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Came back from the party lat last night. It was a benefit concert for Phienix Symphony held at a private home. Needless to say that they are very welthy people. I've never seen a private residence with a tennis court! The owner of the house and benefactor of the symphony had two Bechsteins 7 foot and 9 foot and a harpsichord. 18 professional singers and 2 violinists also performed. The lady of the house played with the resident pianist of Phoenix symphony. She is an amateur pianist and played wonderfully. She is probably over 60. I told my teacher who I went with "that's my goal! I want to get there". It was so inspiring.

Remember - trills aren't necessarily fast.

That's true. And they aren't, in this case . The point still stands.

Oh yah, it's not one of the simple ones I found to be sure. And if you're a n00b that would put me in the catagory of just under sub-n00b


How gratious of you and thanks but I think it might be a bit to ambitious for me right now. I was able to find a score that I wrote about in another thread (Simple Problem, Simple Solution) some days back. I'm not sure how to send a PM or even if I'm able to but I will remember your kind offer for a future attempt when my playing is more developed.

Saranoya, I hope you feel better and there are less seizures in your future. Without health, not much else matters.

Week 54: I perform on stage on a Kimball grand piano. It was during my church's coffee house night. I have performed there many times in the past, but this is my first time on piano. I play my new original The Passage of Time and got many encouraging comments. As I wrote on the recent performance torture thread, that if I get through a live performance with minor flaws, I count that as a success. There were more minor flaws than I would have liked, but I got through it, without my mind going blank, or some discordant jumble of notes coming out.

As it turned out, unscheduled and late arriving, a former concert pianist put the piano through its proper paces. She did five pieces, all from memory, without any advance notice that she would be performing. She would get a wry little smile, just knowing that the next sequence would be a crowd pleaser. Another performer has a minor in piano performance, with a major in voice, and spent seven years on the road doing live music for a living. So I did well to be in such esteemed company.

People could tell what was what, and who was who, but I managed to hold the audience's attention and no one wanted to throw any tomatoes, despite some technical difficulties. Hooray for me. I felt like I was playing a bit too fast, perhaps holding my breath instead of relaxing and matching the phrasing of the music to my breath as a flute or whistle player must. Performing live is like nothing else, especially if the performer manages to connect with the audience.

My set includes two tunes on whistle, two on flute, and one piano.
Whistle: In Dreams from Lord of the Rings, a variation on a Bach contata.
Flute: my arrangement of Angel by Sarah McLaughlin, and my original Acoustic Whalesong.
Piano: my newest original The Passage of Time.

I do some banter between pieces. I talk about the whistle and flute, Bach's birthday and a bit of his life story, my year of being self-taught on piano and I encourage others to try something new.

I was tempted to do a second piano piece, but glad I did not. While I was playing, I kept thinking that I was pressing the wrong pedal, but was scared to look at my foot, lest I come to a full halt or bang on a confused jangle of piano keys. My digital has the cheap feeling Casio provided pedal, a single pedal.

The monitor speaker near the piano was not working, so it was hard to gauge how much sustain I was getting. The lid was down with a mic inside. The usual sound man was not there. It turns out that someone tried to adjust the volume, and panned the monitors full right so one monitor didn't do anything. Without an experienced sound person, the mystery wasn't solved until it was time to tear down.

The seed for Passage of Time came to me in the form of a seven note phrase that I heard in my head. The same motif is likely in some other published piece(s). However, that will be true for most short melodies in major keys. I sounded out the notes on the Casio PX-150 and saved it. Good thing, because the next day it was not there in my head, until I played back the recording. I kept playing the short inspired phrase and eventually found a section three, then a section two.

It took several weeks for the piece to come together. I could sit for twenty minutes playing the same phrases over and over, thus the heavy repetition as written. I am pleased with the piece, the range of dynamics, the title, the feel. It is my first piece with triplets. I credit that to the mention by someone on this thread and seeing them in some of my sight reading study. Also this week, I do a few multi-octave scales. Before this week, all I did was single octave scales.

