hand into the table, smashing the cyst.
I guess the doc saw no need for that picky little 'informed consent for treatment' thing. Anyway, it worked. Problem solved.

It seems you are in the same continent but not near enough to play mine.

Good luck!

OK, this is not the AOTW I had planned, but it got me pretty excited so I guess it should count.

In an effort to keep my commitment to MOYD 2013 in spite of my continued lack of a piano, I went into a piano store and pretended to be interested in buying a piano (I conveniently forgot to tell them that, actually, I've already bought from a different store, I just don't have the piano yet). For clarity's sake: I am not particularly proud of my duplicity, and it's not that part that got me excited.

In the process of pretending to look around, though, I sat down at a 1990 Fazioli (after dutifully having tried and rejected a few brand-new Yamaha uprights), which I loved instantly, and which will also be forever out of my price range. But I played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata on it, right then and there, with the sales rep practically looking over my shoulder, and guys, I NAILED it (well, for my standards, anyway). No mistakes, good expression, halfway decent timing. NO NERVES! It was heaven.

I should have had my iPhone out recording, but I didn't want to be -that- obvious. Shame, though. I could have gotten a pretty good recital recording out of that.

Ooooh! A Fazioli! Lucky you! At the piano store where I use practice rooms once per week they have a gorgeous Fazioli in the grand room. My teacher keeps telling me I should go in and play it, but the 6 digit price tag always backs me off! Maybe I will get brave enough one of these days!

First thing I said to the sales guys when I was piano shopping (legitimately!) was, "Do you mind if I record this?". Next time ...

"I'd like to compare the sound again at home later." Sounds fair!

Saranoya, very cool! How many piano store are there where you live?
Did you take the score with you or played by memory?

I wish I were able to do the same, there is a big piano store in my town, with a lot of beautiful grands...

Saranoya, Congratulations on your public performance!

I don't think piano stores are concerned how many pianos you try. Piano's, after all, aren't something most people buy on impulse. You could probably go back half a dozen times to the same store & try out different ones, or the same one over and over, & it would just be evidence that you're serious about buying eventually.

WoooHoooo!

Saranoya gets our first Siver Hammer award....

Wow, guys. This avalanche of enthusiastic reactions is almost better than the AOTW itself! Almost .



I see where you're going with this ... . There are three, that I know of. I'm thinking I might go to one of the other ones soon, to get some more heavenly 'practice time'. But after that, I'll have to find a different solution to my no-piano problem, because I already played a variation of this trick on a sales guy at the third store. After my grandfather let me know that he had gone and bought a Boston baby grand, "and how was I going to pay for it", I was in a bit of a bind. Before I told him OK, I'll pay you back, I wanted to know that I was actually going to be halfway satisfied with the piano I'd eventually end up with.

It was, therefore, a little more legitimate than today's foray into the piano store, in that I really did want to try out a specific make and model (albeit after purchase, not before). But at the time, I told the guy that my grandfather "was considering" the purchase of this model, and that he had asked me to go find one and try it out (which he had not, since it would have been rather pointless: the Boston was already bought and paid for by then).

That sales rep did invite me to "come back any time" if I wanted to play the piano some more. But that was before I had all of the Moonlight movement one in my fingers, and I was kind of embarrassed about showing up at a piano store without something "serious" to play. (Burgmüller definitely does not count. Neither does Mozart KV 2, or Händel's Impertinence, or any of the other pieces I had in my repertoire then). So I didn't go back, and the guy (who had encouraged me to decide quickly, in order to benefit from an end-of-year sale) must have thought that my grandfather and I had decided not to go for it.



I am effectively incapable of playing from a score. Anything I can actually *play*, I play from memory. Before then, what I do isn't really playing. It's chopsticks, while I decipher the score measure by measure.



So, what's holding you back?

Hmm..... I wonder how they invented that treatment and in what time. Maybe in a time every problem was solved by smashing it. That would make sense.

MaryAnn, glad that you're back. I hope you'll heal from it!

Saranoya, congrats on your performance in public!

My aotw is very small, but I'm very happy. It's about two measures where the rhythm goes from (right hand against left) 3 to 2, then 2 to 1 and then to 3 to 1. I couldn't make the switch in rhythm with my right hand. But the solution was easy. In stead of focussing at the problem, the rhythm of the right hand, I needed to focus at the rhythm of the left hand. That was really an aha moment.