I thought it would be fun and inspiring for all of us to make a firm commitment to achieving certain goals over the next 365 days...If it is in writing there is a much better chance that the goal will be reached. And we all know that in 364 days we will drag this thread back up to ask each and every person who responds if their goal was accomplished...SO here goes.
my goals for 2003: Learn the Bach 2-part Invention no 13 to PERFECTION.
Learn another Bach piece...probably from The 48.
Compose a fugue
Learn a Beethoven piece...either Cminor variations or a slow movement of one of his early sonatas.
So ask me in 365 days and I hope I have an answer I'm proud of!!
Anyone else?????????????

My piano resolution is to get to grade 8 ABRSM. Maybe learning Beethoven sonata no. 27 or an easier Rachmaninov prelude would be cool too - after all, I've got all year :p

I also am going to work a lot harder at the A-Level in music I just started.

Finish 2 collections of elementary-level children's pieces I've been working on.

Learn Beethoven Op. 2#2, a bunch of Rachmaninoff preludes, and finish learning the second book of Iberia.

Break 90 consistently in golf. (Last game shot 43 on the back but 50 on the front - DOH!)

Eat better. (I eat like a pig, I'm fairly average weight for my height, but if I continue eating like I do, I won't stay average for long!)

Rach 2

~Practice for at least 2 hours, EVERY DAY.
~Listen to the advice that my teacher has to give, because he's always right.
~Don't try to please everybody, especially those who feel like they can dump music on me last minute and learn it in time and perfectly.
~I WILL say NO when I am too overloaded ( and when i just want to work on MY OWN music!)
~Learn Chopin's scherzo in c-sharp minor
~Finish the music I begin.
~Finish Bach's English suite 5.

-Free up my shoulders in octave passages

-Polish Brahms #2 and start playing it at every opportunity

-Finish up the Corigliano "Etude Fantasy"

-Bite the bullet and learn a new classical sonata (which I haven't done in two years)

-Eat less Taco Bell

-Pay attention in Graduate Research & Writing

-Resume my workout routine (closely tied into #5)

Wowee, you guy have lofty goals.

Here are mine, in no particular order:

- learn the whole of Couperin's Mass for the Convents

- discovered a couple of piano pieces of Daquin's, will work on that as well as learn and polish Bach's Fugue in c minor (WTC II)

- I need to learn to say no to some accompaniment requests when my workload both in the lab and outside of the lab gets too heavy

- exercise more, drink more water, increase stamina

- be kind to my cells in the lab

I'm sure there are more, but they escape my mind at the moment ...

ChemicalGrl,

Wow, it's sure interesting to find someone like me in this forum! I'm just finishing up my chem degree, hopefully I'll be out in a year or so. What do you do? Are you a student too? Or working at one of those biotech labs? (apology to those who find chemistry boring and irrelevant to the topic!)

Here are some of my goals for the new year:

Work like crazy on Chopin's Concerto #2 and Ballade #4.

Get a start (and hopefully finish) Beethoven's last sonata. (those double trills are quite a killer for me).

Perhaps give Liszt's transcendental etude #11 a try.. hm, and Goldberg variations.

Start teaching piano..(if i get any student..)

Stick with chemistry and finish up my degree.. (darn it, I've wondered off too much too often!)

Mix and invent some nifty little compounds in chemical flasks and get a patent and forever be rich!! (ha ha..I wish!)

Happy new year in advance to everyone!

Hm, goals? Let's see...

I've rekindled a love for Chopin's Ballade no. 3 in Ab major. Beautiful piece, and I have dedicated myself to perfecting it.

Having just about NO experience with Beethoven, I will learn a few of his sonatas. Hopefully I'll take a look (key word: look) at the Waldstein and Appassionata. Maybe more conservatively look at his other, more easy sonatas.

I also plan on studying a LITTLE more next semester... college is a little harder than I first expected

#4

1. Finish Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor (hopefully soon =/).
2. Play some new composers. I've never played any Brahms or Prokofiev.
3. Technique
4. Start a concerto by the end of the year

I'd love to hear that; it's one of my favorite pieces.

Making a lot of resolutions in music is a waste of time with me. I'll just make one which, although it sounds easy, involves terrible effort for me.

For years and years my friends have been telling me I'm very selfish improvising for hours and writing little.

Write out, capture in permanent form, some of the thousands of ideas which stream through my head during improvisation every day. Learn to pause the flow and write perhaps just one or two of the best ideas.

No lofty goals, no preconceived grandiose sonatas and studies - just permanent records of transporting musical cells as they occur. Whether they form themselves into larger things or remain as minatures is not the issue - doesn't matter - as long as they're caught.

I shall start by demanding of myself only one small composition a week. After a few months I would hope for the magic goal of a composition a day. I know for me this would be perfectly possible, but I'm so damned lazy and sink back into the thrill of the improvisational moment.

