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

Yeah, I was thinking of opening a thread for Anyway to ask some questions about recommended fingering for a few of the bars. But I wanted to play around with it myself for a bit before asking. :P

I'll see if I can make a decent recording of it on my DP using my laptop, since that's all I have to make recordings for now. Sound quality will probably be horrendous. =/



Hehe, I'm not even sure myself, actually. XD
The library is pretty close though, so it's worth checking. Especially since it's just sightreading material, I only intend to read it once, so I'd much rather rent a few books than to buy them for that one time I read them through.

That's the only way I can do it as well. It isn't stellar, but it isn't horrendous!

I may pop over to the library even today to see if they have sheet music
That could be very interesting indeed.

casinitaly,

I think you will like the Clementi. Are you going to learn the whole thing? My teacher only assigned the third section, the Rondo, for now. Not sure if we are going to continue with the rest of it. I don't know about the "doing good work" stuff - my teacher just seems to really like loading me up and doesn't dwell on pieces once they've reached a certain stage of proficiency. Usually she'll say something like " OK, I don't need to hear that anymore." Of course, that could mean she thinks I've gotten most of the mileage out of the learning experience, or that she's tired of me assaulting her eardrums!

Jim

Hi Jim,
Well, I don't know if my memory is up to learning the whole thing right now. I haven't talked to my teacher about it yet. She may suggest tackling it one part at a time.
My teacher has a similar approach to yours - she wants to expose me to a lot of different pieces and at this point isn't concernted with getting all of them to performance perfect. We're working on developing memory skills, and finger techniques (breathing techniques too as I tend to hold my breath when playing something tricky! gasp gasp).

I think the "ok I don't need to hear any more" simply means you've got a handle on whatever the point of the piece was.

I'd like to learn the whole thing.... we'll see how it goes.

Casinitaly,
I'm in PDT - in Vancouver. It's about 7 o'clock Monday evening here right now.

My biggest moment this week was getting through my first recital in...well, more than 20 years at least. The last time I had played in public(accompaniment for church)the soloist ended up singing a capella for several measures when I froze completely. So, I was really dreading the recital, but also knew that pushing through this milestone was necessary for me.
I did not have loads of time to prepare-sort of a last minute decision, and while I did flub a little on my last piece, I was happy overall.

Congrats happykah! That is a real achievement. I bet that audience didn't even notice your small mistake!!!!

My achievement was: I FINISHED ALFRED ALL IN ONE LEVEL ONE
My new pieces are very nice. Bach Minuet 114 & 115 and a very nice romantic piece from a collection of music by Dennis Alexander. The piece is called Summer Dreams (certainly appropriate for the season
I rushed home from my lesson and started right in!!!

Well, this is kind of a small achievement... But I think I managed to find a good teacher . Which is a great start. I miss playing so much.

Still waiting for my new piano to arrive (it's on its way from Germany now - it should take a week). I can't wait!

[quote=GlassLove}

My achievement was: I FINISHED ALFRED ALL IN ONE LEVEL ONE
My new pieces are very nice. Bach Minuet 114 & 115 and a very nice romantic piece from a collection of music by Dennis Alexander. The piece is called Summer Dreams (certainly appropriate for the season
I rushed home from my lesson and started right in!!!
[/quote]

Thank you!
Isn't it great to be done with a level!!! I am so looking forward to completing JT's grade 1-getting close!
I'm working on some Bach now, too-and one of my recital pieces was a Dennis Alexander-his 'Falling Leaves'. Such a calming piece-just what I needed ;~)

Happykah - what an achievement! Good for you for making that leap of courage!
Glasslove - yipee! done with level one - now you can get one of the Alfred boxes for your siggy line!
Your new pieces sound like fun - are you moving on from Lilla or still perfecting it?

Everdream - how exciting! I think finding a good teacher is fundamental to your success on this adventure!
Joyoussong - I have had the pleasure of visiting Vancouver several times - lovely city!

I will be continuing withmy Clementi, and I'm looking forward to seeing my teacher after our little break - I heard from her today and she passed the exam she was working on so at least her withdrawing fom lessons temporarily has paid off! Now to make up the lessons !

