Since Cindysphinx hasn't posted here for months and since there were no objections to me managing the MOYD list, I decided to update the list. I personally feel the list is an important motivator for those who play piano. So anyone who has updated info send it my way and I will take care of it. Based on the old thread info, I believe we are now up to date...

I will also start next years MOYD in December to give people an early start for their 2008 commitment.

Thanks for listening...[/b]

Mark...


Here are the MOYD rules and the list of participants. If you wish to join after Jan. 1, shout out on this thread (and tell us the date you're starting) and I'll add you to the list. To keep the thread short, I won't reply to your post other than to add you to the MOYD list.

MOYD, for those who aren't well and truly sick of it by now, means "Master Of Your Domain." We stole it from Seinfeld, fair and square. This will be our third year doing MOYD.

MOYD is a challenge/contest where we each pledge to get to the piano for some amount of practice every single day. MOYD participants keep up this daily practice as long as they can. Anyone who misses a day must come here and declare that they are "out" of MOYD. We will then move them to the bottom of the MOYD list along with the date they "fell off the bench," whereupon they can resume daily practice and hope to do better next time.

MOYD RULES

1. Participating in MOYD requires you to sit on the piano bench and play something at least once daily. That's it. There is no minimum amount of time required. Just get to the bench every day, it will become a habit, and good things will happen to your piano skills.

2. If you are away from home, you don't have to practice.

3. If you are sick, you don't have to practice.

4. If you are "out" because you miss a day, you come here and tell us the sad tale of woe that kept you from practicing. In the past, the reasons people failed to get to the piano usually boiled down to "I forgot."

5. MOYD starts January 1, 2007.


*****************************

Here's the MOYD list as of January 1, 2007:

Monica Kern
Kawaigirl1
Debussy20
OzorMox
Frycek
Triryche
SusieQ
LovesChopinTooMuch
Knabe26
Naught
Dorrie
Hobo57
Stephenc
NancyM333
C7 Player
HelenClaire
PianoAgain
Shimmer
Trainlady
JMark
BillL
Wolfmindmist
Mark737
FrankR
Laura D.
Teachum
Carol I.
Donna R
Fraggle
Ina

IamElise -- Jan 6th
CozyWriter -- Jan. 22
Catlady -- Jan. 24
Sailwave -- Jan. 25
Mingqing Cai -- Jan. 26
Eeeff -- Jan. 15, Jan. 29, Feb. 3
Agent -- Jan. 31
Ordinary Girl -- Jan. 26
Valentin Piano -- Jan. 31
PianoPicker -- Jan. 31
Tana -- Feb. 8
Vincentimes -- Jan. 13, Mar. 3
Reader -- Mar. 10
Thalamus -- Mar. 19
GroundH2O -- April 17
fitswimmer -- April 17
Loly -- May 9
imac_100 -- May 22
Jonayla -- June 25th
Euan Morrison -- June 25th
Colin Dunn -- July 23rd
DragonPianoPlayer July 27th
ShiroKuro -- July 29th
gnimble -- August 17th
ohitpro -- Sept 3rd
millaTK -- Sept 10th
Triryche -- Sept 18th
Deldran -- Sept 21st
tickler -- Oct 15th
Michael Steen -- December 8th
Blue Keys -- December 8th

I'm still in, with two travel exemptions.

p.s. up in the bold section, you'll want to fix the "MODY" typo.

Thanks...my spell checker didn't understand...

I'm also still in. I think I missed a day here and there when I was traveling and one day when I was sick, but otherwise I've at least sat at a piano and played for a few seconds if nothing else!

That is all it takes Piano Again!

Thanks Mark!

Rich

I'm still in, with many travel days. I'm having too much fun!

Please add me to the list, starting October 15.

Mary

Mark, I'm not sure if your second list is consistent or if there's some confusion between people being out versus starting late, but just for the record, I was out as of July I believe (as opposed to joining in July.)

Thanks for keeping the list up to date!

Still in, I will be in for '08 as well.

thanks!!

Ok...then if I'm correct you shouldn't be on the list for July? Anyone else?

Also the way I understood it, was if you fell off the list you could get back on with a new start date.

Thanks

That was the way I understood it too Mark,

If you start late, you get put on the list with your start date. If you fall of the list, you get put back on with your new start date. You are on the list with the date you started consecutive practicing. The only exceptions are for illness and travel.

I haven't seen any differences in how we record a new starter in July from someone who starts in January and misses practices in July.

Rich

Thanks Rich

...for 2008 maybe we can have the fell off the MOYD list...

Also anyone have any ideas for 2008 let me know...

I'm also going to have someone make a MOYD Survivor signature picture for those who make it as a reward...

Mark

Could you please add me to this list. I started lessons on January 6th, 2007 and have practiced every single day.
Except for in spring when I had pnuemonia I missed a week or two.

Thanks.

Add me to the list, please. I think I've been 'on the bench' every day since 9/3 except for 2 vacation days.

Thanks!

As I recall, the original idea was to play every day, for a year. That meant you had to start January 1, and, excluding exceptions for travel or illness, play every day, all year. If you didn't start January 1, or if you were out (i.e. didn't practice on a day not eligible for an excption) then you were out of MOYD- for the year. Once people were out, then they could start counting the number of practice days at the piano for the year, or the number of consecutive days after being out.

Remembing the original idea of MOYD, I am kind of a purist I think. (Plus, I did actually have one full year of practice every day, in 2006, so that might make me a little lopsided about it all.)

Anyway, I have had 202 days of practice this year through the end of Sept. That means lots of missed days. Some for travel, some for illness, some for work. But considering my record from 2006, as per the original MOYD, I am out for 2007.

