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

Alas, no, drat. I thought it was the left-float, but it seems to be something native to the image itself, that can only be solved by only linking to the image, instead of including it in your post. And I won't ask you to do that, if no-one else is seeing a problem or is bothered by it.

The pic is now ok on my screen - it was really wide before.

Congrats all around -- New piano - well, new to you! and think how much fun you'll have making over Mabel! She looks like she's had a bit of a rough time, poor dear. A new set of dentures and a dab of makeup, a bit of tlc, ....she'll be her old self in no time. I bet she's got a great voice!

Great exam results Black Forest - King Norre - nice to see things are coming together.

Jim - take care of that back!!!! My husband has had some really terrible problems - our osteopath has done wonders for him.

FarmGirl - I always like to hear your updates on your busy schedule!

Torquenale - have a fun, safe vacation!!

I have just been focusing on pieces I want to play at the EPP, and they're going well.
I've got a nice little collection of duets I'm bringing so we can all take a stab at them. Some are for a higher level player and a lower level player, some are for players of the same level.

I'm also charging up my camera and lots of batteries , I have an ultra light tripod I'll bring too, so it should be easy to make nice steady videos if we want.

I finally felt like I'd made an achievement with my Grieg piece for the themed recital today! I've been working on getting the fast middle section up to speed and today it actually sounded like musical phrases at half speed rather than a jumble of chords. When I started I felt like it was so fast I'd never get it, so this seems like serious progress to me (or at least something to spur me on for the rest of the week).

Anne, that's a wonderful progress! I haven't even started mine. I'm gonna be in big trouble. I had every intention of learning this piece a month ago but lack of motivation kinda hit me.

My atow this week...after 3 weeks, I finally got a lesson in with my teacher who was pleasantly surprised with my progress on River Flows in You. Just needs a little tweaking. Glad to have her back though. I think not having her to push me certainly put a damper on my motivation to learn. I struggled to learn 1 piece of music and couldn't even get myself to bother with the other 2 I was supposed to work on.

ElleC - from what I've seen I'm sure you won't have a problem! You seem to be a quick study. :-) I felt like I'd never get it done when I started, so now I'm feeling like it's a little more achievable. One of my goals when I picked piano back up was to focus more on really learning skills than on learning pieces in the speediest way possible, but it's hard to adjust.

Yeah for you Jim! I found a youtube of the Scriabin and just loved it. On my list to want to plays. I have just about finished the K545, Giving it a rest though might work on the rondo a bit more. I think it;s a really pretty piece and enjoyed learning it. Hope you do too.

Anne, Ravel piece, nice. I have never done any of his. Some day!
Tallguy-that's a classy looking piano. You will have wonderful time together. What name you did you decide for her?
Torq - congrats for your accomplishment
Ellec - it's so rare for me to surprise my teacher with my progress. Good for u
Jim- doing Scriabin piece? Nice.

I'm in the back to basic mode now. I will continue with the assigned pieces but focus more on basic technic starting from the fall semester. The Mozart piece I'm doing (struggling to play well) convinced me I have to do more classical pieces which are not my favorite. I have a feeling that I would hit a wall if I don't address my weakness now. So I will do more of Mozart piece. My teacher agreed with me that Mozart pieces are better for acquiring certain finesse I would like to acquire than Beethoven's for example. So we selected a minor sonata 310 after my trip to SummerKeys

FarmGirl you must be so excited about Summerkeys!!! I am going to work on some Beethoven over the summer too - I am getting back to my Sonatina in G that I had to give up when I had muscle tension problems. Should be easier this time around!!!

Today I gave myself a challenge....given that I'm going to actually be playing for other people this weekend, (and by now you all know what I'm talking about!)....I decided to try to create lots of distractions and work on my focus...So I put a Charlie Parker cd on and while it was playing, I played my pieces. It was pretty weird at first but I was very pleased to see that in a reasonably short time I was able to tune ol' Charlie out and not pay attention or be side-tracked. (Thanks to my husband for the suggestion )

Everyone is busy, busy, busy accomplishing things!!! Good to hear all of your enthusiasm!

I'm just back from vacation. I actually practiced some on vacation. But, not every day as I had hoped. Hiking, horseback riding, and other fun stuff got in the way.

I'm back home trying to get into the swing of things. Lost a lot of progess on a Tchaikovsky piece I'm working on. So practiced some scales and Hanon to get me motivated. I should do some technique stuff every day. Admit that it's not my favorite.

