Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and ALL in One Adult Piano Course Book #1

Sounds like you have a very nice plan laid out for yourself AWTPP. Good for you, especially in getting an instructor.

In regards to the other thread, it's very good to know, but not too surprising, that there were also positive feedbacks and encouragements.

I have not and am not interested in going over there to read its contents for the following reasons. One, I already believe that good instructors are beneficial to most beginners. Second and more importantly, I'm not interested in exposing my mind to any negativities or discouraging thoughts while I'm trying to learn myself. Good instructors should be able to help empower us and not hinder or discourage us from reaching our goals. You know that power of the minds, be it positive or negative. I believe in the power of positive thinking, as many people here does, and I would like to keep it that way.

Keep up the good work and positive spirits.

Cheers!

Key Notes

HI all,

Just an update. I have finished working on Texas Waltz and have it mostly down. the next piece is very similar but it will take work. My progress is very uneven. On the other hand it only took me 3 days on the Waltz.

Well done, 1silkyferret. I think that one took me a week. I remember having to look at my hands a lot.

I haven't spent much time practicing this week but I started Lavender's Blue. It's a little slow, but not too many mistakes. I like this one too.

Still reviewing everything from Brown Eyes and up. Still screwing up Brown Eyes (must have a real mental block about this one). And I have decided that I hate Alpine Melody. I just don't like the sound of the D7 right hand chords.

Am I the only one here who has a hard time reading more than one note?
I am memorizing the r hand parts....at least for the last 3 songs

Nope, I'm totally useless reading more than one note at a time. That's what's taking me so long to learn each new song now. I have to figure them out each time until I "remember" them instead of reading them. When I go back to a song I haven't played for a while, I have to "learn" them all over again.

But the good news is that at least I am getting better at reading single notes. :-)

silkyferret, It's great that you are making nice progress despite how slow you claimed your piano lessons has been going a while back. Good for you!

And no, you are not the only one who can only read one note at a time. In fact, I have to learn each note for each hands seperately whenever I learn a new song, then at some point my fingers memorized them and I start to resort to reading the intervals between the notes instead to help make the song go up to the correct speed and tempo.

mom3gram, I'm still reviewing everything back from When the Saint Go Marching Home all the way up to Alpine Meadow. That's funny that you don't like Alpine Meadow because I happen to find it interesting in that it makes me switch between the Treble Clef, Bass Clef, and the damper pedal a lot. I literally have to be on all of my fingers and toes almost all of the time, and that's hard to do. But it sure is fun trying.

Key Notes

Key Notes, I don't have a pedal on my keyboard, so that should make it easier for me, but I just don't like those D7 right hand chords in Alpine Melody. They are clumsy to play and sound awful. I play it anyway when I review because I need to practice that chord (as well everything else in the piece).

Yes, I see what you mean mom3gram regarding those D7 chords' clumsy attributes, or is it my clumsy attributes, and I agree.

It sure does feel strange to have to reach over to that F sharp key while keeping the other two C & D fingers where they are. On top of that, you have to hit all three of them down evenly at the same time, so it's definitely a challenge for me as well.

I also find quite often that my fingers kept slipping off to one side or the other whenever I try to reach for those black keys, because their widths are so narrow. I figured it's just my unfamiliarities and lack of experience in dealing with these narrow keys and knowing where they are located on the keyboard, and the newnest of having to move my hands up higher (deeper) into the keyboard.

Despite all of that, I do like the melodies that they make. Oh wells, I'll continue to slog through it just like you said. Kind of like taking medicine I guess, knowing that it's good for you.

Regards,

Key Notes

I find any chord other than a c to be a pain. Alpine was hard!the songs just get harder other than the piece after Alpine,

This 4notes stuff.....

Some of those strange chords start showing up again later in the book. I am doing everything I can to avoid using my thumb (especially my right thumb, for some reason my left is not as big a problem) on black keys to complete a chord. I don't have my book in front of me, but in thinking of an example of this, Little Brown Jug comes to mind. I seem to recall going 2-5 for some right hand intervals that the book wanted me to go 1-5 on. I'll take a second look at this when I get home tonight and let you know if I am mistaken.

I am sure this is one of those things that, if I had a teacher, they'd slap my hand with a ruler or something.

I am happy with the things I've been working on (Greensleeves, O Sole Mio, The Stranger, Jericho, Go Down Moses) and will begin Scarborough Fair this week.

Thanks for the heads-up.

