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Nice going TTigg!

I'm just starting to speed up the tempo a bit with "Guantanamera". I'm going to have to remind myself of the same thing as well in terms of the speed with which I should be moving through the difficult pieces, and to enjoy the process of learning (suffering?) , and progress will come soon enough.

Happy playing to you!

Key Notes

Currently working on Mexican Hat Dance. This piece is challenging but overall fun to play. The piece before such, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, was both fun and easy. These are the first two pieces I have found enjoyable since Light and Blue.

To Key Notes: after Guantanamera you have (I believe) Theme from Overture and Light and Blue (in that order). They are both great. After such, you are in for a few weeks of misery (including La Bamba; which I absolutely loathed).

Thanks! Good to know regarding Overture and Light and Blue. And thanks for the heads-up regarding La Bamba. I see what you mean, all of those treble clefs' chords is going to kill me. But, I'm excited about learning those new "repeated" music note notations, such as CODA and the fancy S symbol.

Thanks again and good luck with your Mexican Hat Dance.

Key Notes

Finished up MHD, working on Festive Dance now. Its staccato pattern is reminiscent of Theme from Overture. Overall it's very nice to play.

An observation: thus far, the 6/8 introductory time scale pieces have all been played in an allegro tempo (or moderate allegro).

Working on Battle Hym as we speak, good god man those left/right hand changes and the timing (16th notes) are a real challenge to learn!

I took a look at Battle Hymn and it did look rather dense. Also, the time scale had a "c" mark or something to that effect; I won't speculate .

The "C" means common time which is 4/4 time...

Thanks Mark. They have not yet covered that as of Scherzo (on which I am currently working; highly enjoyable and somewhat simple in structure; repetitive so to speak).

I love "Theme from the Overture". So beautiful.

To Key Notes:

It is certainly a nice piece. I want to correct something about which I misspoke. I took a look back and actually after Light and Blue you have Hungarian Rhapsody and Morning has Broken. They are both fine pieces. There are only three which I did not enjoy: Alexander's Ragtime Band, La Bamba, and La Raspa. I spent nearly a week at two hours or so a day practicing La Bamba and still could not play it "well". Those experiences overshadowed everything else in the general vicinity of such.

Thanks Waltz, not a problem. I did noticed that La Bamba was five songs away still for me, but figured that anything before that could also be potential problems for me regardless of how nice, or not, they may sound, so not to worry. Thanks for the heads-up and clarifications though.

Now you've got me even more curious about those challenging pieces.

Key Notes

Key Notes,

Alexander's Ragtime Band was fairly easy to play; the reason I did not care for it was because it was a little dull and perhaps even "childish" in sound and rhythm. La Raspa is a traditional and easily recognizable piece and it wasn't too hard to play. I enjoyed it at first but as I tried to "clean" it up it grew rather irritating (perhaps also due to the fact that it succeeded La Bamba :p ). La Bamba was the major challenge and also was clunky and a drag to have to learn.

I am on Scherzo now and loving it .

How quickly are you playing Theme from Overture? I fist learned it at an Andante tempo. Later I sped it up slightly after hearing a performance of it at a faster pace. I am interested to know what your thoughts of it are.

Finished up Scherzo and am currently on Introduction and Dance. Sounds oddly like the Rolling Stone's "Paint it, Black". Is there a connection? Wiki wouldn't tell me .

TTigg,

I listened to your performance of "At Sunrise". It was marvelous, a job very well done.

Waltz,

Interesting to know, and I'm glad that you enjoyed Scherzo.

In regards to Theme from the Overture, I was quite slow to moderately slow yesterday when I first started working on it, but today I've managed to get a recording of it at an Andante tempo I believed (I'm not sure).

I've also watched a couple of YouTube video performances, and decided that I still like to play it at either Andante or even slightly slower (Adagio 66-76 bpm?), with some extra emphasis and dynamic accents on the last two notes in each measures of the melody lines, as well as play them slightly legato instead of staccato as indicated.

Being such a beginner, I'm not sure if this is the best or correct way of playing this piece, but I do like the sound of it. In fact, I'm quite thankful for anything that I can play that would resemble a recognizable piece of music, since I've only begun on this piano journey 11 months ago.

Thanks for asking and happy playing to you.

Key Notes

Thanks..

My 1st recital (online) and I can see I'm going to have to invest in one of these Zoom things. The other pieces I'm hearing sound "amazing!"

TTigg,

Congratulations on your very first ABF recital! I just listened to your piece as well. It's beautiful, and beautifully played. You surely deserved that Zoom.

Cheers!

Key Notes

I don't know about any connection with "Paint it, Black", but its definitely the tune used for "Those were the Days": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5pkkAhETYg

Undone

Thanks Key Notes. I'm quickly learning that even though we are our own worse critics (didn't like this, or didn't like that) it's great to get the "pats on the back" form our peers. It's especially great to get them from those who've been playing for a lot longer than me.

Finally starting my "Piano" journey was one thing, it's been so much more of a richer experience with the help/feedback/encouragement from ABF!

Thanks for the reply. The adagio "portion" is where the Paint it, Black similarities (at least supposed) were for me. Perhaps I'm speaking nonsense.

Hi, Can someone please tell me how I should be playing the final (ending) chords in the piece "Light and Blue" on pg. 17 as "Tremolo"? I haven't encounter this technique before so I just wanted to make sure that I'm learning it correctly.

I listened to John Frank's example posted on the first page of this thread (very nice btw JF), as well as try to look for some YouTube videos but couldn't find any.

I recognized that they have an illustration at the bottom right hand corner of pg. 17, and it looks like I should be playing the notes seperately, kind of like an Arpeggio style? Except in this case, play the bB and the D at the same time for the right hand, then the E?

And for the left hand, play the low C first, then the high C?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Key Notes