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Zoe, just saw the photos of your new piano in another thread. How exciting! (I'm jealous!)

Today's greatest achievement went hand in hand with my greatest failure:

Achievement: Inspired by, ironically, a thread I started on piano transcriptions, I took eleven hours to put to "paper" (Finale) a transcription that I used to play a few years ago.

Failure: When I hit "save" the program crashed and I lost all of it.

New Achievement: Not breaking anything in the apartment (namely, my laptop) for the epic fail.

Being able to slowly but surely read through the piano accompaniment of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suit makes me feel good inside. I have been doing this today.

I was going through one of the pieces at by the end there was this section with sort of big intervals and both hands playing in unison and at one point I got into a weird state of super concentration just for a few bars and could speed up a bit and play with no errors and play as if I practiced it and that felt amazing

That's only a failure if you walk away from the job.

A friend is a script-writer. He called in a panic. "I've lost a day's work!" It transpired that there wasn't any chance of retrieving the file (but in your case, didn't you hit "Save" a few times during an 11-hour job? Doesn't Finale create automatic backups?).

The point was, he HADN'T lost a day's work. He'd still done the REAL work, all he had to do was type it it out again.

While your transcription is still fresh in your mind, take an hour to write it out again.

Zoe I saw your beautiful piano. Happy for you

Thank you for the encouragement. I'm sure I'll eventually sit down and write it out again.. I added a few frills that were not in the version I last played, but other than that, I can figure it out in my fingers and then write it down again. I was just frustrated that the time turned out to be "wasted" because the product was lost.. if anything, it may inspire me to re-learn the piece. So, perhaps that will be a new post sometime soon..

I actually knew a moody fellow who once upon a time did indeed throw his laptop out the window of his apartment, when it had eaten work he'd been doing for his band. It was apparently very cathartic.

But then, of course, he had no laptop on which to do work for his band. Oops.

Unfortunately, I cannot afford that kind of catharsis!

Thanks Becca! Actually the excitement is the same when it's anything musical! And the excitement never goes away! You will see! I got a used digital for night practice earlier this year and I was excited! I got a small xylophone to take camping and I was excited. And years back I got a small keyboard for the kids and I was excited! I even get excited with new music! Yes. I think I am musically addicted! We currently have 3 pianos, 1 keyboard and the xylophone in the house! Yikes! But we are trying to sell the upright acoustic. Everything else stays!

Thanks MaryAnn, Marybee, and Farmgirl!!

I stopped practice short because i have some more work to do. I have been able to play slowly the prelude part of the f minor WTC Book II p&F. My teacher told me to put the trills in. So I am kinda proud of myself being able to do that. I have to read at least first page of the fugue tomorrow. My husband who hates the piano practice sound likes the piece because it's mellow. I'm smiling.. Ignorance is a bliss, he has no idea what's to come next. I will have fun playing the fugue. Yes, it will drive my husband crazy (LOL). If there is anything that I can get my frustration out, this is the piece. I am still brushing up Rach 23-5. My new teacher taught me easier fingering and technique how to play the difficult passage - no pain any more!! It's amazing. it appears that I was lacking in technique not the size of my hand. She is having me do some more technique, which is very good for me. The book we are going to use is called Phillip's exercises for the independence of the fingers. It's fun.

I will study Bach P&F with her for now. I am planning to study Brahms intermezzo op 118 no 2 with my girl friend (my first piano teacher in the US) using Skype. My piano world friend Bob helped me. Bob and I became real world friend:) I have not completely figured out skype yet but it's promising. In this way, I have an option to join her master class. I don't have Chopin Ballade #1 on my plate any more (phew). Both my new teacher and friend thought it was way above me at this point. My friend said "It's going to take you a whole year or more". I don't want to spend a whole year plus on a piece. I've done it with the Rach piece and I did not enjoy it. I like lessons with my new teacher. She is completely focused on the lesson and would not talk about anything else.

Derulux! How terribly frustrating. I think we've all had similar experiences with losing work, and can relate to how you feel. I hope you can either recover the file or else that a new input session goes much faster, and saves properly!