Just sitting at the piano was my accomplishment this week. Picking back up the Tchaikovsky The Seasons, June. Very pretty piece. Looks easy. But it's giving me the devil of a time in various places. Don't dare to open up the Scubert. The Impromptu is probably back at square one.

That's a good one. Do not record. You are not going to fix anything at this point. Other good idea. Make sure to be able to play under any situation. Play when you just get up. Do not practice first. Play cold and and mark where you had a problem and fix it then. Play when you are hungry. Play when you are sleepy. And most importantly play when you are drunk. Do not forget to mark where you screwed up and fix it. The idea behind is to exhaust all the potential errors before the real thing and fix it. If you cannot fix it completely, think about an alternative how you get back to the place where you can continue. Good luck!

Why do I get an image in my mind: "Really Officer...FarmGirl said!..."

Week 70: Not much of a piano week for me. Construction at my apartment disrupted my practice schedule. Minor hand discomfort and tinnitus made a return trip like comets coming around the sun and were distractions. Dynamobt mentioned Hand-Eze brand arthritis gloves. I bought a similar pair, though mine are no-name, and find them useful. From YouTube Bill Hilton suggests some hand independence exercises. I started a thread about that. I try some of the exercises and for the most part get no where with them. I do notice tension in the left hand when trying to play the melody with the left, and that may have contributed to the hand problems this week.

I'm sure we will get some reports from the European Piano Party.

Played Saranoya's beautiful grand. Need I say any more?

As usual there has been more than one AOTW but that's just my generally positive nature. Best of all was I have started "Rondo" (part III) from Clementi's Sonantina No 1. I was drawn to it about a month ago and tried some of the fast runs. I say fast they are 16th notes played at 132-140 bpm. I haven't tried anything that fast before and initially this one minute piece had so much technique as yet unlearned I put it away. But I couldn't stay away, as soon as there was an opening for a new piece I began work on it. Surprisingly it is coming together, albeit at a much slower tempo, quite quickly.

finished all my assignments a few days early and finished up the hardest thing i've taken on thus far! star wars!! haha. i learned a new hand position a new chord and learned the black keys are NOT scary at all! figuring out the fingering for starwars was MEGA fun. can't wait to see what my teacher says about it.

Gee.... I just discovered I can reach over an octave. Couldn't do that before. One octave was the best and I had to do it on the end of the keys. Been playing this one song that requires me to reach an octave. I just tried farther. Did it by one key. Now an octave is no big deal anymore.

I did a song last night in the book. It's just ahead of this weeks lessons. Didn't want to do it. Did me much good to do it. Reminded me of my late Sister at girl scout camp when she was 13. Still have that picture clearly in my mind. It's Kum-by-yah.

My achievement pales totally in front of the EPP folks. So ahh anyway my little achievement is finally brought myself to play against the recording of Piano 2. My part for Mozart 2 piano in D is piano 1. I dreaded for this. I even cleaned the house before played. I hate house cleaning. My teacher recorded the piano 2 part in 9 tracks. Track 1 through 4 was ok. I was able to come back on even if I got off. Track 5 through 9 were struggles. I IM'ed my teacher. I wined, "It's horrible! It's driving me frigging crazy!". She told me to continue even if I have to resort to playing with one hand. She knows that I only have weekend to really practice. Actually I felt a lot better after struggled for a couple of hours with it. The hardest thing is to try it first time. I actually don't know what I was afraid of. Now I can stop practicing and play something for fun.

So I did my Grade 8 exam with Trinity College a week ago. Been working towards it for months, so I was very annoyed with myself when I messed up one of the technical exercises. I held it together mentally for the pieces afterwards though, and for the sight-reading and aural. I left a bit downcast that I had not achieved the Distinction I knew I was capable of. To make it worse I would get my results late as went away for a few days the next day, and Trinity failed to email them. Spent half the holiday ruminating on that fluffed exercise, and wondering if I'd gotten anything else majorly wrong without realising it.

Got back on Friday, with the results waiting on the doormat. Opened them with trepidation, wife standing next to me and... Distinction! Only just - I got 87/100, which is the lowest mark needed, but a Distinction it nonetheless is! I know I could have gotten somewhere in the 90s, but I am still pleased as punch to have made it into the top bracket.

Next up: diplomas! Haven't decided between Trinity and ABRSM yet. For the latter I'd need to get Grade 5 theory done.

Congratulations, a distinction is a distinction no two ways about it.