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

Donzo... no worries, that really is an AOTW. Many many of my posts have been of this ilk: "I finally realized that..."

If you record yourself (doesn't have to be high fidelity either, just use your phone or something simple) you will improve in those areas where your eyes ears have just been opened. It won't take long for your internal ear to be more accurate.


My DOTW, Defeat Of The Week, just now:

Eldest Daughter: Please don't play the piano!
Me: Why?
Her: Ummm... I guess... I'm just kind of sick of it.

Ouch.

I'm going to chalk this up to being an indication that I'm doing better at slow practice and leave it at that.

You just found out why recording ourselves is so important. However while recording helps pin point some problem areas you also have to go easy on yourself not to be overly critical. Small hesitations, the odd wrong note are all part of the apprenticeship and no use getting upset about. In getting a piece ready for performance I go through two polishing stages. The first is to get is to be able to play it so easily it is ready for recording. That is when the second polishing stage kicks in and I try to iron out as many deficiencies as I can. Even although the end result is never perfect I just look to the positive gains I have made with the piece.

My ATOW this week is after learning all major and minor scales (previous ATOW), I have played a full set of scales (major or minor) everyday since. The harmonic minor scales seem to be the hardest so they get more playing time. Some scales that were positively glacial last week are becoming a little easier this week and I am so happy to get this particular monkey off my back.

I am in Alfred's book 1.

My achievement this week was playing Greensleeves through perfectly without any finger errors whilst doing Legato pedaling for the first time.
My teacher was impressed as she normally only brings in Legato pedaling in grade 4 ABRSM with her other students.
She mentioned I still have to get my dynamics 100% with this piece so I plan to have it perfect for next week.

On a side note, something interesting, I took my wife to our local Durban city Orchestra (KZN Philharmonic Orchestra), there was a concert pianist performing and right in the middle of one of his solo pieces (Liszt - Totentanz) one of the violinists fainted and collapsed on the floor.
The stopped the concert and took her to the back.
The pianist came back out with the conductor and they announced that she was fine but she won't continue. They then had to restart the piece from the beginning again.

Congrats! One of my first positive experiences was many years ago playing this piece (from the Alfred's book) at a recital in front of over 300 people without making a mistake!

Just don't do what I did which was to stop the lessons after a year or two.

Now 25 years later, my wife and I are back in the game

My achievement of the week was having my teacher pull out the Faber Level 3A Performance Book at the end of my lesson last night, and listening to her play a few pieces that I should be getting to within a few months I hope.

Very motivating indeed!

P.S. In the 8 months since we started I have progressed very quickly though level one and now level two. I think the experiences I had so many years ago were not totally forgotten, and has helped with my progression.

My achievement of this week was getting through the piece "Icicles" from the book After Hours. It was pretty confusing when I first started learning it but now I have reached the point where I can focus on the melody on the left hand which is nice. To up it a little, I'm gonna try to accentuate the melody a little more, especially on the accents, before I bring up the speed.

I love this thread, it's so nice to read about everyone's achievements! ^^

SwissMS, sounds like good news is coming your way, and your teacher prepared you well. Your joke about the other C minor reminds me of something my dance teacher would say, "no, your other left foot," when a dancer would use their right instead of left foot.

Whizbang, sounds like a good time on the Steinway.

Wimpiano, knife? Ouch. I have had my typical minor creakiness, but nothing like that.

JimF, sounds like the teacher has gotten the students to a good launch point for the recital. Fly, fly, fly.

Donzo, recording yourself is a good way to learn. There are so many beginners that wait years before doing that, if ever, and get a much later wake up call. On piano there is so much going on, that it is much more difficult to listen accurately while playing.

Jeremy, well done on the legato. It remains mostly a mystery to me, despite some attempts to learn how to do it. I don't have a teacher, and not so good an ear, and a digital with a short decay (Casio PX150). Add that all up and legato isn't something I can do yet.

Week 116: my new unnamed composition is taking shape nicely in C minor. The key seems to have a dark tinge to its personality. I start on some other new sheet music, not sure if they will stick or I will drop them.

Have a good week everyone and keep those reports coming.

