Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and All in One Adult Piano Course Book #2

Well, if you want to be a concert pianist then Alfred's may not be "serious" enough. However, I consider myself a serious learner and I'm using Alfred's. I'm considering buying the ABRSM's level 2 materials after my completion of Book 2.

Currently on Circus March. Introduction to the chromatic scale. I enjoyed Brahms's Lullaby. Village Dance was certainly fun to "bang" out (also chromatic scale intro). Lonesome Road only took around fifteen minutes to learn yet is very pretty to play.

Ttigg, Key Notes, and Undone: How are you all doing? Any updates?

Howdy Waltz..

This week I'm moving onto Franky & Johnny and Walt (hehe) in G Major. Very close to the end of #2 now but I know that the last couple of songs (specially Canon in D) is going to take a little longer..

Also looking forward to some of the ending theory in #2 covering circle of fiths etc.

Very nice; how long do you anticipate working on Canon in D?

The Canon in D in this book is very nice, I tried. But unfortunately, it is not the original version, which I like it more. Wonder how more years of learning will it take before I can play the real Canon in D....

Not sure really,
I'd hope no longer than 2wks but we'll see. I also purchased a different version (full version) of Canon in D so I may just switch to that (with my teachers permission) and use this to "end the book with"

Hi Waltz,

Sounds like you're moving along nicely, that's fabulous. Hmm, Lonesome Road took only 15 minutes, and yet pretty to play(?) I'm looking forward to it.

As for me, I've been revisiting and enjoying some of the older pieces from book 1, as well as focusing on polishing up on a couple of old pieces from book 2 such as Guantanamera and Overture. I've also managed to bring up the tempos of Light and Blue, minus a couple of mistakes towards the end of the second repeats (which drives me crazy) ,
and with a pretty decent ending of the tremolo part as well. Plus, I'm also working on a piece called "Marriage D'amour" by Paul De Senneville, from Richard Clayderman's Anthology book.

I've found that it takes me just a bit longer to get my fingers to catch on to playing the rhythms of the blues style music eventhough my brain and hearing can register them just fine, as it also did in some of the blues pieces in book 1. But once I figured them out, they're so much fun to play.

I'm really enjoying Light and Blue right now, eventhough I should really be moving along to Hugarian Rhapsody No. 2 because I've already gotten a few runs through without any mistakes now. But because I also know that it doesn't mean that I played them perfectly, I guess I'm still working on it. Although, my left wrist have gotten quite exhausted by the many hours that I've put into it. Maybe I should give this song and my wrist a break by moving on to the next song. After all, I can always go back to it later on.

Well, onward and upwards. Happy playing to you and everyone.

Key Notes

By learning Lonesome Road in 15 minutes I certainly do not mean by memory. What I did mean is that I could practically sight read the piece after little practice (the piece is RH broken cords while the LH is introduced to a new (and not incredibly challenging...) technique).

I made a video recording of a non Alfred's piece and put it on youtube. Would anyone like to view it? Let me know. (I don't have a midi cord for my Clav. so that is the best I can do )

Waltz

I've been away from the forum for awhile, but since I put a recording of Guantanamera on the blog, I figured I would post it here. This is after two weeks, which means, by Alfred's standards, that is a long time (for me). I had quite a bit of difficulty with this, especially at first.

http://www.box.net/shared/b8ffm1e5xj

Unless my math fails me, there are 66 pieces in my Alfred's Book two, which means a little more than 5 per month to get that done in a year. Might take me a little longer than that.

Keynotes, it looks like you are about 2 weeks ahead of me. A peer! I'm excited!

My teacher took a look at Light and Blue this evening and suggested we wait a week before trying it. I still don't quite have the Raymond Overture down just yet. Any suggestions, now that L&B is in your rear view mirror?

Waltz, by all means, please go ahead and post the link. I for one would enjoy seeing it.

Undone

AWTPP, Great job on Guantanamera! I found this piece to be rather tricky to get down too. When I first started practicing it, I hated it, but by the time I had it down, I really enjoyed playing it. That has happened to me quite a few times as I work my way through Alfred’s.

Undone

Thank you. And yeah, that's what happened to me. When she assigned it, the teacher warned me we'd probably be spending a couple weeks on it. I had already tinkered a little, didn't like it, and said to myself, "Oh no we won't, not on this piece, it's too annoying to spend two weeks on." (Yes, when I talk to myself, I sometimes end sentences with prepositions.) She was right. And by the second week, when I could actually pay attention to things like dynamic markings and pedaling (which I seem to have forgotten on my recording), it was more fun.

Good thing, too, because there seem to be several similar pieces in the coming weeks. Correct me if I am wrong there.

AWTPP, I liked your performance as well, a job well done!

Here is the link to my rendition of Little Serenade by Joseph Haydn. It was one of the "50 Greats for the Piano" as published by Yamaha:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5dXwaptXag

Good job Waltz. I enjoyed it. Keep the videos coming.....

Walt

very nicely played!

Very nice Waltz! I enjoyed listening to that selection. One thing though; you need to find something a little more stable to hold the camera – things were getting a little wobbly there are times.

Undone

Walt, Ttigg, Undone:

Thanks so much, it means a lot to hear positive remarks. I totally agree Undone; it was more like a minor earthquake .

Waltz

What a lovely piece. Nice job Waltz. Other than the shaking from the earthquake, which made me a bit dizzy, I really enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

Key Notes

Hi AWtPTP,

Welcome back! And to book 2 thread. It's very nice hearing from you again and certainly glad that you've decided to join us here as well.

Sounds like your progress has been moving along quite nicely, that's fabulous! I also enjoyed your wonderful performance of Guantanamera. Thanks for sharing it with us.

In terms of suggestions for Light and Blue. Hm, I'm not so sure that I would be the person who's good enough or qualify enough to give you any great suggestions, but what I did noticed was asides from having the blues' rhythms and tempos, one of the main technical characteristics and feature of this piece is all of its big 8va jumps.

While they are lot of fun to play, I've found that I had to keep glancing down at my right hand whenever I come up to those 8va jumps, just to make sure that I'll land on the right keys/notes, whereas I don't have to do that with any of the other part of this song. Perhaps you'll have better luck with it.

Then, I've also selected to add in the optional tremolo style ending, which I didn't know how to do until Undone and TTigg came to the rescue and showed me the way with their wealth of knowledge and experiences. Basically it's like making your hands shake and tremble (thus tremolo) upon hitting those last five notes in the last measure, kind of like you're trying to do a drum roll effect. I'm sure that your teacher can also better demonstrate this technique to you as well, but in the mean time, check out these two videos that I received from Undone and TTigg.


Tremolo demonstation by Yoke Wong:




And although the over all tempo is a bit fast for my taste, here's PianoNoobAlexMan's interpretation of Light and Blue, which he also did the ending using the tremolo technique beautifully:



Good luck and have fun.

Key Notes