Right - in one hour (New Zealand sees it first, apart from a few islands) the year of the microcosmos will dawn. I'm relying on you lot to keep me to it.

Happy New Year.

Ted, How about making your piano midi and capturing ALL your improvisations?

Depends on the sonata, I guess.

David

My goals are more for the coming semester than the new year:
- perfect the rep I'm working on now: Schumann's In der Nacht, and 2nd mvt. of Beethoven's 3rd concerto

-tackle the things I haven't yet looked at: "Pastoral" by Percy Grainger, Ravel's Oiseaux Tristes, and the 3rd mvt. of the Beethoven.

-start practicing trombone again (though given my other goals, this might be impossible).

Happy New Year.

1.) perfect Deux Arabesques
2.) perfect Mozart's 8th Concerto
3.) learn Mozart's 21st or 23rd piano concerto
4.) tackle some harder Rachmaninoff preludes
5.) eat more chicken
6.) take my gf out to more places... :p
7.) rent less dvd's
8.) perform better with the school band
9.) concentrate on studies
10.) listen to my mom :rolleyes:

1. Learn 3 more Rachmaninoff preludes
2. Learn an entire classical sonata by mozart, or Beethoven.
3. Learn Rachmaninoff's etude tableux A-.
4. Learn some Chopin Waltzes.
5. Start posting more messages on this forum!

A bit off-topic, sorry ...

Finished up the degree a couple of years ago, and am doing a post-doc fellowship now, but not in chemistry. Did synthetic organic chem for a couple of years, and am moving on to neuropharmacology now.

I'm glad the demands are not so great on me so that I can have the opportunity to pursue other endeavours outside of the lab. Luckily for me, my professor is also a musician outside of the lab (she plays the organ and participates in a handbell choir at her church) so she understands and encourages my musical pursuits.

Good luck to you as you finish your degree ...

Originally posted by Classical Player:
Good luck!

David

Lol I will need it.

here are mines:

win the claudio arrau competition

play the best possible the repertorie that my teacher gave me to this year:

-chopin "thirds" etude, rachmaninoff etude op.39 noº1 C minor
-Chopin polonaise op.53 (yes, op.53 i have to play it! even if it's too much played by other pianists)
-mozart sonata in D major (dont remember the opus)
-and beethoven sonata (i think it's on Eb major, it's huge!)
-ravel sonatine
-prokofiev tocatta (god! hope i will be able to play it! seems so hard)
-debussy "feux d' artificie"
-if i have time, "barque sur l'ocean", and debussy "etude for arpeggios"

-no musical goals:

-get my driver liscence (havent got it yet, lazzy

)

-read more
-get a nice girlfriend

i think that is...

John51:

Yes, that had occurred to me. I may still do it, but first I'll have a crack at developing a method of notating the best bits as they occur. If that doesn't work after a year I may well give your suggestion a try.

Musically...

1. Finish the Beethoven Opus 10 Number 3
2. Work on my repeated notes
3. Learn the Emperor Concerto

In other aspects of my life...

1. Get a 4.0 these next two semesters
2. Go to the gym more consistently
3. Read War and Peace, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Justine, and all the other books that have been begging my attention for the past few years.

The Beethoven C minor variations are so much more difficult than the others you mentioned that it makes little sense to me. IMHO someone who is working on a Bach Invention should not even consider the variations for many years to come. The technique required for the variations is usually possessed by professionals only.

I dunno about "professionals only" - it's pretty standard undergraduate fare.

My new year's resolution, in learning the piano,

-Completing the left hand and speed for my current pieces especially: Bach inventions 1 and 8, Berceuse and Raindrop (Chopin preludes), Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata (Mov't 1.)

-New pieces: Bach Goldberg Variations 1-5, a couple of slow Chopin Nocturnes, 7 great Mozart pieces from the Alfred Seies (some already in progress.)

In my career, family and social life:

1-Being More Outgoing in my Career, Family and Social Life.
2-Being Organized /Prioritizing (Sweating the big stuff.)
3-Smelling the Roses. (includes enjoying and learning classical piano music.)

If you mean "undergraduate fare" to be works studied by piano majors at regular colleges or music schools, then I would agree with you. But I would also call those people professionals or professionals to be.

Agreed!

[][/QUOTE]The Beethoven C minor variations are so much more difficult than the others you mentioned that it makes little sense to me. IMHO someone who is working on a Bach Invention should not even consider the variations for many years to come. The technique required for the variations is usually possessed by professionals only.[/QB][/QUOTE]

Thank-you pianoloverus, I'll put that one on hold for a couple of years!

Mine is to learn the Hungarian Rhapsody #2. Got the first section down!

Mark