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

It was explained to me that there is a subtle difference in sound when pedalling between holding a note down for e.g. a full 4 beats or only holding it down for 1 whilst using the pedal to sustain it for the full 4. (This may be more apparent on an acoustic than a digital.) The 'rest' isn't asking for silence, but indicating a place where there is no depressing a key.

Crusader I hope you are enjoying Amazin' Grace. I didn't.

Hi everybody. It's nice to read about everyones progress in Book 1.

So the biggest update is that I have begun taking a weekly lesson with a piano teacher (he has several other adults). Today was my 3rd lesson and so far, it has been great. Alfred's isn't his favorite, but he thinks it is pretty good and since I like it, we will continue along with the book. He says all the good methods take you through the same basics and after a year or so or when we finish Book 2, we can switch to learning via repertoire.

What I like best about taking lessons is: 1) He helps a lot with my physical technique. 2) He immediately targets what I am doing wrong and helps me work through it during the class, with recommendations on what to focus on during practice. 3) He recommends pieces or exercises which will help with the same issue we are working in the book.

We went back a bit in Book 1 and spent the first two weeks working through "Mary Ann", "Saints", "Money Can't Buy Everything", "Beautiful Brown Eyes" and "Alpine Melody" focusing on the basics and changing my keyboard technique, so I am just now back to the page in Book 1 where I was when I started the lessons.

Yesterday and today I have been working on "Standing in the Need of Prayer". I really like this hymn and it reminds me of mornings in church as a kid. Kind of like Mom3gram and Kum-Ba-Yah.

Like Mom3gram and KeyNotes, I am doing the two Hanon exercises once in a while as a warmup. I find them worthwhile for the 5 minutes it takes.

AWTPP, I finally received my PX-200 and it has been great. I still get time on the acoustic during weekends and at least once during the week, but with the DP and headphones, I have been able to make sure of at least a half hour of practice each night.

Redeagle, the PX-200 would be way up there on my wish list. Glad to hear you like it.

Hi all! quick intro....

I just got Alfred's 1 in the mail today woo! I started teaching myself last week with an old bastien book, but wanted something a little more common and the idea of working with other people on Alfred's was very appealing.....

like I said I just started last week and got the book today so I'm behind the group (pg. 33) but hopin to get caught up fairly quickly....the bastien book is chock full of information so i'm familiar with all 12 keys and their tonic chords, also recently learned all the V7 Dominants but haven't messed with those as much.....

I'm between jobs right now so have a bunch of time on my hands to practice haha....so i'll hopefully get to The Saints this week...anxious to get into some of these later songs.....

nice to meet yall, you should see me around quite from here on out

- Zak

Very interesting JF and Sundew regarding the pedaling tips. Good to know. Thanks!

redeagle, congratulations on your new teacher and DP! Sounds like you've been doing very well.

I also have been working on those same five songs for quite a while now, plus everything up to the first of the two Hanon exercises. Great fun!

Key Notes

Hi Key Notes, it's taken me a year to reach the final stages of Book 1, and I'm still not out of it, however, I haven't been so disciplined in practising as I could have been so if your getting the practice time in you should easily pass me by.
I must admit Amazing Grace isn't my kind of music but it's like a kind of medicine, it has to be taken to get better.

I'm not so sure about that crusader but thanks for your kind words of encouragement.

I try to practice as much as I can no matter how little the amount of time, but sometime I don't even practice at all for a couple of days when I feel too tired to focus, or just wanted to take a break from it. Because no matter how much I enjoy this learning process, I don't want to force myself to the point of being burned out and not enjoy it and completely quit altogether.

Congrats on your soon to be the beginning of book 2.

Cheers!

Key Notes

thanks for the warm welcome key notes! well i started work on both versions of 'saints' today and it's going pretty well....i can play them both individually pretty well but i've been trying to play the first then quickly flip the page and do the second without pause...i havent been able to smoothly play both back to back without a break yet but i'll get it soon enough....

i have a feeling im going to have a new job within the next week or two which will reduce the number of long practice sessions i'm currently afforded so trying to put it as much piano time as possible!

thanks again for the welcome!

zak

quick question...

obviously being a super new beginner i'm not there yet but at what point is it realistic to start picking up some of the easier classical or jazz songs? is anybody still in book #1 spending a good amount of time working on a song(s) they're particularly interested in??

I can imagine towards the end of this book having a song I work on 15 or 30 mins/session on.......seems like with enough practice and repetition on one song it may be doable??

any feedback would be great!

thanks all....

Yes, I also played both versions of the Saints back-to-back too, just to make sure both of my hands can handle the melodies equally. I find it fun to switch and it also helps me strengthen my notes reading skills for the Bass clef as well.

quick question...

obviously being a super new beginner i'm not there yet but at what point is it realistic to start picking up some of the easier classical or jazz songs? is anybody still in book #1 spending a good amount of time working on a song(s) they're particularly interested in??

I can imagine towards the end of this book having a song I work on 15 or 30 mins/session on.......seems like with enough practice and repetition on one song it may be doable??

any feedback would be great!

thanks all.... "[/QUOTE]

This is a very good question and I'm sure that it must've been asked a few times before on this forum, so perhaps you can try to use their search feature to find these related subjects and discussions, or post it as a new thread so more people will see it.

