Ok so I decided to take out my repertoire of about 7 pieces. That means 7 that I want to continually improve on and always keep memorized.
Yesterday and today I've been going through them not just playing but re-memorizing those that I had forgotten. Talk about a lot of energy, but I got through the 7 and I guess now each day onward it will become a little easier. I will then attempt to move on but I hope to not let them slip away like I've done in the past year.

Heres my rep so far:

1: Mozart's Sonata in C (lots a work required)
2: Bach's Für Elise (getting there)
3: Bach's Prelude in C (not too bad)
4: Chopin/Liszt Spring Op.74 no.2 (getting easier)
5: Brahms Waltz Op. 39 no.3 (so short but easy to forget)
6: Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances No.1(stick game)(a technical challenge)
7: Diabelli's Sonatina in G(1st movement) (flowing nicely)

Now there are a couple of other pieces in progress but I must keep the others intact.

Ok so this is my contract post for myself....where do I sign :p

Peter

working on 7 pieces? no wonder you're exhausted. i would cut the size in half at least, and work on one half now and the other half later.

rockpeter;

You and I must be on the same wave length. I just got off the piano bench and said to myself: This is HARD work!! The hardest I've ever attempted, that's for sure. :rolleyes:

I have about 16 pieces in my repertoire. I just started back at the piano this February after a 15 year hiatus.

Several days a week, I play all 16 (those are my 4-5 hour sessions) just to keep them current in my mind and fingers.

But at this moment, I am listening to Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin, and, I can't help it...it moves me to tears. The Waltz in A-flat (Valse brillante)

So, I guess (although I know I will NEVER come CLOSE to Rubinstein's talent,) I will just be content with what I can play and play it as well as I can. Even if it sometimes exhausts not only my mind but body. It's worth it.

That's why I only learn pieces I love; otherwise, by the time I'm finished, I end up hating them.

Good luck...and yes, everyone here knows just how exhausting playing the piano can be.

Kathleen

Very impressive, rockpeter! I think it's good to keep a list or mental contract like that. You don't have to work on all 7 every single day, after all. A rotating schedule where you give one piece a hard workout each day could work well. But I do think it's a good idea to try to play everything you want to keep fresh at least once every few days.

I know the feeling...I made a chart in WORD with like 37 pieces, and only 6 are completed. I consider them complete once they have been recorded (red dot).
Mike

I do the same thing, Mike! (Except mine's in WordPerfect... ). And even when I put a check in the "Recorded" column, I STILL may not consider it complete if I'm not happy with the recording...

Good old WordPerfect! How well I remember it. But I started with the granddaddy of them all...about 25 years ago, but I can't remember what it was now. It was the very first word-processing program to come out.

Kathleen

Monica...we call it WordPathetic...the old version was a bear to work with...reveal codes and all

loveschopantomuch: wordstar??

On the Comm. 64, it was "WordWright".....Gawd, I do not miss those 40 character days.......

Yeah, you think those programs are bad.....I'm sure many of you remember the days before any programs! Learning to type on a manual typewriter....using carbon paper......making mistakes and have to correct all those carbon copies.....young people today don't realize how easy they have things in some ways!!

Don't mess with a WordPerfect fan, Monster. I refuse to work with Word. At least WordPerfect HAS a "reveal codes" option so you can see where your fonts etc. got screwed up. Have you ever had a Word document where the typeface and font keeps changing on you and you have NO IDEA how to fix it? I also absolutely LOATHE all those allegedly "helpful" auto-correct and auto-outline features in Word. I'd turn them all off if it was a user-friendly package that allowed one to figure out easily how to turn them off! [walks away fuming and gnashing teeth over global dominance of way inferior word-processing prackage]

rocky, you are so right. My students today look at me blankly when I talk about "dittos" and "mimeographs."

Kathleen, my first word processing package was the one used by Radio Shack way back in 1978. What the heck was it called? It was the worst wordprocessor in the world, even--and this I will admit--worse than Word. You had to embed the formatting commands in the text itself, e.g.,

>LM=10 RM=70 etc. etc.

amazing I can still remember that...

Monica,

Are you talking about SCRIPSIT?

Yes!! That's it! Wasn't that the most awkward program ever?

Of course, in comparison to typing on a manual or electric typewriter, it was incredibly cool and efficient, and I was the envy of my peers. (I was the first to buy a computer.)

I also had--get this--a daisy wheel printer, the heaviest, loudest, slowest printer in the known universe. But it could type a page in a few minutes, as opposed to a half hour in a typewriter, so I was in heaven.

[okay, must stop nostalgia trip and go teach to a bunch of students who weren't even alive in 1978. Sigh.]

Wait... it was 1982, not 1978. But my students STILL weren't alive then.

Ya but I hate having to clean the screen from all the white out when we make a mistake.

Peter

I still use vi, but few even know what that is now.

Here is a picture of the first word processor I used.

We've really gotten off topic...sorry peter.....

The first word processor I remembering really using was a MAG card typewriter.....any of you ever used those? We thought they were the best thing since sliced bread at the time!

Kathleen, my first word processing package was the one used by Radio Shack way back in 1978. What the heck was it called? It was the worst wordprocessor in the world, even--and this I will admit--worse than Word. You had to embed the formatting commands in the text itself, e.g.,[/b]

I remember that one also. MISERABLE.

I think the one I'm thinking of was called WordStar. Does that ring a bell with anyone?

It's was a pretty good program for its day. But I do remember having to memorize a lot of commands with using the control key.

Kathleen

ahmmmmmm.....

Oh ya did I tell I was exhausted :rolleyes:

Peter

peter, are you getting ready for a concert? thats alot of work, exhausted......that is an understatement. have fun with it:)