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Jim, my apologies for not seeing this earlier. I agree with you that 'listening' is not so simple it sounds. Sometimes I am not hearing music when I thought I was intently listeing to it.

Sam, good for you. It takes a lot of courage. Don't you feel becoming stronger and better after the performance.

CAS, I am really happy for you. Sounds like you made tremendous progress!

No particular ATOW. I will try to record something this weekend. I had to clean my piano and the rest of the house last week. BIG MINUS is that my teacher is making me do another Christmas music this year... She said she specially selected at the music teacher's convention. She thought my name was written all over on it.. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! Okay, folks, I have nothing against Christmas. In fact, I am Catholic. When I was a kid, I was a proud camel in the nativity play for 3 consecutive years:) I just don't have time to do not-so-easy Christmas music. If you recall, she made me play a christmas song way into February last year (sigh)..

FarmGirl,
I did feel almost like a different person after performing. I find my concentration vastly improved now, even when I play in front of other people.
As for you, how can your teacher "make you" do a song? Why don't you tell your teacher you want to do something different this year?

I have a goal to learn 5 Christmas songs (hopefully by Thanksgiving!) I have learned 3 so far and have identified the 4th. The pieces are from Big Time Piano Christmas Faber & Faber Level 4. I am working on The First Noel, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Carol of the Bells, and O Holy Night. I haven't chosen my 5th piece yet.....I am leaning towards WInter Wonderland or Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.

The First Noel.

That was absolutely lovely Michael. Thank you for sharing it. I have that same collection and I am working on three of the same pieces you are (Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, O Holy Night, Carol of the Bells).

Very nice playing, Michael. Well done!

Arggh. NOOOOOO!



Maybe you could work really slowly on this one, and have it finished for Christmas 2012. That way she won't assign you another one next November.

Eglantine - Your Bach is probably way better than you think. Maybe you could skip the recital and post it in the pianobar?

Cheryl - Sounds like things are really coming together. I often feel like our teachers have so much they could tell us but they hold back waiting for the right moment when we are truly ready to hear something. You must encounter this in your teaching, where you have to focus on a sequence of tasks/skills, and jumping ahead would just confuse or demoralize the student. It must be difficult to sort out when someone is ready for a "next revelation."

Bessel - Just this week I had a discussion with my teacher about "finishing" pieces, something that I don't think I do very often. She said, referring to the first exposition of the Sarabande I was working on, "you could work another two or three weeks and bring it to a higher level, but it is 90% of the way there now. At this level those three weeks are better used working on something new. A year from now your technique will have improved to the point where if you picked this piece up again it would probably be trivial to bring it to performance level, so why waste the time now?" I know teachers will differ on this point, but I certainly see where she is coming from.

Farmgirl - maybe her choice this year won't be as complicated or long as last year's. In any event, if you choose to learn it you could always tell her that this year its "JAN. ONE, AND DONE." I'm going to revive last year's "Christmas Time is Here" by Vince Guaraldi because I like playing it so much, plus learn one more out of the same book "The Christmas Song" (a really jazzy Chestnuts Roasting....)

No real AOTW. We put the first iteration of Sarabande on the done pile. Working on HT for the second variation as well as the Scarlatti. SOW is Ab major. I am having inklings of the kind of hand independence I've dreamed of. Not there yet, but I'm beginning to think all this Baroque literature is having the desired effect. I can hear and feel both melodies as I am playing now, and playing a detached left hand counterpoint against a legato right hand seems quite natural. As Cheryl says, baby steps.

That's exactly how I'm feeling about it... and I believe - without having explicitly discussed it - that this is my teacher's opinion too, since he is moving me on to new pieces rather than polishing.

But now I have an AOTW - I got a take recorded that was good enough (for me) to submit to the recital, so I've done that. I may continue to try to get a better one in the next few days, but I hit the road for a long trip next week and so there's not many chances left...

Sam - my teacher is a very nice sixty years old lady. She loves christmas so much that I don't have heart to tell her that I hate to learn hard songs... after all, it's christmas! This is the only short coming she has as a teacher.

Marybee / Jim F - I like your idea to postpone the completion of the song till 2012 Christmas.

Michael - I enjoyed the noel and had to run to safeway to purchase eggnoc after I heard that.

During the christmas, I don't know anything better than eating cakes, enjoy playing and singing along some "easy" christmas songs - I already have 3 books:)

Hi Jim - you raise some wonderful points here. In fact my teacher often prefaces feedback with ok...I think you're ready to ...... so that I know whatever she is about to tell me has been on her mind for a while, but I wasn't ready for it until that moment!
And you are right - it doesn't matter what you are teaching - you can't correct everything at once - you have to correct a bit at a time, and especially with beginners, you have to do a bit of spoon feeding.

My teacher hasn't explicitly said what yours has about perfecting pieces, but that philosophy is there. I really liked seeing it expressed so clearly.

As for having the hand independence that you've been dreaming of... even if it is just the first inklings - that is a really exciting baby step. You're going to be running soon Jim!!!


Michael - loved your First Noel
Bessel - congrats on your recording for the recital
FarmGirl - enjoy that eggnog and good luck "managing" your teacher and your Christmas piece.