I have years of experience performing on whistle and flute, though I am definitely in the hobbyist category. Piano brings nervousness because I am a self-taught one-year beginner. On flute or whistle, I often close my eyes, which might not be the best thing for a nervous piano beginner to attempt in public, even though I sometimes practice that way alone. On flute or whistle the concentration is mostly on the tone, the breath, with only one note or sequence of notes (ornaments) to play at a time. On piano, there is more going on, possibly many notes, dynamics, voicing, pedal. My pedal work was inconsistent, but I did express some of the dynamics that I have written into the piece.

The Passage of Time, link to a recording of my live performance:
https://www.box.com/s/pwwgtzhliwm86u0i987i

Photos of the Kimball grand piano




Photo of my Casio PX-150



Have a good week everyone. Cheers.

this is an amazing thread. I think I'm Ok with Czerny 740 and 599 and looking for 299. My teacher prints them off and they are in Polish or Russian so I can't read the words, only the notes! Is there an on-line site I can download for free? Move on to Moztart sonata 545 and Beethoven rondo and capriccio 0p129. and Debussy's girl with the linen hair, such a nice change.

Going in reverse order!

Palmpirate: Here is a link to the 299

http://imslp.org/wiki/The_School_of_Velocity,_Op.299_%28Czerny,_Carl%29

It is a great site and you can find a real treasure trove of downloadable materials.


Sandtiger - interesting composition, I liked the medieval sound of it - and the sound of the applause! I think it is also very interesting that you had to re-listen to your recording to remember it! What a great experience at your church!

Farmgirl - the party sounds really wonderful, what a treat to have been able to participate!…. But I had to laugh at your comment on the pianist who inspired you “she’s probably over 60”….. for some of us that isn’t too far away!!!

Ragdoll – Glad your teacher didn’t give you any grief over not participating in the recital.
It sounds like a great lesson indeed –and speaking for myself, any lesson with a student who is obviously very keen is a delight. If a student is having fun, I generally have fun too, so I’m betting it was great for her too.

Torquenale, I will be interested to see if you participate in the “saggio” at the end of the year. I am wondering if my teacher will ask if I want to play or not…I am not going to bring it up!

Dulcetta: I agree with you – and I think most here will too. Scales are so important for helping us with coordination, understanding finger placement, and laying the foundation for all that we want to do. I’m looking forward to moving on to some new ones in flats next week.

Saranoya: You are a master of understatement my dear. A rough week indeed. Though your AOTW may not be piano related, it is easy to see how very important it was for you, as it would be for anyone. I can only imagine how hard those seizures must be on you – and it must have been a bit of a jolt for your teacher too. She seems to be everything that is kind and considerate that you could hope to find , not only in a teacher, but in a fellow traveler on life’s road. Hearing about your strength in getting through what you are faced with has (more than once) made me take a minute and get some perspective on what I have considered problems.

As for the trills and the Eflats..um, let’s just say I made a mistake ! I listened to your piece again, with the score in front and said “oh. Duh. I get it.”

Carlos CC (who knows if you will be back to read this! Lol)…… Thanks for dropping in! Einaudi is very popular with lots of folks in PW, isn’t he? I know you are a big fan – it must have been very exciting for you!

As for me, my AOTW is …..bah, nothing in particular! Just happily plugging along with my assigned pieces and a bit of sight reading.

I went to my studio class and completely messed up my Bach piece. I thought I memorized it but apparently it was not. Oh well I will work on it this week. At least now I know the eel spots.

