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Where’s Undone?

He’s gone on vacation, but will be back in about a week.

Undone.

A Classy Rag:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTzEgYFk8PQ

This one took me a while. Let me know what you think!

Waltz

Undone - You're welcome - I thought it might be helpful & useful.

Sorry it took me so long to respond - my wife and I were on vacation for most of the last two weeks in big, beautiful Maine, slowly driving along the coast from one harbor town to another, and ending in the resort of Bar Harbor on Mt. Desert Island (along with Acadia National Park) - an amazingly gorgeous trip!

Didn't touch a piano once on the trip and strangely didn't miss it - I used to worry about being away from it, but I've learned during previous vacations that you don't lose much at all in terms of skill and technique (such as they are) and that after a day or two of "getting the rust off" you are pretty much back to where you were.

Waltz - real good job on "Classy" & thanks for you kind comments on my version in the September Piano Bar.

JF

Edited to add that I'll be picking up where I left off - in the middle of "Blue Rondo", a somewhat interesting piece...

Thanks JF!!!

Sounds like you had a nice vacation, glad to hear it

JF, I was in Maine for about three weeks as well, didn't practice, but suffered greatly for it when I got back. After about a week back, I'm finally getting into it again. My mental and muscle memories are just not what they used to be. But the funny thing is, today my teacher and I started working some stride piano into the ballads I'm playing and I found that the stride piano I had learned as a teenager was still in the system. The mind is amazing.

JF, I'm glad you enjoyed your trip to Maine. It is a beautiful place and the people are so real and so friendly. It's nice to have you back.

Bob

Bob - good to hear from you again, and hopefully we'll have the pleasure of your company more often in the future!

Just to go a little bit more OT, Maine is a beautiful place and the people are great - we started our driving trip at Kittery at the southern end and ended it at Bar Harbor a couple of hundred miles to the north, but actually went about 3 times as far because we drove down all the peninsulas that jut out into the ocean along the coast, visting Ogunquit, Kennebunkport, Cape Elizabeth, Portland, Freeport, Brunswick, Bath, Boothbay Harbor, Pemaquid Point, Port Clyde, Stonington, Rockland, Camden, Belfast, Searsport, Castine and Ellsworth (among others) - it's awesome country! But there's much more to it - the regions to the east, north and the mountain/lake region to the west (which we'll see on our next trip up that way from PA).

JF

Anyone got a recording of Star Spangled Banner? Not growing up in the US means this one is for sure kicking my ass

Thanks
SC

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Oh Lord! Is that really a piece we have to learn in A3? I tried a google search but I couldn't find an Alfred's version of it. Here is a random piano version on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET2lFcDy1f4

Don't know if that's helpful though.
I did not know you weren't born in America. Where were you born?

Thanks Waltz,

That helps a little. I was born & raised in Oxford England. I moved here in 2000 with my wife (who's American) after our wedding in an old coach house..

I had a good lesson, I've got the basics of it down now, just need to polish it up so I'll be on it for another week. Then it'll be back to the Prelude in C

How's it going with you?

SC

I'm all right I guess. My teacher has me doing a lot of pieces and other things, so I'm kind of diluted. For example, I haven't exactly finished with the first movement of Clementi's Sonatina 36/1 and she already has me working on the second movement. In Alfred's, ironically, I'm working on Clementi's Prelude in D (which is pretty). I am also doing a Bach Minuet, and this really simplistic, but kind of annoying, Haydn piece. I'm having fun though, so things are fine. I had no idea you were from England! I had once considered doing my post graduate medical training there, but the process is very convoluted and involved. I still have an interest in moving there for some period of time, some day (perhaps never, but I can always hope). California is very, very far from England, I'm sure that's been tough, being so far away. Yet, I have always felt it to be brave and admirable to take on changes with a sense of adventure and possibility.