So maybe my question should be different. Mark, what do you mean by "you shouldn't be on the list for July?"

Maybe we need a few different versions of MOYD? MOYD-YY where Y stands for year, this would be for people who have not missed a day since January 1[/b]. Then we could have MOYD-MM where m=month. This could be for people who joined later, but then have not missed a day since their joining date. Then we could have MOYD-DD this could be for people who are out but are still counting the days from January 1 and are shooting for the highest possible number of days practiced?

This is just an idea I threw together just now, but can you see what I'm getting at? Comments?

My understanding was much like Rich's: If you fell off, you could go back on the list with a new start date, but for all intents and purposes, you were out of the running for winning MOYD, because there'd be so many people who had been playing longer.

Similarly, at the end of the year, there'd be two groups of MOYD victors: those with travel/illness exemptions, and those who have no life outside of piano so were able to play every single day WITHOUT ever getting sick or leaving their homes. The sentiment was that the people in the latter category were "purer" MOYDers than those in the former category.

The late starters and the jumping-back-inners get to feel a moral satisfaction for racking up lots of practice days, however.

Plus, it provides an incentive for newbies who didn't start at the beginning of the year, but are nevertheless getting their butts on the bench every day, which is quite an accomplishment.

For 2008 I'd like to set it up in the following manner:

Pure MOYD list, those who practiced everyday no excuses

Excused or tainted MOYD list , excused for sick, travel etc

Back on the MOYD, for those who fell off the MOYD wagon and got back on with new start date.

Late MOYD starter list with date. For someone new who wants to join.

Thoughts?

Mark

This sounds like a neat way of doing it, Mark. Thanks for taking over this. BTW, I'm one of those people who changed my screen name, so I'm on the list under my original name of Kemble88.

As far as being a MOYD purist goes, when I travel I always take music with me and either work on fingerings or read pieces that are somewhat above my level but that I'm thinking of tackling soon. Does that make me a purist or an excused? (And whenever I can find a music shop with an available keyboard, I practice.)

Apart from when I've been traveling, I haven't missed a day at the piano since my Kemble was delivered on November 6th, 2006.

I'll change your name on the list. Anyone else need a name change let me know.

I would keep you on the pure list, if you traveled and did the work on the road.

Thanks for the input...

Mark...

The idea of multiple lists sounds cool. I think it'd also be great if we could have a running total number of days practiced for each participant.

Let me see if I understand how this will work.

On Jan. 1, everyone is put on the "pure" list.
When someone misses a day with a valid execuse, they move to the "tainted" list.
When someone misses a day without an excuse, they move to the "re-starter" list.
Anyone who starts after Jan. 1 is put on the "late starter" list and stays there, no matter how many days they miss.

Is that about right?
Mary

Exactly right, except if a late starter misses after they start we give them a new retart day.

If the person tells me how many days they miss, we can add that info also to the restart list.

Mark

Still in.

Can we have the name be something other than "tainted?" That sounds so negative...

I like the idea of "pure MOYD" because the people who are practicing everyday are really doing something exceptional.

Then we might have "almost MOYD" for people who have taken travel or illness exceptions but have been otherwise since Jan 1.

For people who didn't know about MOYD or for whatever reason are starting or restarting after January 1, how about "MOYD as of MMDD" with their start date?

Then my perosnal perference for people like me would be to think of it as how many days practiced total over the year. So maybe "day counter's MOYD" or something.

So since I'm being so nit-picky (sorry!!) here's the summary of my name suggestions:

1) Pure MOYD

2) Almost MOYD

3) MOYD as of ****

4) Day counter's MOYD

Mark? Everyone? Comments?

Still in. MOYD kept me practicing every day, thanks.

ShiroKuro, I like your day counter method. I'm wondering if we could start a Day Counter thread, and then each of us post our number of days this year so far. Since we're allowed to edit our own posts, we could go in and change every day. The person who starts the thread could change the topic each day. For example, on Jan. 1 the topic would be, Out of 1 days in 2008 so far... Then on Jan. 31 it would be, Out of 31 days in 2008... Then each of us could fill in ...I have practiced 31 days and add our own commentary in our specific post. I don't know, though--maybe it would become difficult to find our individual posts if everyone started commenting on that thread itself.

I realize that when I fell of the MOYD bus in mid-August, I felt like a dieter who eats the whole cake because they had one slice. I wasn't as careful about making it to the piano each day. I looked at it as all or nothing.

I look forward to hearing other ideas.

Nancy

Nancy, the question then might be should day counters be separate from MOYDers? Let's wait to hear from a few more posters in this thread before we decide. Then if we decide to do that separately, we can figure out the details of how etc.

I think it's important to have a plan B when the all or nothing fails. This has been a busy year for me, and next year probably will be as well. I accomplished "pure MOYD" in 2006, but couldn't make it this year, and I doubt that will be possible for 2008 as well. So having another "something" to help with motivation will be good.

The "tainted" MOYD was ment to be a tongue in cheek expression. But, if not I kind of like "Beg for forgiveness MOYD List" or something like that...

"Back on the MOYD wagon", for those who fell off the MOYD list and got back on with new start date.
Seems to take care of those who want to see days and dates.

Keep those ideas coming. We have a couple of months to work it all out.

Does anyone know if pictures are allowed in signatures here?

I want to reward the MOYD winners of 2007 and future winners with a small custom picture for their signature that I have someone making for me...

Mark

Here is one picture for the 2008 MOYD Survivor signature...

MOYD PIC