Came back from party #2 of the week. It's a home recital in a well known amateur pianists house. We were all instructed bring our chairs. I don't write his name here because he is not a PW member. He played Schumann's Carnaval and a few Rachmaninoff's preludes on his bosendorfer. The playing was so clear and masterful that I could visualize the characters in the carnival. He is an attorney during the day and I wondered how he makes time to practice such big work. Hope you all have good weekend. I will conclude my weekend with Olga Kern's performce:)

Thanks for that link, I've been searching and searching. Got the app for future reference. I love having my music in iBooks! Can print it off anywhere in the world.and we travel a lot. Off to do a crossing to Portugal next week. Will have to seek out keyboard on board !

I had an incredibly musical day. Singing in the church in the morning, piano lesson at 1:00 PM and Olga Kern's performance at 7.
She was specutaclar. It so happened that she picked almost exactly the same piece my friend played last night. As I wrote yesterday, he did really well but I was just blown away by her. She had absolute control and express incredible nuance in her playing. I felt a bit guilty but because i heard the same Schumann Carnaval piece last night, I got so much out of it. She looks very skinny but had buffy arms and yes, she used them. My achievement is surviving through the eventfull weekend. I never had this much music events packed in three days. It was actually too much. I have been inspired by everyone but did not have time to practice enough this weekend.

Palmpirate, you're welcome. It really is a wonderful site.
Have fun in Portugal.

Farmgirl.....it is hard to imagine having too much music in one weekend -but you managed it! Even though you didn't practice a lot this weekend, maybe the inspiration will carry through and be a whisper in your ear as you work this week so your Bach will be better next week!

Farmgirl it sounds like you had an incredible musical weekend. How inspiring!

Dulcetta - adding a couple of new scales a week is a good idea. I learned the hard way to make sure that accuracy is assured in each scale before adding more. Otherwise mistakes start creeping in. Sounds like you are doing great!

Saranoya - Wow! Eleven seizures in a week is a horrible thing to go through! I hope everything has settled down, and you are doing better. It sounds like you have a very caring and supportive piano teacher. I think giving her an honest answer to how you feel about your illness was a very good think to do. She obviously cares about your well-being.

CarlosCC - How lucky you were to get to see Einaudi in concert! I am envious. I have his "Best Of" music book, and plan on playing something from it soon. I love his music.

SandTiger your composition was very nice, and very well played. It sounds like you are having a lot of fun with your music.

Well I had an interesting lesson today. Do you ever get the feeling that as you progress, your teacher keeps raising the bar? I guess that is what they are supposed to do if we are to progress. I had a very good practice week, resulting (I thought) in some big accomplishments. The Arabesque is memorized and close to tempo, with only a couple of sticky spots. So, I thought I played it pretty well in my lesson. Everything that was problematic last week was fixed. So, when I finished, I expected to hear that it was getting better. Instead, I discovered that in bringing it up to tempo I managed to mess up the time ratio between triplets and eighth notes. Oops. Rookie mistake. So, that is what we worked on. So AOTW is to REMEMBER how to count triplets and eighths. My teacher has a cute mnenomic device that helps. So picture me playing with my headphones on, singing strawberry, strawberry, strawberry, strawberry, ice cream, ice cream. The nocturne has a bunch of strawberry pies in the piu moss section. Isn't playing piano delicious?

Well I woke up to 12" of snow on the ground so my AOTW is not that much. I remember my last bout with the snow shovel so have been calling around for help that won't require floating a loan.

I have made some good progress with "Canon in D" and have even added some embellishments to the boring D>D A>A B>B F#>F# etc bass line that makes it a bit more what?? harmonious I suppose. It's pretty simple; 4 quarter notes instead of 2 half notes. The score in Alfreds is quite simplified.

Also, got the melody of "...Sally Gardens" under the RH and have begun practicing the harmony in LH. It sounds strange and discordant by itself! That's about it. Can't get out of the garage so lots of practice time today

Managed to play Mozart's Fantasia in C Minor K475 beginning to end without too many stuff ups. Considering I haven't really played it in 15 years, and it has some very tricky passages, I'm quite chuffed.

