Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Achievement of the week - what got you excited?

You got it! The funny thing is, when I told my piano teacher that I wanted to learn another Chopin piece, he mentioned this one, and started playing it for me. After finished the opening section, he stopped and casually said, "and then another section starts here..." I should have asked for more details, but no. Hearing how sweet and beautiful the opening was, I fell in love with it, and decided that I wanted to learn it. When I went home that night, I listened to the whole piece and that was when I almost fell over from shock! Oh well, too late. I was already hooked.

Go for it Cheryl! When I started exercising again a few years ago, it helped immensely. I had been having bad pain in my hips, making it difficult to even walk at times. Once I got into better shape, the pain almost disappeared.

We had a snow/ice storm yesterday, and my lesson was canceled again. Grrr. Oh well, I get to look forward to a couple of weeks where I'll have two lessons.

Ok MaryBee, now, really , you have to tell us WHICH etude you are working on

Please and thank you .


I just saw... another lesson cancelled!!!!!! double GRRRRR, triple GRRRRRRR. That really stinks!!

Canonie, you crack me up I'll be hoping for some happy accidents this week!

My AOTW is that I gave away my old piano that had been sitting in my bedroom for months. Gone to the home of a friend who just started lessons, and was practicing on a keyboard. Yay!

As far as my playing, my arpeggio playing is becoming much more smooth. The break when I tuck my thumb under is pretty much gone. I've been working on being more expressive (proper dynamics and movement) on each piece that I'm working on. That's also coming along nicely. I really thought I was doing okay before, expression-wise. But my teacher wants more. More sensitivity to the music, bigger changes in dynamics (rather than mp to mf), more confidence. She played a section for me to demonstrate what she wants, and I was amazed. There's so much more I can do!

Probably later!




Have you actually tried it, though? It works wonders for me, the earliest possible time to play in the morning, and the latest possible time in the evening seem to be my best practise sessions, especially when I play in the morning.
Unfortunately I can't play every morning.

I've been working on this piece call Spanish Serenade that has a lot of jumps and pedal in it. I played it 3 times today at lunch and made it thru with no burn notes. Just need to clean it up now. Maybe I'll have it ready for the next piano bar.

Early work best for me also. I've played as early as 4am, on my digital with headphones on, of course. I work on the hard stuff because my mind is fresh.

dlr - isn't it fun to start getting into making your playing more expressive?

P-Rex - believe me....at 6am I'm not good for ANYTHING. Putting water in the kettle to boil is a challenge! ....and I can play til about 10-10.30pm if I haven't been working all day - but if I've had a full day of work, no way...it is hopeless.

Martin - congrats on your success with Spanish Seranade. Who is the composer?

I play it from memory today. I'll have to wait till I get home to look at the sheet music. I know it's in A Minor.

I am in AZ and it’s been cold here too. I am huddling with my puppies at 43F (hehehe). Don’t stone me for this. It’s really cold for us. It’s gotta be 20 degrees under normal.

Chryl - I will record my Christmas song (ahhhhh I still hate this one) again this weekend. The one I recorded yesterday won’t be any good. I noticed my husband is sleeping across the piano and my zoom captured his snoring in the recording. If I cannot take a better one, I will use this but hopefully I will get a better one. Also my husband suggested that I should get a decent clothe for this (Yes! You know why I love him). So hopefully I can present my Christmas struggle in a decent outfit without the snoring noise.

How about a pair of nice snuggly, fuzzy bunny pajamas (with feet!)

Cas, There's no composer on the sheet music, but it has a copyright 1966 By New School for Music Study, Inc. It's in 6/8 A minor.

Well Martin, I guess once you've got it in hand, you'll just have to play it for us!

OK, let's see if anyone spots a pattern. My achievement/excitement this week was that I went to the second (and third) piano stores in my quest for an acoustic. This time I went to see the Hailun (bit disappointed) and Kawai (super-exicted) range. I had to go to two stores to get to see the Hailun and both K3/K5 I wanted to see - they were "sister stores" actually run by a husband and wife team.

I think the K3 is "mine" ... just have to get the wife to choose the color (she said "don't get black" but now she wants to see them to compare first). The K5 was nice but not that much nicer and I honestly found it hard to stop playing the K3. If I came down to play that every day I would be happy.

The wife at the second store urged me "just for fun" to go play the $114,000 Bechstein they had. It was a close run thing between that and the K3 but I think the Kawai has won

My achievement of the week actually happened 12 hours ago I'm in a band and I play drums for the most part, but for today I pretty much made up half (or maybe a little bit more) of the entire song on piano in an hour or so. I've never been so focused before, it was really exciting If I could do that at home, I would be making songs all the time :T

AOTW (first one I've posted!) is getting independent left and right hand action on a simple piece by Bartok. The piece starts out with the left hand mirroring the right hand with lots of eighth notes and a few staccato's thrown in as well. In measure 6 the left hand plays a series of rising eighth notes (G,A,B,C) while in the right hand I have quarter note staccato's played at the same time as the G and B on the left hand and it took a bit to get this right, my fingers just wanted to contine to mirror each other. I had such a big grin on my face when I got through it the first time. Now working on timing with the metronome as my teacher always wants me exactly on the beat. I have the worst time getting started on the upbeat vice the downbeat, someting I'm sure we will work on for quite some time.

AOTW for me - finally getting a simple song making heavy use of syncopated rhythms played hands together, with metronome. Now to go after some more complicated...

zinfan

Congrats. I think I know the piece you are talking about. Its a great feeling when you make those technical breakthroughs. Keep it up and you'll be whizzing through Bach two-part polyphony in a jiffy.

Andy,

That's terrific news. I'm sure you will love it. Re the color, LOL. My wife didn't tell me that black was the only acceptable color until after I went out of my way to inspect three or four mahagony pianos.


Not really an AOTW, but I just dropped my wife and her friend off at a cruise ship. I get to play for a whole week without headphones!!! Hope the dogs don't mind.

Thanks for the encouragement JimF! I looked up the title of the song now that I'm at home and it is funny enough titled Song. It was in Masterwork Classics Levels 1-2 a book that I love to play in. Coming soon Alberti Bass in the left hand, that should be quite the challenge.