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I remember having a hard time with Light & Blue, too - by the time I got it to work, I had it memorized. But the musical structure always made sense to me - don't know if it'll be any help to you, but I'll try to explain the patterns that I see there. It's kind of like a narrative, or maybe a conversation.

My knowledge of terminology is pretty weak, but musically, the piece seems to be structured into 2 sections; to me, the 2nd half almost seems to respond to, or comment on, the 1st.

Within each half, there are three bars, then an "echo" (the 8va bit), repeated twice. Then, the echo is replaced by bars 9-10-11-12 that make a sort of bridge leading into the 2nd half.

Within each 3-bar chunk, the first bar seems to present an idea; the 2nd seems to consider it, & the 3rd seems to reach some conclusion. The next 3 bars repeat the pattern, but bar 5 (which is the start of that bit) seems to introduce some kind of complication - it's resolved, though, by bars 6 & 7, which are exactly the same bars 2 & 3.

The 2nd half divides up pretty much the same way, but it's much more "confident?" than part 1 - it knows what it's talking about.

To learn the RH, I practiced the chunks until I could play them with some fluency. Pay attention to the rests, too (as my teacher is ALWAYS telling me!)
I worked on the LH separately until that regular rhythm was automatic. It's just a regular 4 beats - I think I play it ta-TAH-ta-tah, because my thumb + F2 or F3 land harder than my pinky.

Keep at it, mom3gram! After a while, you'll be able to play it in your sleep.

btw, to give credit where it's due, I read a book a while ago, "All You Have to Do is Listen," that explains musical structure, & I think I may have been reading it while I was learning to play L & B - hence, the analogy with literature. (I also teach English, so breaking it down that way made sense to me.)
The book is by Rob Kapilow, & there's an accompanying web site - can't find it at the moment, but it's there - where audio clips of all the examples used in the book are posted.

Carol, I like the way you explained the structure of "Light & Blue". I can make the right hand sound pretty good most days. And I practiced the left hand alone to get the rhythm of it after listening to John Frank's version. But I can't play it HT and keep the rhythm going. So basically I'm thinking RH only here, now HT, watch - the LH note is immediately after that RH one, etc. Correct notes - timing in my mind but not in my fingers = terrible sound. I suppose I will get it eventually. I always do. But I'm getting really tired of it. I need a break, but I don't want to go ahead. Time to get out one or more of my level 1 books and play from them for a few days.

I've been doing that a LOT lately. In between bouts of learning La Bamba at such a slow speed, I'm almost going backwards! It's coming along, though - I can play it hands together now, at about a quarter normal speed. Strangely enough, the pieces after La B seem a lot easier, & I wonder why they put this ridiculously complicated piece so early in the book. At least for me it's ridiculously complicated, & I don't usually have much difficulty with rhythm. Last lesson, my teacher suggested I use my metronome on about 72, & count the "&'s" as beats, too (so really, I played it at about 36 bpm) And count along with the metronome & play, first one hand, then the other. And eventually together. I've now got the metronome up to about 96 (=48!) & I've figured out the rhythm. Yippee!!! & I can even do it (at that speed) without the metronome. Do you suppose learning a new piece ever gets any easier?????

My teacher has me going real slow also. I have to name all the notes as I play them. I can only go as fast as I can name all the notes. Its hard when there is chords. Then I can slowly increase the speed if I can still name the notes. Its the old thing of walking and chewing gum at the same time for me.....

Nobody told me that walking and chewing gum was an essential skill for piano. I better start practicing

My teacher still has me go very slow with songs HT. I get to where I can play all the notes, but the timing isn't right (oh you mean it's supposed to sound like a SONG? hahah) so I get out the metronome and start very slow so I can play everything correctly. Then as I can do a certain speed almost perfectly; I'll bump it up a notch or two. It's actually amazing how quickly you get to a faster speed when you do it this way. It seems like it's taking longer - but really it's not.

I can't walk and chew gum at the same time, either. :-)

My first page of "Light & Blue" is actually beginning to sound pretty good - not great, but pretty good, none of the hesitations and the timing is pretty decent. I haven't tried the second page in several days as I was getting excited with the first page sounding better and just wanted to continue to play it. Now I gotta get the second page caught up. This is the first blues piece that I think I'm going to actually like.

Every piece goes through similar stages.
1. Oh, wow, this is too hard, I can't do this.
2. Okay, I've got the fingering if I would just quit making mistakes.
3. Not too many mistakes, why does it still sound so awful.
4. Timing is not bad, a little slow, but it still sounds awful.
5. All Right!!!! Now it sounds like something.

I'm somewhere between #4 and #5 right now. It still needs a lot of practice and polishing, if I can hold my interest in it a little longer. I'm not moving on to the next one yet.

I love this description! It's very accurate for how I seem to learn also. Although on number 4 I still sometimes have mistakes in the pieces I'm working on

Haha I still have mistakes at stage 5!

Yay! 500 posts!

bump to try to restore title.

It appears that someone tried to change the title and this thread is showing up as " Introduction (and dance?)" This seemed to happen on 1/20/10 with Eddy Boston's post.