My other Mozart Fantasia, the D Minor, is also in pretty good shape. I only started it a month ago, and I think it's sounding quite polished for a new piece. Go team Mozart!

fifi m

Well done on both of the Mozart's. I find Mozart about the toughest of all composers to play... you have to be so precise.

Oh, and 2 bonus points for using the word chuffed in a sentence, which always makes me laugh for some reason.

Hehe, chuffed's a great word innit?

Thanks for the kind words. I find the challenge of Mozart is striking the balance between precision and feeling. It needs to be so clean, but also needs to not be a robotic exercise in showing off how quickly you can get up and down the keyboard. Finding meaning and feeling and bringing out the delicacy in the music is such a delight.

The K475 and I have a special relationship. When I was younger I played it in concerts, exams, competitions and auditions. It's made me cry (tears of pure frustration!) and the great big gloomy opening chords never fail to make me grin like an idiot. My old teacher once told me that there was an entire orchestra in that piece I needed to find. And so there was.

My big achievement this week is going through with my grade 1 exam this morning (which was 40 years overdue). Just about talked myself out of it last night but went ahead and I actually got through all of my pieces without having a train wreck, which was my greatest fear. I know it's only grade 1 but it feels like a massive accomplishment. Lin

That's awesome! Piano exams are terrifying, but the sense of achievement and progress make it worthwhile. Well done you!

SwissMS -- you're going to have to go on a diet if you keep playing strawberry and icecream! What a fun way to work through a tricky patch!

Ragdoll - what a good way to use your time when you are housebound. And I'm glad to hear you aren't handling any instruments of self-torture equipment to deal with the snow.

Fifi M - we liked to hear about being chuffed! I think it is pretty amazing you can pick up a piece after 15 years and go with it!

Jim...thank you for that...(I think...;))


Osmosis ---CONGRATULATIONS! That's a real achievement!


My AOTW was to have a very satisfying lesson today - though it didn't start out that way!

Some of you saw my little whine over in the other thread about having trouble getting though pieces ---feeling a lack of focus. Well this was clearly illustrated in the first part of my lesson, where I managed to flub my scales and arpeggios and my baroque piece...all quite absurdly. We had a bit of a chat on the matter.

My teacher offered the idea that "it isn't just me" --- and as we chatted he used "we" including himself rather than just talking about students, which I thought was both kind and very interesting (interesting because we don't tend to think about our teachers having problems with focus any of the issues that we struggle with, do we? Mind you,--I'm quite confident that any difficulties he has are on a far different scale to mine!)

A few things that came out during the discussion:

-the fact that there is a tendency - once a piece has been learned at a certain speed - to try to play it faster. (Guilty!) However, the thing is that if you're going to play it faster, you have to learn to play it faster- you can't just jump in and go faster.

-we often don't take time before starting to really focus on setting the speed in our heads, feeling sure about where and how we'll set our hands to the keys....We don't train to prepare. I think I am going to start doing that!!!!!

-anxiety levels and how kids don't get quite as worked up when they have challenges because they are in constant study mode - everything is new, everything is a challenge- Adults think that they (we) are past that --things SHOULD be easier (well, we all know the notes to that tune don't we?)

All-in-all, going over these ideas just helped me calm down and get some perspective.

I'm pleased to say that though I initially flubbed the first piece I wanted to play in my lesson (3 times!!!) - I finally managed to get through it with just the tiniest wee glitch that was barely noticeable! whew.

Then I played the "work in progress" piece quite well too!
It was most satisfying.

My challenge for the next two weeks is to play legato and staccato (a soft staccato) WITH THE SAME HAND! argh...
My teacher smiled and said "That's why these pieces are called "studies" " .

I played the K475 about, oh, a billion times when I was younger, so I think the muscle memory has sunk in. I'm really pleased that my technique's improved enough over the past few months to allow me to tackle the harder sections. There's no way I could have done it without a few months of dedicated practice - every time I tried to play during my 15 year "off period" i just ended up feeling depressed at how badly I was playing.