I played in my first recital ever. Previously I posted that I would be practicing for it. So here's what happened:

My teacher exclaimed I would play in the recital. She wanted me to pick a song out of Alfred's, so I picked "At Last". We practiced the first measure, which I absolutely hated. The arrangement was all wrong. Sorry, I know the intent of Alfred's Book, but why ruin such a great song? I found a better arrangement from pianoplayit.com that was better suited to the integrity of the song. Based on my extremely basic piano knowledge with off/on practicing, my teacher was adamant that the song was too hard. But I didn't want to do anything else she suggested.

Even with my very long work schedule and my two-week business trip, I still came out of the recital alive! I was the only adult out of about 25 students. This included another adult who dropped out that very morning! After the recital, I recorded myself playing "At Last" and cringed. Then I apologized to all of those who attended to hear me play. Now that I've played, I'm disappointed by how poor I truly am.

While the recital has given me insight on my skill level, I can do no more than I already am doing. My 10-hour (plus) work days takes everything out of me! I know it will take years, but I pray my next recital improves.

When I played that. I thought it was great that I picked up on the melody. I figured out what Alfred's wrote. I was actually lying to myself thinking there was something to this. One could rationalize that there is something to learn from the tricky things they pull in writing songs. There is a focus to learn. However I fear the biggest thing is why I dropped Alfred's after book one.
It wasn't until I ran up across the System I'm in now. This has great straight forward hard learning for each level. No trickiness. Just good straight forward logical training. I remembered back when I was working my career. This company had a correspondence course in electronics. I only took it for a star in my record. It was only a review of what I already knew. I tried that thing twice in the 18 years I was there. I dropped it both times for the same reason. It was full of tricky thinking. It was doing a better job of training wickedness than it was doing teaching electronics. Many people think tricky thinking is being smart. That is for fools. This kind of thinking infiltrated the company so much. It started showing up in tests for jobs. I had taken one test where afterward. The bosses boss came and talked to me. Asked me why it was that 12 people had taken that test. 9 of them had failed. Why was it that I and only two others had passed this test? I told him the test had two correct answers out of four in each question. One was tricky, one was straight forward. I told him he had a bunch of people he failed who gave him correct answers. I looked at that test. Had a choice. Which answer did the writer of the test want? I decided it was the tricky one. He asked: Yes, but wasn't one more correct? I told him that the tricky one was maybe 10% more correct. While it was about 90% trickier. There was nothing wrong with the other answer. And he failed people who gave him that. Here we were working in electricity. Very dangerous. We needed to think very common sense and straight forward. Not tricky. Not deceitful. All this did was to train a mind that would get a person hurt on the job. Possibly killed.
This had gotten so bad. The last test I ever took with that company. They had a scratch sheet. Told me they would take everything into account on that scratch sheet. No calculator allowed. I could even write comments. I wrote: "Why can't you people just write a good straight forward hard question? Instead of this tricky BS!"

This experience flashed in my mind when I decided to not continue with Alfred's. We have a society which is trying to train tricky, deceitful, wicked minds that aren't smart. People go for this tricky stuff. While it isn't making them smarter. Just more wicked.

EDIT: JazzyMac. I can see from your name that you want to understand music. You also are busy. I would like to suggest you take on the System I'm working in. There is plenty to do away from the keyboard that trains you on the keyboard. It is good straight forward and difficult. It is a refuge from all that wickedness you have to deal with on business trips. It is something you can also just dive into and have fun. Let it flow in your learning. Not struggling. Artistry Alliance
I don't think any teacher would have a problem working with you in this.

My new 40 inch TV/computer monitor, mount, and USB cable showed up early on Friday. I picked it up and spent Fri. evening mounting the TV on the wall. This is really swift! I'm sitting right where I will when playing my piano. This is really nice.
I got a ton more to do reorganizing my place. Decided to build some sound treatment panels. When I'm done. I'll post pictures. Will be really swift.

After I was done Fri. night. I practiced my piano only because of MOYD. Once I got into it. Was a great feeling, a refuge, getting back to what's important. I enjoyed it immensely. This was my AOTW.

Thank you so much. I will check it out. I also just ordered Fundamental Keys as well.

The bold and underlining are my edits...
JazzyMac - I'm all for giving everyone support, but at the same time I think we have to be realistic. Your teacher TOLD you that the piece was Beyond your level, you had 2 weeks away from the piano just prior to your recital, limited time to practice at the best of times, and you're a true early-stage beginner.

