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Utkonos thanks!! As soon as I get a pass from my teacher on it, I will post it to my sound cloud account. Honestly, I haven't posted anything on there in a while and since this will be the biggest piece I've done so far it's definitely going up there.

I also agree with Mexican Hat Dance and several other of the latin themed pieces around that part of the book it was really difficult for me to be motivated on 4 or 5 of those pieces. The good news is once you get past those there's quite a few nice pieces with a nice melody line in them.

I had a great lesson today! My Chopin Prelude in E Minor is completed after 3 months of work, I even managed to memorize it. My teacher signed me off on it today! Honestly a lot of things came together during the week and I surprised even myself. I thought my chances of passing were very low. After I finished playing it I looked over and my teacher was crying a little bit, I thought she was crying because it was bad and I hadn't done what I was supposed to do during the week and then she smiled and told me it was beautiful and I was finished with it.

It was a big piece for me because it was my first classical piece and it was assigned during a period of my life during a lot of turmoil with my father passing away and having to take care of a lot of family things.

I posted it to my sound cloud and I hope that you enjoy it.

Chopin - Prelude E Minor Op. 28 No. 4

I did not pass House of the Rising Sun. My teacher asked me to add some additional phrasing and dynamics which I will work on this week. She also assigned me Sakura which has a really cool sound to it.

We didn't get to my technique piece from my Dozen a Day piece because we were so focused on the Chopin piece.

I also passed my self on Kabalevshy's "A Little Dance" in my Masterworks 1-2 book.

Overall it was a great week and I hope to spend some time this weekend just decompressing after so much long work on the Chopin piece and enjoying the long weekend.

I hope everyone is doing well and looking forward to seeing some updates from people.

That sounded wonderful, Blackjack! Congrats!

I've been away for a month and had a lesson today, the first since June 4th. I'm happy to say I haven't forgotten everything My next lesson though won't be until July 23 as I will be out of town again.

I can't say where Alfred's Book 2 will fit in the future. That's where we started in January, but have since moved to doing different repertoire pieces. The school I'm enrolled in has a medal level system, 24 all together with the idea of doing one level every 6 months. I'm at level 9 nine. In each level the student has to show proficiency in technique, repertoire, music theory, composition and aural skills, along with recordings of at least 3 different pieces. To finish the level I'm currently on I have to finish the composition and aural skills part, which will be looked at when I return.

The piece I'm still working on is Sonatina in C Major by Clementi, which didn't go so bad today Just wish I had more time. Recent travel has limited practice. I'll be using the Sonata form in the composition part of the level, meaning that I have to compose something in that form. That should be interesting, lol. For aural skills part, a blocked or broken major or minor triad will be played and I will have to identify whether or not it was major or minor.

Blackjack: your piece is wonderful. You have come a long way during a difficult period. How nice that you dedicated it to your father

Well done, Blackjack!

Blackjack, your Chopin piece was beautiful, all your hard work came together perfectly!

mom3gram, BSW, bsharp, MeganR thank you for listening to my piece and kind comments! I'm going to continue practicing it and I may play this piece for my teacher's recital in December.

bsharp welcome back from your travels, glad to see you posting again. It sounds like your school has a really comprehensive curriculum. Good luck with your travels and your practice on your Sonatina in C.

Hi everyone, I finally passed "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and I must say I grew fond of that little tune. I remember a couple of weeks ago barely being able to play it when I got to it so it feels great to pass it after some practice!

I'm currently doing Guantanamera which is resisting a bit in some parts but hopefully will get better. This is my second week with it and now I'll travelling for some days so no piano lesson nor practice for some days. The fact that the next following pieces are the Mexican tunes makes me want to get rid off this section as soon as possible!

I'm also doing some pieces from "Introduction to Classics to Moderns" and I'm enjoying Gavotte by Handel. The fact these are original compositions make it feel way better at least to me.

Congratulations for your Chopin piece blackjack! Sounds really great and it's a beautiful tribute to the memory of your father.

Not posted in a while so here's a quick update. Had put Alfred's on the backburner for a week or 2 while I memorised a few tunes as my own mini repertoire. Finished up alexander's and Solace, also La Raspa, and Jolly Good Fellow. Decided to skip La Bamba and Mexican hat Dance ( life's just too short. Lol). Currently doing Tarantella nice easy little piece that I really enjoy. After that on to Festive Dance.

