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Yeah I know that 4 finger arp took some practice. I'm about to catch up with you, hoping to do Tarantella within the next couple of days then move on to I think Festive Dance.

Festive Dance is my assignment right now. I am, surprisingly, having some difficulties with the second half. On first blush, I would have thought it would have been easier, but I am not finding that to be the case.

Where we are in the book, the pieces seem to be going by quickly.

Mexican Hat Dance

Most of my time was spent on getting it up to speed! This took 8 days to do, roughly 2-3 hours per day.

On to Tarentella.

Bravo MiM! The rhythm and timing were perfect and dynamics and touch were superb.

Well done! That's more of the tempo I was aiming at, but just couldn't quite approach.

AWtPP, good luck with all upcoming songs... let us crush Festive Dance and other pieces and move on to join Waltz and company upstairs. Waltz, I practiced this piece may be too much! I wish I could do these kinds of pieces in a day or two max, not 8 days.

Just looking back over some threads and found your one Dukeofhesse. I haven't long been on book 2 but really found Amazing Grace a real pain. Those triplets were Ok except that for the first time I found it hard to find my place with the left hand. I just kept at it and at it. I also found Singing in the Rain hard but loved At Last (not sure if this in in your book as I used Alred's Adult Self-teaching course for my first book)

MiM Great job on Mexican Hat Dance. That piece is non stop.

I'm about halfway through Alfred 2 Basic. I'm almost done with Polovetsian Dances and have started Arkansas Traveler.

Can't wait to get to Arkansas Traveler! If I play it like z32 did, I'd be a happy camper.
http://www.box.net/shared/6ooxhc30i1#

WOW I hope I get there as well.

This is Tarantella +8va

Sounds like you had some fun with this one.

Nicely done

Festive Dance is great, enjoy that.

That was great MiM The tempo was very even and smooth. I always have trouble with that.

Good Job

Thanks everyone. Festive Dance is a piece I tried before, so it shouldn't take me a long time to do it, I hope. AWtPP, I don't recall what LOCO means, is it slow then fast?

I'm no where near being good, of course, but I did really notice a big improvement in playing when I started my "MiM Index Finger Method" :-) If you recall from a previous post, it is basically about using your index finger to point and touch the sheet as you count, as well as when you are listening to the recorded piece.

So, I look at the time signature, say it is 4/4. I then point to each note and count like" 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, etc., placing your finger on each note, and keeping it for the duration of the note. Doing this a few times before you play anything ensures that when you do play, you don't go off in the wrong direction, pick a wrong tempo, miss a note, etc. What I noticed is that if you start learning the piece before fully understanding when and where each note goes, you end up paying up for that later on as you try to unlearn the mistake. My 2 cents...not a teacher and don't really know if there are any bad side-effects to this method.

Loco cancels the 8va. So when you return to the intro after the coda (I think it's a coda), you are no longer 8va, but rather, "as before".

The second half of that piece is still giving me fits. I'm hit or miss on the RH half notes, of all things.

Here goes Festive Dance

No great achievement here as I did try this piece before.

Excellently done

After all that time, they really just come back that quickly? That actually makes me feel nice; knowing that if there ever is a hiatus in my playing (God forbid) that all will not be lost. Nice job regardless.

W

Yes they do. I have not seen or heard this piece for at least 7 years, and even then, I played it a few times without much focus, and yet I was able to play it today after roughly 2 hours of practice.

Waltz, I certainly appreciate your comments and appreciate your taking the time from your upstairs hectic schedule to check on us

As a final thought on your progress Waltz (if I may offer an opinion), which I think would be very constructive and worthwhile for you, is to take a month off where you sit back and take inventory of what you have achieved, going back to pieces that you like and just playing them again, paying attention to things you may have overlooked earlier, working on smoothing your playing, giving your fingers a good work out, etc. There is a difference in playing for improving one's style and playing during the learning process. I know those pieces in Book 3 are quite advanced, and I don't want to see you burn out. I did once.