Farmgirl, my teacher pulled out a bunch of easy Christmas songs and I just didn't like the simple sound of them. I'm working on a difficult Christmas piece without her knowing. Next year I intend to pull it out and play it for the recital. She didn't want me to spend a lot of time on a difficult seasonal piece even though it's what I wanted. I've decided I'm not doing any other Christmas music next year. (We started Christmas song in JULY!) I'm starting to get pretty temperamental on the pieces I play.

Michael Taylor, Good job on First Noel. Very clean sounding and nice even tempo.

JimF, I call myself the "First Page Wonder". I can play the first page of a lot of songs. LOL I get so bored "finishing" a piece, and frankly I'm ready to dump some of the one's I've been working on. I've fallen out of love with them. There are many that I've finished and play all the time, but that's because I really like them. Sometimes I just find that I don't like something after I've spent time learning it. My teacher likes for me to finish every piece. Sometimes I buck the system and just tell her I'm finished with it.

My time is limited and I don't want to waste it on a piece I don't care much for. I have one composer that I love and have finished 4 of his pieces. I work like a dog on them to the point where I nearly neglect the work my teacher give me.

ANYWAY, I'm excited about getting a new piece from my teacher this week. I'm also very excited as I picked another new piece by David Nevue. I'm also ready to tell my teacher I'm finished with Fur Elise. I can play the entire piece, but I can't get the fast section up to speed. I'm sick of it and don't feel like working on it anymore.

My teacher asked me if I wanted to do Christmas songs and I emphatically said No.

I can learn Christmas and Advent hymns on my own if I want to, but I don't need the takeover of everything Christmas starting Nov. 1 to invade my piano lessons too.

As far as achievement of the week: getting more comfortable with chord inversions in most minor keys. I'm practicing all keys, but I'm more comfortable with some than with others.

On the music, but not piano, related front: I just sung the Duruflé Requiem with our church choir and imported string & organ ensemble today. It's such a beautiful piece that I've grown to really love over the last couple of month's rehearsals. We'll do it again next year which will be good.

If you want to listen to a couple of movements (this isn't our choir!!): Introit and Kyrie

Piano-wise, my teacher just added movements 2 & 3 of Clementi Sonatina #4 to our adult recital in a couple of weeks time (I was already preparing Debussy's Arabesque #1). Another of her students (who's not actually an adult but is a high school senior) is learning the same Clementi Sonatina. She's going to play movement #1, we'll both play the second movement (and we'll all discuss our different interpretations - joy) and I'll play the third. Should be fun.

And no Christmas music for me. Our studio encourages it for the kids but I think my teacher would be shocked if I wanted to play any and would say she couldn't really help me. But I have dug out my own book and played through a couple of pieces very slowly. In previous years I have just taken melody and guitar chords and gone from there. Now I'm trying to play it from the piano score. It goes much slower but it often sounds better.

I have the tempo nailed for Hark The Herald Angels Sing. 3 more Christmas songs to go!

Gracie cat, that's interesting. We should swich our Christmas pieces (LOL).

For everyone who advised me - I finally wised up and made up my mind to tell my teacher "no mas!", no Christmas music for me this year. I have tons of christmas music from very easy to sort of difficult. I hate to disappoint her but I have too many music working on right now. Beethoven's Pathetique 2nd movement (soon to be done :), Rach Op 23 #5 and Mozart D major sonata for 4 hands. I'm also doing duet of the Cats from the musical - this one is easy.

My AoTW is that my teacher told me that I should be able to finish the Beethoven piece next week. Yay! I was going to finish the 3rd movement since I studied 1st and 2nd but I am feeling differently now. I know someone from the PC will kick my butt if I say this but I feel like I got so much Beethoven this year. I will pick it up later. I just like to do something else. Fortunately my next piece (Chopin Ballard #1) will keep me busy pretty much of the next year anyway. Rach piece is close to finish as well. After I finish Rach piece, I will do a Bach piece which I have not done over 3 or 4 years. I personally like to do English suite #2. I miss it.

My non-achievement is failute to record the Beethoven piece for the recital this weekend. My husband and dogs kept interupting me. He promised that he would get out of the house next weekend. I will see...

Hooray for standing up for yourself and playing what you like!

Did you mean Chopin Ballade #1? (you wrote Ballard)
If so, I LOVE that piece. It was one of the first pieces I started working on when I learned to play last year. I memorized half of it but then went on to other pieces. I just printed out the sheet music for it and hopefully I'll polish up what I've got and then start learning the rest of the piece, but there's so much music to learn and my hands can only do so much practice every day. Good luck learning the piece!!

Sam,it's Ballade #1. I have a habit of spelling like this. Thanks for letting me know. It was your first piece of piano - Wow! You must be very talented and familiar with classical music! 10 years ago, I did not even know Ballade existed. Good for you.

@micheal loved the christmas song.


So i wanted to give a guys a little update on my practice. I am working on 2 pieces right now. Clementi op 36 1 and it will be really hard for me to play at tempo and it will take time.

I am also working on my second bach minuet( g minor) and i love it.


So after a little more than a month of piano i can definitely see that beeing 35 make things a lot harder than when you are kid. I need to practice a lot more. I also need to work on my sight reading badly. I think i will do that every day.