I enjoyed Guantanamera.

Good lesson tonight, gosh I like my teacher so much. I passed Morning Has Broken and Alexander's Ragtime Band. It wasn't that I achieved perfection with them, but that I'd done well enough and she wants me to put more energy into my other pieces. So I've been assigned Solace and La Bamba from Alfred's. I think everyone complains about La Bamba, so I guess I'll find out how it goes. I like the song in general, hopefully the Alfred's version is fun enough.

I'm getting there with the Beethoven Sonatina in G. I did a recording yesterday of it as a "work in progress" - I have known spots that need work and then tonight my teacher discussed how to work on voicing the left hand better. I like this piece though and intend to learn the 2nd movement also. Here's the recording - my plan is to have both movements ready at some point for one of the ABF recitals - probably not the next one if I want to do both movements.

The March in E flat is slowly getting to a place where I can play the first 10 measures. What can I say, it's difficult. But I am determined to learn it if it takes me till Christmas (what year remains in the air ha ha).

bsharp - that composition assignment sounds interesting! I think I would feel a bit daunted by it actually.

HI all. I keep lurking here to see how everyone is doing. As i changed teachers and his focus is totally classical, I am now going thru Faber & Faber. We have spent a lot of time breaking old bad habits and I am finally making some progress. Just advanced to 2B and I can hear music.
Love hearing about your progress!

Hi, Bsw! I've been playing Piano Adventures 2A along with my Alfred stuff. I may have been able to start with 2B, or 3, but I didn't want to miss anything. In Alfred, I've just finished "Mexican Hat Dance", which was pretty easy compared to a few of the previous ones. Of course, I don't play it quite as fast as required, but at my age, my fingers just don't move very fast. And I just finished the "Detective Agency" piece in PA 2A. Didn't really enjoy that one very much.

BSW it's really nice to see your posts in the forums lately!

It sounds like you're making a lot of progress with your new teacher!! I'm still diligently (and very slowly) going through Alfred's #2. I think my path of learning is going to be following yours, I am finding more and more interest in playing classical pieces so while I spend about half of my time on Alfred's I easily spend the other half on working on other outside pieces, and I think going forward those will primarily be classical in nature. I'm also using the Alfred's Masterworks Series on the side, I'm on level 1-2 which is the first one.

I wish you good luck in your journey an hope to keep seeing more posts from you!

MeganR your Sonatina sounds delightful! I think you made excellent progress on that. How long have you been working on it? I think I might like to try that piece sometime.

I'm glad you decided to do La Bamba, I went ahead and did that piece and it was very challenging and I think it fully exercises all of the different things we should be learning musically little bit of scales, dynamics, rhythm, pedaling, phrasing, ability to play fast tempos, etc. It was a difficult one but I was really happy with the outcome of it. Good luck on it!

Ok, short update for me this week:

I passed House of the Rising Sun which my teacher told me was one of the best exercises I had played for her from Alfred's in terms of musicality. She asked me to record it for her strangely enough, so I will do that on the weekend.

I also passed Sakura which I really enjoyed. I felt like I was in an old Japanese movie every time I played it. A lot of nice melody and a fun little piece overall.

So we are now going to work on the next piece which is Waves of the Danube.

I also passed my 16th note technique piece from my Dozen a Day book which I had been stuck on for the last month and a half! I'm super embarrassed it took me so long.

I'm also working on Waltz of the Young by Kohler on my own from my Masterworks 1-2 book.

I'm not sure what I'm going to work on for my outside piece quite yet, my teacher is going to prepare some options next week, she mentioned a Bach prelude. So I'm very excited to see what she brings for me next week!

Hope everyone else is doing well and progressing on their pieces.

Blackjack, if your teacher does pick out a Bach Prelude, I'm interested in hearing which one she thinks would be appropriate at this level.

And to answer your question, I guess I've been working on the Beethoven Sonatina since the last week of May, something like that, maybe a little earlier. I really like playing it. I'm using this book. After I learn the 2nd movement of this one, there's another one I'm interested in, a more modern piece.

MeganR, I definitely will! I think she will probably suggest 3 pieces, play each of them for me, and then discuss which one I would like to learn.

I will post up the 3 she suggests and the one I finally decide to work on.

BTW your sonatina sounds great, and you haven't even been working on it that long.

Very impressive, Megan. I know that I wouldn't be able to play that right now.