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Fantastic! Thanks so much for that - it really helps hearing how it *should* sound

My version, er, well, doesn't sound *exactly* like that

Good People was very difficult for me too. I spent either 3 or 4 weeks on it, before I got it smooth. Good People, Beautiful Brown Eyes and the Lullaby are the three that gave me most difficulty in the entire book. Mostly because I cannot count. I see a whole note and take it as a challenge to play it in 3 beats. Those three pieces require tempo discipline and counting. What comes after 3? Maybe that is why I love 3/4 - that is as high as I can count. Good People is really a sort of demonstartion piece. It is meant to show a certain skill or technique and is not so much meant to be musical or lyrical. In my opinion anyway. So I never warmed up to Good People, even though I stuck with it and managed to get it in the end.

I got VERY stuck on Good People, considered skipping it, I think I did skip it for a while and did one or two of the next ones, but I eventually came back to it. I can't tell you how long I struggled with it. I got it to where I could play it without a mistake, but I never got it to sound really good.

I had a bunch of trouble with Good People too. I had trouble with the right hand descending scale and some rhythm problems. For what it's worth it's not even in the Self Teaching Alfred's All In One Book. But if you stick with it eventually you'll get it and it's kind of fun to play.

Graciecat! That was awesome!!!! It was smokin'
What sort of a recorder did you purchase? Is it easy to use?

A bit of progress tonight - thanks in no small part to Graciecat's recording

Managed to get through the whole thing without a mistake, although at nowhere near tempo. Still it's a start. There are some weird timings in it, eh?

Had a good lesson today. Got passed on Chiapanecas, and Auld Lang Syne. Have a bit more work to do on O Sole Mio!, but it's close. I was playing the Bb chord wrong. I pointed out that it's also the melody to It's Now Or Never, Elvis' biggest hit. My teacher was not aware of it. It's kind of ironic that Elvis also did Jericho, the next piece in the book. I am a fan of Elvis and it makes playing these pieces more interesting knowing they have more to them than just what's in the book.

GracieCat, nice job on the recordings. I record myself to hear what I sound like and I'm not ready to put them out there for the rest of the world to hear.

My teacher is having a showcase (recital) for his younger students tomorrow. He invited me to come and listen and I plan to do so if my schedule allows.

Gosh, thanks for the motivation, I just started my driving lessons this week!

Anyway, I had been pretty ill this week and didn't manage to get a lot of practise, no Alfred's at all, just some scales and simple exercises.
There was no way I'd be able to concentrate on learning new material!

Well, I´m going to start on beautiful brown eyes now, which I had hoped to finish on Thursday.
Probably would´ve succeeded in that too, if it wasn´t for the major headaches and dizziness.

Hello all. I have just started playing the piano again after a 20 year gap. I was just about to start Jericho, but after some of the previous posts, I think that I will go back and try to polish the previous songs a little more and try to understand technique better instead of just playing the notes. I think that I have been trying to rush through this book to get back to the level where I used to play. (I am a long, long way from that!) Besides, my six year old daughter likes to dance to The Can Can and Chiapanecas.

What Elvis song is Jericho??? I must be playing it all wrong. Thanks for the tip on the Ole Sole Mio...now I can't get it out of my head (The Elvis song, that is).

I had no idea before Alfred that Love Me Tender was an old song he took the melody from...very interesting!

Thanks for the history lesson!

Gracie Cat--

YOUR RENDITIONS ARE WONDERFUL!!!!! I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME LESSONS!!! Back to the drawing (or playing board as it were!)

Also, I would love to know what type of recording device you got too! It's awesome!

Thank you so much for recording for us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOKSKii4PX0

Hi Nancymae,
I don't know how to embed video but if you paste this link, you can hear Elvis sing Jericho on youtube.

That was pretty cool, GlassLove! I've never heard Elvis sing that one before.

I found it when I was surfing for a piano version of Jericho (to check my interpretation of it). Are you an Elvis fan? I am not at all. My stepmom listened to him all of the time and it drove me insane. I remember driving with friends on our way to college as a freshman and they made up a song about how I was "Elvis-free" until Thanksgiving (sung, of course, in Elvis style

Whether one is a fan of Elvis or not, it's hard to find a form of modern music that hasn't either been influenced by Elvis or had an influence on him. His roots were in Blues, Gospel and Country music.

Well, I was a teenager during Elvis's rise to fame, but no, I wasn't really that much of a fan. But it's hard to have grown up in those years and not have been surrounded by Elvis's music. It was literally everywhere. Many of my friends were serious fans - like in screaming and fainting and sending him gifts on his birthday type fans. LOL. In fact, the craziness of his fans probably kept me from appreciating his music. I thought the whole thing was insane. In hindsight I will admit that he had a good voice, and I do like some of his ballads and gospel hymns.

Would you recommend Alfred's Book One for someone learning Keyboard too? Is it more "piano specific" or will it still give me good basics to build upon?

Right now, I am using Alfreds Max with DVD for Keyboard. But, it is not very comprehensive and the DVD's, thouhg they initially provide some discussion, end up jumping right to playing a piece rather than discussing what is going on.

Thanks

Alfred's should work just fine for keyboard too.
I'd say it's better than an actual keyboard book, even, since now it'll make transition to piano easier if you'd ever want to do that.

Also you'd learn more about chords, which (to my limited knowledge of keyboard methods at least) is often omitted for the keyboard books, since they usually use those chords you can trigger with one key through some settings of your kboard.

You can still do that of course, but now you also have the entire chord written out for you so you'll have a choice.

Thanks GlassLove..no, I'm not playing it like he sings it..lots of style there! I will work on that way!

Speaking of Elvis Fans...I have Sirius Satellite Radio (I live in the boonies...there is only country up here..and can't access that very well either!!), and they have a 24/7 Elvis Channel. Elvis everyday, all day. Which is fine..I like his music...but our accountant comes up each year and that is the ONLY station he listens too..nothing else...so it's 14 hours of Elvis each and every day (for a week), plus him to deal with...I'm ready to shoot myself.

Takes me like 6 months to be able to listen to another Elvis song each and every year....on...and on....and on...and on.

Oh, and I get to cook for him too!