Rich

Oh, yeah, I still have mistakes at stage 5. I didn't even mean for stage 5 to be the end, just the stage where it starts to come together for me. There are probably many more stages of getting it up to tempo, making it musical, getting it really polished. And I would probably have mistakes in all of those stages too.

Thanks for changing the thread title back, Rich. I had trouble finding it yesterday.

Thought I'd post a little update on where I'm at. Morning has Broken is under my fingers but not smooth yet, maybe 2/3 done, Alexanders Ragtime Band is around halfway there I think and I've just started Solace - yay! love that tune Not quite as tricky as The Entertainer was at first I think but it does have an awkward rhythm that I find difficult to keep flowing smoothly. Great fun to play though!

More Latin tunes just around the corner that I'm not looking forward to at all!

BazC, did you learn all three versions of "Morning Has Broken"? "Alexander's" sounds difficult, but fun. And I just listened to "Solace" on youtube, and that one sounds really hard too. I'm looking forward to all three of those, but if I take a month or more to learn each piece, I won't be getting there any time soon.

I started "Hungarian Rhapsody" this morning. While I can't say that it's easy, I can actually "hear" the rhythm and can see ahead to the final result, unlike "Light and Blue", which took a month before I got it to sound like anything.

Hi Mom3gram! I'm just doing the basic version of Morning has Broken to begin with, once I can play that without difficulty I'll try the variations which I think should then be quite easy - famous last words?

I'm actually finding Alexanders Ragtime Band easier than Morning has Broken, I think I'll probably get it quite quickly whereas I've been plugging away at MHB for a couple of weeks and I still keep making mistakes.

Solace is tricky but not as bad as I was expecting so you may be pleasantly surprised!

Funny isn't it, I tend to find the bluesier numbers quite easy but then I've played Blues on guitar for years, I daresay you'll breeze through some tunes that I'll struggle with like those damned Latin tunes! lol.

I'm giving myself a pass on "Hungarian Rhapsody". This one came together much easier than "Light and Blue", which I'm still working on, and a couple of the other previous pieces. I think it's because the rhythm is easier. I have trouble with some rhythms unless I play them extremely slowly. So I should be starting "Morning Has Broken" either today or tomorrow. I remember singing it in church back when "folk Masses" were popular.

BTW, I found our thread on page 4 again. What are the rest of you Book 2-ers working on?

I'm giving myself a pass on "Hungarian Rhapsody" also. I got a decent recording of it today. It was a fun song.... Working on "Morning has Broken" and all three styles. Doing ok on the first two broken chords but having a little trouble with the third. I guess I need to slow down a little. I also started "Alexanders Ragtime Band". It is coming together fairly well....

Onward...

Anyone having problem with Theme from the OVERTURE left thumb gets all tangled up with right thumb? Boy, I can’t seem to get my right thumb out of the way quick enough for my left thumb to staccato that Am chord. It’s one of the best pieces in Alfred, in my opinion so far. I like it much better than even the infamous Book 1 Entertainer. But that LH chord invading into RH melody just in that split beat is a beast to handle.

By the way, I passed myself on Guantanamera. Don’t really like it that much. Theme from the OVERTURE is my new all time favorite practice piece thus far. It’s a fun piece.

Nguyen,
I found that R thumb/L thumb tangle IMPOSSIBLE to navigate at first. But, as with a lot of things, the difficulty melted away at some point. I like that piece a lot, too - especially once I got the dynamics figured out.

I like "Theme from the Overture" also. I didn't have too much trouble with the thumbs tangle, partly because my hands aren't that big, and partly because I think I'm still playing it fairly slowly, so I have time to get it out of the way. :-)

Nguyen, I'm surprised that you have progressed so far into Alfred 2 already, with all your other Faber pieces to work on. You must really be getting in a lot of practice time.

Carol, I'm not very good on dynamics - I guess that somes from not having a teacher. Maybe you could record your version. I don't think we have a recording for this piece.

Carol, I'm so glad to hear you had this same difficulty. It's got very nice melodies though. Maybe I'll be alright in 2 weeks?

mom3gram, my nightly practices are usually devoted to lesson pieces first, and save the last half hour or so for Alfred, some Hanon & Scales. Not much time for Alfred as I used to and would like to but I try to hang in there.

Are any of you having trouble reviewing previous pieces? When I was in Book 1, I used to go back and review the last 4 or 5 pieces after working on my current one. Then, the last few pieces in Book 1 were so difficult that they took all my time and I didn't have time for much review. Now I find the same problem with the Book 2 pieces. By the time I learn a new piece, I've totally forgotten how to play the previous ones. If I go back to "Amazing Grace" or "Entertainer" from Book 1, or "Guantanamera" or "Overture" from Book 2, I really stumble through them - not like I've never seen them before exactly, but close. If I work on them for a few days, I get them back, but promptly forget them again if I don't.

How much, if any, reviewing do you all do? Can you retain more than just one or two current pieces? How do you balance learning new pieces and keeping old pieces? I used to have a "playist" of pieces that I liked and played them sort of regularly, but don't seem to make time for that anymore. Should I just continue to press on, and not worry about the past pieces until I get into "repertoire pieces"?
Am I moving too fast?