Hi Casinitaly,
I am still working on Lilla. I had to work so hard on the last two Alfred pieces that it dropped from my practice routine for awhile. My husband "requests" it though. By far, his favorite piece I have ever played. I was touched that my teacher chose a book of "flowing romantic music" for one of my work collections, largely because she saw my excitement in playing Lilla. So, my pieces are those I mentioned plus Lilla. I don't have a lesson again until the 14th of June. Lots of time to work on all 4 pieces!!!!!

Got assigned 2 new pieces at my lesson yesterday (in addition to the two from last week that I'm working on. For those familiar with the Suzuki method books, I'm in Book 3 and working on the four small pieces in between the Kuhlau (op. 55 no. 1) and Clementi (op. 36 no. 3) sonatinas. The conservatory goes into hiatus in mid-June, but I hope to be able to get these little pieces cleaned up by fall and get that last sonatina in the bag by Christmas, along with the nasty little Bartok thing that was added in the new edition of the method. Then it's on to book 4 with lots of Mozart and some more Bach!

Thought I'd never get the Kuhlau sorted out, but it seemed to come together overnight. The Allegro movement still gives me some problems from time to time, but the Vivace is solid. Lesson learned: keep on keeping on.

I finished the ending to Mozart's Fantasy 3 in D minor (the ending is actually in D major...) in the last few days, and I'm playing in a school concert tomorrow. I'll record it soon.

Glasslove - I'm so glad you are continuing with Lilla! I use it as my warm up and my concluding piece for most of my sessions I am getting to play it without errors much more consistently now which is lovely (and my husband is still humming it all the time

Thumper: I'm not familiar with the Kuhlau- one of the things I love about this forum is being educated on so much new material!!!. Yesterday I bought the booklet for Clementi Op. 36, which contains 6 Sonatine. I'm working on the first, but all of them look like great fun!

Lunatic: Congrats on getting your Mozart wrapped up! and "in bocca al lupo" for your concert. (That's the Italian equivalent for "break a leg". "In the mouth of the wolf" - and the reply from the performer should be "crepi"..."he will die" )

I managed to finish my recordings for the Schumann e-cital. Hooray!!!

Time for a break and work on some new stuff.

Memorized 10 bars of Mozart K545 in a few play throughs compared to taking days with some of the rest of it. Partly it's because I'm starting to "get" the piece so the flow makes sense.

HomeInMyShoes - I hadn't realized that there WAS a Schumann e-cital! lol.... What a sense of accomplishment you must have! Now we can look forward to listening to you ! that will be a treat!

Andy Plat - now that is very exciting - seeing that your learning curve is not so steep, I'm delighted for you!

^I'm looking forward to all the recordings in the Schumann e-cital. The whole Kinderszenen is covered which is great. I think Peyton has four entries for the e-cital as well. It's nice that everyone can submit whatever and duplicates are accepted so we'll get to hear a few versions of some pieces which I always like.

I'd start on some of A Charlie Brown Christmas, but the shrubs haven't even flowered out front yet so it's definitely too early.

I'm interested in the CB Christmas too, but as you say.... it is just too darn early!

I had my piano lesson yesterday and my teacher complimented me on my memorization work

I also played 2 duets with my little buddy (Alessandro, he's six years old). We're going to perform together in a little recital in June.

Nice to find this self pat-on-the back thread. We all need talk about our personal achievements. At times our "non musical" friends, family members, etc. don't always understand when we say "I got it, finally, or it took me forever to learn....."

My achievement of the year, let alone the week, was taking part in my 2nd ever recital. Wow, what difference from last year's disaster! I played Guantanamera, Those Were the Days from Alfred's bk.2, & the primo part of a duet arrangement of Songs My Mother Taught Me by Dvorak as arranged by Chester Wallis. All in all I played well, 1 minor error in Those ....Days. The duet was fantastic, to the point that I'm looking forward to playing another one with the same partner. I was completely overwhelmed with the ovation & praise I/we received from the audience. I'm looking forward to next year's recital.

Now, if only I can get my fingers up to a nice fast speed for the Hungarian Rhapsody, then I will have achieved this week's goal.
__________________________________________________
Working on secondo part of Songs My Mother Taught Me;
Light and Blue