Good luck with your new job Zak!

Key Notes

Thanks for the well wishings on the job front!

After looking around it seems like it really depends on the individual, people strike out for new challenging pieces when they're ready....

After seeing somebody linking this free sheet music site ....i snooped around and taught myself We Three Kings today! (be forewarned that last link is a pdf file and may take a while to open).....I'm pumped! That was always one of my favorite christmas songs growing up, and it was a challenge to conquer so I'm real happy I learned it ......

Looking around it seems I'm kind of overrunning this thread...how's everybody else doing? how's progress??

Key Notes, what song are you working on at the moment???

I'd love to hear updates.....

Zak

Hi all,
I have just joined this forum after lurking for a few days.
I too, am using Alfreds book, and taking a half hour lesson each week. I am amazed at the speed some are progressing, after 5 lessons I am now up to "When the saints go marching in" I can play this from a different version, but the version in Alfreds I am finding quite difficult (sort of a gospel version), I can't say I like it but going to keep at it as I am sure it will help me down the road.

mom3gram, how is Lavender's Blue coming for you?

Welcome to Piano World and the Alfred threads.

Mark...

Lavender's Blue is coming along reasonably well, and so is Kum-Bah-ya. There are a couple of spots where I really slow down the first time through each of them for the day, but as I play them a few times it gets smoother. Looking forward to when it comes out smooth the first time. I'm liking both of these MUCH better than Brown Eyes and Alpine - I really struggled with those, but they are much better now too.

I also picked up the Faber Adult book 1 and am working on a very, very simple, very slow version of Eine Kleine Nachtmusic. For some reason I'm having a hard time with the tempo - a lot of whole notes and dotted half notes - should be easy. I'm playing with the metronome and counting. Like the two songs above, I get tripped up the first time through each day, but after playing a few times it's fine. I will move on when I start getting it right the first time. Working from both books now will probably slow my Alfred progress, but Faber has a slightly different flavor to it and I'm enjoying the difference.

I noticed that I'm rapidly approaching the dreaded Little Brown Jug. Can't wait!

Zak, it's wonderful that you are able to finally get to learn how to play one of your childhood christmas songs. Thanks for the .pdf of "We Three Kings" music sheets.

I do have a question though regarding a symbol that I saw at the end of the fourth measure. Since I'm still very new at learning musical symbols, if you or anyone else can tell me what this symbol means, it would be greatly appreciate it. It's that fancy looking "S" with a slash through it, and two dots on either sides.

In reguards to your questions on what I've been working on. I believe you are working the Bastien Adult method book(?). I'm currently working on the Alfred's Adult All-In-One, book 1. Along with the different exercises, I've been working on the following pieces:

The two versions of When the Saints Go Marching In
Money Can't Buy Everything
Harp Song
Beautiful Brown Eyes
Alpine Melody
Waltz Time
Happy Birthday to You!
Standing in the Need of Prayer
Alouette
Lavender's Blue

Happy playing to you!

Key Notes

Hey, you caught up with me, Key Notes. You will probably pass me in a week or two. :-)

Keynotes - that fancy looking S with slash & dots is called the "segno" sign.

It is used to mark the location in a piece where you will return to repeat some (but not all) of the piece. In other words, you will return to this location rather than to the beginning of the piece.

How it works is you start the piece and play right past the segno sign and continue playing to the end of the piece. At the end of the piece you'll see a notation something like: D.S. al fine. This is short for Dal Segno al fine, which translates roughly to "from the segno sign to the end". So, once you get to the end you then return to that place in the piece marked by the segno sign and then continue playing to the end again.

Sometimes at the end of the piece you will see D.S. al Coda (instead of D.S. al fine), which means return to the segno sign, play to a place in the piece marked by a special Coda sign (basically a circle or oval with a vertical & horizontal line thru it), and then jump to a new, added ending marked by the designation "CODA".

Hope this helps.

Regards, JF

thank you for the welcome
I just about got the first version of when the saints, it was a struggle now for the second version

mom3gram, But you are working from ten zillion other method books and subplimentary materials at the same time, , and I don't. So I'm sure that this may have some bearings on the difference.

Seriously, I was reading your latest week's practice regiments thread that you recently posted and it sure makes me feel tired just thinking about it. On top of that, it's making me feel like I'm really missing out on all of the other supplimentary materials that you and everybody else is using, and that I'm not really learning half as much as I should be. :rolleyes: Oh wells, back to the keyboard and my one and only method book, which I'm still really happy to work with, and try to remind myself that it's qualities over quantities I guess.

BTW, I find it amusing that we seemed to prefer to practice different songs, I think you mentioned that you didn't care for Alpine Meadow (?), and I love it. I like Alouette too, because it was such a big part of my childhood. I used to sing it all of the time, and now I can't believe that I'm playing it. And perhaps all of the time too! It's a good thing that I don't have anyone within ear shots to torture except for the walls, so I can play it as loud and as often as I'd like.

Thanks for the note mom3gram and have a wonderful day.

Key Notes