Glad to see you're keeping busy. I also wonder what's happened to PianoAlex, we've overtaken him now (videos that is). Yeah moving here was great and it's fun but I do sometimes (often) very much miss part of England.

I could think of nothing better to do (for example) on Sunday then spend some time with family & friends at the local carvery eating a big Sunday type lunch. then just chill on the lawn (grass) of the establishment until it was time to head back to the village

SC

I have been really impressed with some of the pieces here from Book Three. I really underestimated the Alfred Books after buying Book 1. However, since its my birthday on Wednesday I asked my wonderful wife to buy me Books Two and Three. Can't wait to get into 'A Classy Rag' and 'Shenandoah'.

There is a lot of good stuff in the back part of #2 and some great stuff in #3. #1 was more of just an introduction, basics and some good ground level theory etc.. Glad you're enjoying them mate

Welcome. I think the first few pieces aren't so great, but they're kind of easy as well. Fandango is nice. But, starting with Haydn's Serenade, things are really taken up a notch in both piece qaulity and challenge. Be sure to post your thoughts and progress here, as well as recordings if you wish

I’m back. It sounds like “up north” has been the vacation spot of choice. I wasn’t in Maine, but Vermont is close enough.

Waltz – Great job on “A Classy Rag”!

Undone

Undone - welcome back! How did you like Vermont? My wife & I toured there a couple of years ago and really liked it a lot.

What are you currently working on?

I just finished "Blue Rondo" (a somewhat interesting piece) and just started "Shenandoah" (the beautiful, old folk tune).

I've just decided that I'm not going to work my way thru Book 3 piece by piece (as I did with 1 & 2) - instead I'm only going to do the more interesting & challenging pieces (including several in the "Ambitious Section") - this is primarily because I'm working in several other sources and the pieces in these are for the most part more musically demanding and satisfying - this was my ultimate goal anyway, but I'll just be moving there sooner than planned - the "extra" stuff I'm working on includes Classical, New Age and standards from the Great American Songbook, and it's incresingly pulling me in that direction (not to mention requiring more practice time).

But I'll still be here for some time to come - so fear not (unless that's what you were afraid of ).

JF

Thanks Undone . Glad you had a nice vacation. I bet Vermont is beautiful this time of year.

Vermont was exactly what we were looking for in the way of a vacation spot just now: peaceful, quite, and serene. The foliage was changing but about a week or two away from peak.

Now that I’m back, I’m close to finishing up with Bach’s Prelude in C Major (still need to make copies of the music so I can avoid the page turn), and “Swan Lake”. Two great pieces.

JF - It seems a lot of people are slowly (or not so slowly) drawn to other sources once they hit book three, and it’s certainly true that “there’s just so much practice time in the day”. I wish you well on your move to “all Nevue all the time”.

Undone

My next Nevue piece will be my first Nevue piece! I actually enjoy far too many types of music (and composers) to ever be bogged-down with any "all fill-in-the-blank all the time" schedule of pieces (Nevue or otherwise)

Glad to hear you like "Swan Lake" too - one of my favorites in Book 3 so far. I looked ahead in 3 and tentatively could see maybe 6 or 7 more pieces in the regular section I might want to work on yet - and maybe 2 or 3 in the Ambitious Section.

JF

I finally gave myself the pass on Prelude in D Minor today. I liked the piece very much, being classical and somewhat dark, but I also had certain frustrations with it:

You are doing very similar motions with both the LH and the RH throughout the entire piece but playing different chords with slightly different intervals. This makes it very difficult to have proper "muscle memory", at least for me. The score is difficult in giving the player "quick reminders", because it looks nearly the same throughout (albeit with different chords etc.). Well, then, our old pal sight reading may have use! But, the piece circumvents that by having the RH playing many of the chords deep in the lower ledger lines, with which I am unfamiliar.

I feel the piece wasn't that difficult but for these reasons it took quit a while for me to really "pass" it and it added quite a bit of frustration.