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Wow! Lots of achievements in the last two weeks. Very interesting reading and Congrats everyone. I just returned from a two week visit to Missouri to visit family. I played a little old short Casio keyboard a little everyday while I was there, which was frustrating, but interesting. I liked playing my Bach pieces with a harpsichord voice though. It was fun!

It was good to get back to my piano and to some real practice. Monday I will have my first lesson in a month due to my teacher's vacation and then my vacation. Hopefully there has bee a little progress.

Toastie, work hard to get over that feeling of being "rubbish". As adults we tend to think because we are competent in so many areas, playing piano should come quickly and simply..... It doesn't. At least, not to the great majority!

Hang in there and focus on your success with baby steps --- after you've been playing for a while go back and look at what used to be difficult and see how different it is -- you'll be thrilled with your progress. (I find that looking through old posts in this thread is a kind of blog /history for me and that's fun too).

Welcome back SwissMS -- it is great fun to visit family, but it is good to be home too. Have fun at your lesson this week!

I was supposed to meet with my teacher this week, just for a coffee, not even a lesson....and she had to cancel! Mamma mia.

Today I got my Tim Richards book for learning Blues (I ordered the one for Jazz too). I've just cracked it open and I'm really excited. I've already learned an easier fingering for the 12 bar blues bass line that I had learned a while back!

It looks like this is going to be a fairly painless way to learn some theory too. I'm ultra keen to plunge in....so... forgive me if I stop my post NOW.

My AOTW is that once again my teacher has opened my eyes (and ears) to music I never really considered as something I might want to play.....mainly because I didn't really know it existed.

She gave me a Cd she had made that was titled "Art Songs ", a term I had never heard before, and wanted me to listen for a few things. When I wiki'd "art song " I find its really a whole genre or sub-genre of music intended for vocal performance with piano or other accompaniment.

The CD had Kathleen Battle singing four songs from
Liszt and Rachmaninov, and twelve short songs from Schumann sung by tenor Ian Bostridge, all with beautiful piano accompaniment.

Turns out some of our favorite composers wrote hundreds of these short pieces. I believe a lot of it will be more accessable than most of their better-known pieces.

I love it when my teacher shows me how ignorant I am.

FarmGirl, F minor prelude of Bach's WTC II is one of my very favourites! Enjoy!

For this week I've put a side Jeux D'eau and recommenced the 3 movements of Pathetique Sonata. I've figured out a few improvements but also identified more problem areas. I also managed to practice a bit of the Fantaisie Impromptu and from memory too, still :-)

Week 27: Eased back to practice after the hand pain from last week. Started with 15 to 20 minutes a day. On Saturday, went to the local Songmakers hoot. It was a small crowd with only eight people at the start. A few more trickled in, though many left early. The format is a song circle. I started with Ashokan Farewell and could not get through it, even with a written out notation score in front of me. I tried again after the break and still could not finish it. Bummer. Nerves got the better of me. I did fine that afternoon, and did okay during the break.

My other performances went okay, some mistakes, but mostly I got through them. I played Simply Beautiful, Secret Rendezvous, All the Kings Horses (the first two are on my_piano_uploads).

So a tough week overall, with limited practice time, a complete disaster in public on a piece that I know, but just could not get out. It happens.

My achievement of the week was coming back to the piano after a very, very long hiatus. I was surprised how much came back to me. I learned a piece by Catherine Rollin called "Lament" and it's nearly memorized.

It's amazing how much a little practice every day can be so beneficial. Even just 30 minutes.

I was skipping and dancing back to the train station from my lesson today. This was my first lesson in a month due to vacations, and my teacher said I was doing wonderfully. My lesson ended up being two hours long in order to go over everything. Fortunately I had not gotten too off track on my own. Happy, happy, happy. She gave me some specific things to work on, and an assignment of sections to memorize for next time. It all seems very manageable, and things seem to be falling into place. She is still trying to teach me to relax though! It is getting better. This is when playing piano is really fun and rewarding!

Jim, I had to look up the type of music you introduced us to as well. I love it when I learn something from my fellow ABFers, even more when I learn from the other AOTWers

Tubbie, you're working on Pathetique! wow... Lovely!

Sand Tiger, sorry to hear you had jitters that threw you off so much. I enjoyed reading about your music circle in one of your earlier posts. I think you're taking it well, taking it in stride. These things happen. You'll do better next time!