Teodor, I love Pier Gynt! What a great experience you had. I suspect this is an indication of the great progress you are making!

FarmGirl, your excitement with your new teacher(s) is shining brightly like a star! I am very very happy for you! I know how you struggled with the Rach: how wonderful that it is now becoming so much easier to manage.
I like the approach you and your teacher(s) are taking with your new music too. I think this is going to be a wonderful music year for you (I hope your husband doesn't lose his mind!).

My AOTW hasn't quite appeared yet. I transcribed "Danny Boy" to a different key so that I could (try to) sing along with it.... I'll see how that goes.
I'm going through my music collection trying to decide what I want to work on next.
I'm also trying to decide when to call my teacher and what to say to her. I'm not prepared to have another year like last year. Our lesson "swap" (English lessons for piano lessons) isn't working out - she isn't doing her English, and I get my piano, but with the problem that she often cancels my lessons.
It is hard to complain as we are meant to be swapping and in effect I've been getting free lessons, but I don't want "free" lessons, I want to swap,and I want proper stability in my studies.

I think she is a wonderful teacher, and a lovely person, but I have to discuss the problems with her before we even think of starting up again this "school" year.

I think so too although certain parts just puzzle me and I need my teacher to explain. I will just mark them and when I return to school in a month I will ask.

The truth is there is a very special cellist out there that I want to be able to play with next year. So I have to push myself more.

Well, best wishes for success Teodor!

Today I was pleased: I pulled out my Dan Coates Top 50 Jazz Standards, and I was really pleasantly surprised at how much more approachable I found the pieces compared to a few months ago.

very excited, got to chose a piece last week and new teacher also selected one. First time we're are doing pieces.

Whew just when I was beginning to think it would never happen

This week she's very excited because although the piece I selected was a simplified Marche Slave - Tchaikovsky. Her eyes were sparkling. She says this is her specialty and there is a great deal she can show me with this piece.
It's in it's raw state now but she says she can work with this.

It's safe to say that both of us are excited about this piece. I'm so glad I broke down and got a teacher, this teacher in particular. My only concern is her lack of English which sometimes leads to confusion.

For those who asked to hear about my viola adventures.
I got a grip on my bow hold yahoo!!!
I read something someplace and it made such sense every fell into to place. Teacher forgot to tell me something last week about string crossing which when added into the mix smoothed things out considerably [creates legato].

I often feel my self thinking about and seeing the viola late at night when it is too late to subject my neighbours to my practicing. I actually ache to pick it up... so... I have taken to visualizing my self in front of the mirror working on my bowing when I'm drifting off to sleep.

I feel like I'm getting somewhere and going there tooAll in All a good week

Well I've now owned my Roland for one week. It's been rough. LOL I felt like I had to relearn everything all over again. So I've been focusing on finger placement as the board feels so alien. I'm starting to get a feel for where my fingers go and just starting to get some pp or mf out of it instead of one loud sound. So I'm quite happy with that. I realized that the keys feel very smooth compared to the 100 year old accoustic and that was the problem! The accoustic has grooves from being played for many years and was easy to learn the board. Go to a new board and I was lost. I think this will improve my playing a lot.

I'm also slowly making progress with the Alfred's. I'm finding more and more wrong actually. I'm too tense, I'm tucking in my elbows, I'm not breathing relaxed, my dynamics are horrid, my timing off.. I'm hoping this a good sign that I'm noticing so much off to correct.

That was my week. Keep playing!

Hi everyone. I will be heading out to vacation tomorrow. I did not want to go anywhere and would rather like to play the piano at home. But, ironically, I won a seven day trip to Lake Tahoe. I went to my church's Italian dinner and won the trip through ... what do you call those ticket thingy.. ruffle tickets? Anyway, we won the trip. I thought "oh, sxxt! Why me!" So no piano for the whole week. I might have to go to hike or do something up there.

