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

Sam, that sounds like a wonderful moment - both for you and the lady who was listening to you. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Sand Tiger, sounds like you continue on your journey with consistency and achievements. I'm sure that you'll find a good title for your new piece - and as for the singing...well, one step at a time eh?

CarlosCC -Congratulations on you performance in the first round! It sounds like you really impressed them. Good luck in the final round!

Sam Rose - What a sweet experience! You must have really communicated with that lady with your playing!

Greetings PW friends. Hope the face is healing Earlofmar...not fun but glad you got the antibiotics. Casinitaly I'm so glad you reached that spiritual "high" of the free and relaxed moment in playing...it inspires for a long time. FarmGirl I'm so impressed that you find a piano to play when you're out of town (very cool) and that you're safely home. CarlosCC what an experience for THEM to hear you play and share your love of the piano.

I'm at the bottom of the mountain learning some new pieces. It's always a particular challenge to be moving on to new music. This morning though I think I'll just go play pieces I've played before...who knows there could be that relaxed moment.

Sam Rose - Wow, that's amazing. I've received some compliments, but never a hug!

Sand Tiger - Looking forward to hear your composition!

FarmGirl - Thank you, but, sincerely, I think it's a bit exaggerated to apply words like "star"...

earlofmar and SwissMS- Thanks. It was a good moment, yes.

WiseBuff - Hahaha, good point. I never thought about the experience that THEY had hearing me play. Thanks and enjoy your new piece.

CarlosCC - You have a great attitude to go along with talent and dedication. Whether you advance in the competition or not, you are already a winner in my mind.

Farmgirl- Welcome back traveler. You are the poster-girl of piano dedication. McDowell's Wild Rose will be sight reading fodder for you.

Music is all about expressing your heart. Hitting those keys in the right order doesn't create music. Hitting those keys with your heart in expression does create music. People hear that. They might not even realize it! Even the example of mine in my lesson last week. I don't have diddily of technical expertise. I ain't no great player. I just took one hand of only 6 bars that wasn't complicated. I played music. I applied what is implied and not written there. It comes from the heart.

All of these examples shows you people know what I'm talking about. You can obtain this mental state. It isn't about any kind of religious mysticism or anything like that. It's about doing away with the false things we use psychologically to make us feel good. Make us feel falsely adequate. Those psychological things also try to stop us in trying to make us depressed when we do away with them. Society is always trying to train us to keep this false state of mind. They are destroying. When, we need to live in our hearts to play really really well.

Good on everybody for experiences, accomplishments, that have shown this recently. Keep at it. It isn't a mistake. It isn't something to stumble upon.

Well... they can find it difficult to hear your feelings UNTIL you're hitting the vast majority of keys in the right order! An odd wrong one played with conviction doesn't hurt the audience nearly as much as it does you. But fluff too many, nice people will make encouraging noises but YOU know they're worthless. Sorry, but it's the truth.

Oh Wombat... More dog chasing his tail mentality? Why do you have to take a discussion that is taking something as a given already. A statement that is trying to build on higher learning. Pointing out the obvious. And bringing it down to where you try to appear as if you're informing me of something new? Ain't nothing new to that. You didn't say anything constructive there.
Yes, you might find it surprising how easy it is to hit all the right keys at the right time when you apply your heart.

To be constructive. I view written music much like the Japanese language versus the English language. In Japanese, you are expected to insert. Example: English....John went to the store. Japanese...John went store. A Japanese person would look at you humbly and say you're expected to insert the: "to the". I view the writing of music much the same way. There isn't enough room on the page to try to include everything. You must apply your heart to make it music.
I also view music versus english in that all the little details we include in the english language. We still fail to communicate comprehension too often. To try to write music like that might just be micro managing and confusing. When either you got the heart or you don't.
If anyone doubts me on the Japanese. You are invited to go to the DP forum and ask Kawai James. He is a translator. In fact. He could explain better than I can.

Well, the stories indicate that they must be getting it right, So all's well.

Oh me2, I guess I'll find out Tuesday. It's gloomy and raining here again BOOOOOO! Now I have to stay in all day and play piano `til I'm tired of it.

Glad you're home safe FarmGirl. If your pups are anything like mine, I imagine they greeted you as if you were gone for 6 months heh heh. Hopefully hubby as well

Yes she gets aggravated at my stubbornness at times and I to hers but I'm glad we have come to a resolution as I value her as my teacher despite being ready to look for another a few months ago. She has few adult students and I've always been a tough horse to ride in all things I deem worthy of my effort.

OUCH! get well soon. Do you look extremely debonair with just one eyebrow? (assuming they shaved it to clean/stitch you up)

Carlos, that so great for you, Best of luck in getting to the finals.

totally not piano related. my achievement of the week or i should say...my lifetime....i'm pregnant with my first baby. i'm just so excited and couldn't be any happier. coincidentally, my piano teacher is also pregnant and is only a month ahead of me. i guess we will be on maternity leave from piano for about the same time.

Elle, that was most convenient! Are you sure there wasn`t an element of "unfamily planning" involved here?

My achievement of the week is . . . .managing to hack out Grieg 47-6 almost to speed. . . . one or two (slight understatement) notes were deliberately dropped to enable this . . .(Gallic Shrug) but Hey! It worked!

ElleC -- well, congratulations! That is wonderfully exciting! I'm happy for you! When is the baby due?


Peter - I'm listening to a recording of your piece now "Leaping Dance" -- wow -- That's a dynamic piece (and I watched part of the video too - your hands really do have to leap about the keyboard, don't they!)
Good for you!

ElleC - congratulations! That's better than almost anything in the world.

My AToW is definately finding a piano in Brighton UK. I received a really kind email from the hotel. I post a copy of the Email in my thread. I'm elated. Happy.

Managed to play Mikrokosmos - Counterpoint and Imitation.

A small achievement but an achievement none the less. Took days to get it right.

Thank you Peter, Casinitaly and Farmgirl! I'm this excited just finding out, can't imagine what kind of excitement i'd feel when he/she arrives =) speaking of arrival, if all goes well...i'm due on valentine's day next year.