I am sure this is one of those things that, if I had a teacher, they'd slap my hand with a ruler or something.[/QUOTE]



I am happy with the things I've been working on (Greensleeves, O Sole Mio, The Stranger, Jericho, Go Down Moses) and will begin Scarborough Fair this week. [/QUOTE]

I can't wait to get to Greensleeves and Scarborough Fair because I like those two songs. Are they hard? I'm just starting into my Amazing Aerobics of Hanon exercises today. Interesting learning to go up and down those keys on the keyboard.

For me, the difficulty with Greensleeves was pedaling. The actual notes (pedaling aside), not tough at all. After about an hour, the pattern sort of stuck. But I had quite a bit of trouble pedaling correctly.

I aslo can't wait to get to Greensleeves and Scarborough Fair. I guess I will use that as my motivation to plow thru this book. I recently got the Can Can reasonably good enough to move on.

Key Notes, I think Hanon is fun, but then again I haven’t made it past exercise #3.

As I mentioned earlier, I blew off the Hanon's. Seemed like useless drudgery to me.

I've done Hanon#1 a few times. I'm really slow at HT so I've also tried it HS, hoping that would help.

I'm up to Kum Bay Ya now. I like that one because it brings back memories of when I taught Sunday School when my kids were young.

I've got a sore thumb right now - mostly from my mouse and too much time at the "other" keyboard. It doesn't impact my piano playing yet, but I really gotta slow down on computer time.

I'm not sure but there seems to be a contradiction in the score for Amazing Grace (Page 142), a quarter note rest is indicated in the Bass staff for left hand below each eighth note at the beginning of the triplet in the Treble staff for right hand, however, pedal down is also indicated at the beginning of the bar to be held down until the beginning chord in the following bar which means when you release the keys in the left hand to allow the silence asked for by the quarter note rest you will not get a silence because the damper pedal is sustaining all notes in the bar. The exception is in bar 15 where the pedal is indicating "off" at the start of the triplet. I'm sorry if this sounds confusing but I'm confused too.

Interesting, thanks. Yes, I agree regarding the pedaling challenges. Being so new at it myself, if I don't pay close attention to the pedal symbols, I would forget to apply them or apply them to the wrong places. But most of the time I'm not doing too badly at it.

BTW, just my humble beginner's opinion but while I can undertand why you would feel that the Hanon exercises are "drudgingly" slow and repetative, I don't think you should blow them off since it appears that these lessons were designed for us beginners to build from one component/skills upon another, and I fear that by skipping any parts of it, large or small, will eventually create problems somewhere down the road when we try to attack bigger and more complex pieces. Just my thoughts.

Triryche, Yes, I also find the Hanon exercise #1 to be fun to do as well, and definitely helpful in strenghtening my fingers' dexterity and independence. I guess these exercises wasn't as scary as I had originally thought that they would be when I first looked at them, but then I have only gotten started with exercise #1.

Yes, Greensleeves and Scarborough Fair will definitely also give me strong incentive to continue to work harder since they are located towards the end of the book.

mom3gram, Keep at it with those Hannon exercises and you'll put those two hands together in no time. Well... maybe except for your sore Yes, take it easy on the poor thumb mom3gram and share some equal time with your piano keyboard as well.

crusader, I have no idea what you are talking about since I'm not even close to the end of the book yet, but wow, you are on the last song in book 1? That's really great! Hopefully one of the many more experience people here will provide the answer to your question. I'm also anxious to learn what this is all about before I get there myself.

Key Notes

crusader - I noticed this also when I first played "Amazing Grace" some time back - I came to the conclusion that compilers of the Method actually want you to play it as they have indicated, with the pedal down held for the full length of each measure right thru the silence on the LH 3rd beat, thus sustaining the two note chord on beat 2 in the LH for two counts (if only to give the piece a "fuller" sound).

In this piece as arranged it wouldn't make too much sense to hold the pedal down for just the 1st two beats of each measure since the RH melody notes are already held for two counts anyway, and sustain wouldn't make any difference there.

Often I've found in other pieces that when you have a muti-note run in the RH melody with rests in the LH that pedaled sustain is NOT used at those points (to let the melody notes stand out better).

But, as far as this piece goes, it would seem advisable to either play it as indicated (getting additional practice pedalling) or optionally to eliminate pedaling all together - or try playing it both ways.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Regards, JF

JF, Thanks for the input, I think I will go with the pedalling practice...I need it.