Luna, welcome! Welcome back to playing the piano.
One of our regulars here "Glasslove" has been playing Rollins for a while. I've only heard a few of her compositions, but they are really beautiful pieces, what a great way to get back into playing!

SwissMS---I can feel your joy ...it is flowing all the way over the Alps into Italy!!!! I'm so happy for you, what a wonderful wonderful way to start back in your lessons after the break!!!!


I have been having a blast with my blues book. I can do things with HS...but find HT a bit of a challenge... but I also find I'm ALREADY "noodling" and doing some little (teenyweeny itsy bitsy) improvisations.
It is tremendous fun!

I love this! It really made me smile!

I feel similarly fantastic after lessons, very pleased you are so happy.

Cheryl,

Here is one of the Liszt songs with Battle singing titled "Oh! Quand je dors". I think it is the same performance as on my CD.

and here is Ian Bostridge doing the whole Schumann Op 48 16 song cycle "Dichterliebe"

Although I might not usually be inclined to listen to a lot of this kind of music, I have read elsewhere that it is a very good way to learn a lot about phrasing of musical lines. I think that is why my teacher brought it up.

Casinitaly, thanks for the welcome and best of luck with your blues piano and improvisations. Sounds like a lot of fun.

I love Kathleen Battle. She really uses her voice like an instrument and has such a wonderful clarity of tone. As a singer, it's interesting to hear people talk about bringing a sense of vocal phrasing to the piano. I'm a classically trained light lyric soprano (amateur. Singing has always come more easily for me than piano so I often think about playing in terms of vocalism.

On getting back to the piano and personal achievements, I'm trying to celebrate the little things--learning a few bars with proper fingering, playing dynamics just the way I want them, getting a couple of measures of a piece up to speed, etc. It's progress. It may not be BIG progress but it IS progress and every little bit means that I am (slowly!) improving.

Ok, so I met with my teacher and it is official...we're not doing lessons this year.

She doesn't have time to work on her English, so we can't do the swap, and because of our friendly relationship, she doesn't feel comfortable going back to a situation where I pay her for lessons.

I am glad it resolved, but very unhappy that I am now teacherless.

I have to see how work pans out over the next couple of weeks and how many hours I get booked before I can look at getting another teacher....

Sorry to hear that Cas. Hopefully you will find a solution soon.

I've been pondering how to describe my AOTW. Best I can describe it as is that I'm making progress. I feel less frustrated (most of the time LOL) and despite not moving forward, I know I'm improving. My basics are slowly coming back to me and each time I go through my practice it's a bit easier. More just how I feel than anything I guess.

That's too bad about your teacher, Cheryl. At least it is some sort of resolution, or beginning of a resolution, of what was previously unknown. Think how exited you will be if you can manage to find a new teacher that is even better than the last. And think how great it will be to not worry about all the cancellations and the mixture of personal/business.

Onward and upward.

Sorry to hear that you are without a teacher now, Cheryl. At least you no longer have the frustration of constant cancelled lessons. Changing teachers earlier this year really was the best thing I ever did. I wish the same for you! The energy of starting with someone new can really propel your learning. Good luck in your search.

I will get the number for a new teacher today or tomorrow. I've actually met him - we've had several chats(he speaks English very well) and he is a colleague of my (sniff) former teacher. She recommends him highly.
Apparently, as well as being a good teacher for the classics, he's really good at improvising - so perhaps I'll get some extra special help with my new interest in blues and jazz.

If he doesn't have room in his schedule for me, my teacher has a second recommendation.

...we shall see.

I'm glad to have closure on the issues of last year, that's for sure.

Sucks to lose your teacher; I know I would be gutted if I lost mine. (She's actually on a temporary visa, so it could happen in a few years - got to learn all those pieces first!)

I haven't reported an AotW for ages. I'm "this" close to being done with the Rameau. It's taken a lot longer than I thought it would. We are having an informal adults-only gathering at the end of this month where I'll play it. Must record it too for posterity (also known as the ABF recital!)

We've already decided to do two easier pieces after that before tackling a major work again. Almost certainly a Kuhlau sonatina and Bach's two part invention in D minor. My teacher isn't enamored with the choice of the sonatina but she wanted one so I got to choose it and I think it's pretty (Opus 55, no 2 - from the Alfred Sonatina Album.)

UPDATE:) WOOHOO I talked to the new teacher and I'm lined up to start next Tuesday !!! I'm very excited!

Congrats Cheryl! I'm happy for you.