You set yourself up to make everything as difficult as possible.
It is no surprise that the recital didn't go as well as you would have liked.

That's a horrible feeling - and yet...in a way this was a very positive thing. You probably have learned to trust your teacher's point of view, you've probably realized that you've got to work to your own level if you want to do well.

What you really should not take away from this experience is that you're a poor player. Seriously.
I really don't think that's true -or at least that's not the issue. Nobody is very good at the beginning. What I think is true is that you are a beginner who didn't understand what the limitations of a real beginner are, and you severely underestimated how long it would take to be able to play that version of the piece.

I cringe too when I hear my early recordings. I think "oh good grief, how could I have thought that was good enough to post in public" (check out the ABF Recital Index and listen to the early pieces - you'll agree with me).

But what WAS true about those early recordings is that they were steps forward from a less capable moment. I still cringe a bit, if I listen to them, but at the same time I like them as little time capsules showing stops on my journey.

So...don't beat yourself up about not doing well at the recital. Frankly speaking, from everything you've told us, it is no surprise it didn't go as well as you would have liked.
That's too bad, but learn from this and be better prepared next time.

Use this forum as a "test ground" - ask for help and especially seek out encouragement at those times when you are frustrated and need to know that yes, improvement is possible.
It just takes a while

Everything you said is absolutely true! I guess I was just so...um, ecstatic? happy? excited? that I had memorized the piece and was able to play it through. I hadn't memorized anything at all until then. Nothing. Anyway, I know it'll get better. Eventually.

Barbaram - that's great - so glad that you're feeling more confident and progress is happening!

Donzo - don't be discouraged with recordings - think of them as benchmarks that will allow you to monitor your progress. (It's the only way most of us can cope with the early ones )

Peterws - nice new piano bench and set up!

Giacomo -- that's so exciting. It means a lot when our teachers come out with that kind of feedback - best wishes for your recital! What are the duets by Ravel???

TallGuy - I'm sorry your daughter doesn't appreciate your playing more....but you did make me laugh.

Earlofmar - making such progress on your scales is bound to help you with your fluidity and pattern recognition in runnning passages - WTG!

Jeremy -- congrats on your legato pedalling - I love Greensleeves! As for the concert- poor violinist! At least she was ok, if stil not up to playing.

BrianDX, those who had some lessons as kids definitely seem to have an advantage over those who didn't when it comes to making progress quickly at the begining --- it makes for a much more encouraging start I think Sounds like you're having a lot of fun!

Musical infinity - yes this thread is pretty encouraging -that's its whole reason for existing It sounds like you're really finding your feet with this "Icicles" piece and maybe even finding a new understanding of how to get the most out of the piece. Wonderful!

SandTiger - a new piece in C minor? Interesting. I look forward to hearing it !

Rnaple: your new computer system sounds great - and the System you're now studying with seems to really be working for you! That's great.

My AOTW is to have made some small improvments in my pedalling ability. I've got a song (yes, it is a song ) with pedal on almost every note and it has been awkward getting my coordination working ...but I think I've got it now. I've also been able to pick up the pace a bit on the Diabelli duet I'm working on. ..a little

JazzyMac
Although you are being realistic about your performance, don't be too hard on yourself.

What did you get out of it?
I am sure you enjoyed it, right? You gained some valuable experience so next time you will probably be less nervous.

I have not done a piano recital before but I know from my years of dance competitions that doing simple things well is better than trying complicated things that look sloppy.

So next recital pick a simple piece and make it sound beautiful.

Ouch! I feel for you.. (Or isn't that English? Anyway you get what I want to say)

Yes, we say that in English. I feel for him too.
Tall Guy, maybe it is more a reflection of the kid's age.

Not directly piano related but I'm doing the happy dance for my achievement of the year. I've retired my systems analyst IT position. It's a full three years past the day I thought it would be but it's time to start a new life.

This last year was a nightmare of 60 hour weeks where even 15 minutes of daily piano practice was difficult to impossible. That pain is now history and there's time available to play.

I need a real teacher!

Yea....how exciting

Well, when you've been waiting 50 years to participate and the opportunity at long last falls into line - yes, it is. So I pooh-pooh your sarcasm.

Still happy dancing.

JazzyMac,

That you've sustained and progressed with that sort of work schedule is an accomplishment in itself.

Congratulations on your first recital!