I had a lesson yesterday. My teacher wanted me to start Chopin Etude Op 10 #3. I told her, "oh, but I am starting on Brahms intermezzo op 118 no 2". Then she said, "that's nice too. It's actually a little bit easier. She then started playing. It was so beautiful. It brought tears in my eyes. She is amazing. She just sight read the music I brought with me since I did not give her any pre warning. It was like a complete performance. She told me to think about how many sections the piece can be divided into and what is the form. Also pay attention to motives. Embarrassingly I did not know what the motive is. Google it if you don't know it as well. She also asked me to point out a couple of interesting chords. Then.. she told me to play it. I was like, "I have not played it before, I am not sure if I can". She said "Try it". Anyway I wound up sight reading the Brahms cold for the first two pages. I made a few mistakes and played it very slow but surprisingly I was somehow able to pick up the notes. Then she changed the fingering and told me to try it with the new fingering.. Everything happens very fast with her. I could tell she is used to "music majors" who transfers to Piano performance in local university. She assigned me 3 Phillip's Book one exercises in addition to Brahms and Bach f minor P&F Book II. I was going to learn the Brahms piece from my girl friend via Skype but decided to use the opportunity as more like a piano clinic. It may be a better use of her time and my time since I don't have the benefit of seeing her regularly.

After the lesson I was totally exhausted. I never felt like this before. My old teacher probably talked 20 min of my truncated 1 hour lesson. Almost every week the lesson before mine went over and reduced my time to 50 min or 45 min. The student who came before my lesson was trying to get into a music school. But It's not my goal and I really did not enjoy paying for his lessons. So, it's so refreshing. I am amazed at finding out what one whole hour lesson feels like.

I bought this over the Summer and have also been pleasantly surprised at how I can sightread (well, read now that I've played them more than once) all of the slower ones pretty well. Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Danny Boy are just so wonderful.

I'm missing my piano - returning home tomorrow after two weeks vacation (will update MOYD).

Zoe, Becca, congratulations on the new gear, that new grand piano is especially beautiful.

CasinItaly, I am in a similar boat looking for a new cover piece to work on. I am thinking I may learn some Christmas music.

Thanks to everyone else reporting their progress, even if there is frustration in some of the reports.

My Week 25: I spent some time with the sustain pedal. I bought the pedal with the rest of the Yamaha NP11 kit. However, until this week, I had spent very little time with it. I watched a basic YouTube video that outlined a basic technique of pushing the sustain pedal on beat one, and then releasing on beat four. I upload a new version of my original piece Simply Beautiful using the pedal. The echo and glissando sound very different with the power of the pedal. I bought a splitter so I can hear what I am recording when using line in to the voice recorder. I run two patch cables from the splitter, one to the recorder, one to satellite speakers. The splitter also seems to have helped with the grounding loop problem with one set of speakers, though not with the other.
link to Simply Beautiful in C major:
https://www.box.com/s/mhs07b1a2pszotpuzr3z

Last week I mentioned two new pieces. I recorded them and updated my signature blog (my_piano_uploads). Both new tunes are inspired by lyrics written by others.
link to Secret Rendezvous in E major:
https://www.box.com/s/q1vg8yetgsvynyb2jkmq

link to Lucky Penny in D major:
https://www.box.com/s/fvhoxutgbbqo0fqt3zq8
Lucky Penny lyrics (the author calls it Only the Lucky Few) are at:
http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/songs/15122

I took a day off from practice on Friday to rest my hands because I over did practice. I continue to wear fingerless gloves, limit practice time to about an hour a day, and soak my hands in warm water, to help with hand discomfort. I borrowed three books from the local library:
1) Written in My Soul, Bill Flanagan
2) This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin
3) The Pop Piano Book, Mark Harrison

I think my favorite will be the first which is mostly interviews with Rock and Roll songwriters and performing artists. Your Brain on Music is a bit too technical for me so I am skimming it. The Pop Piano book is full of sheet music examples from various genres, and may be beyond my skills to get much out of.

John in Montreal's recent thread about wanting to quit piano, had me thinking that this week I did very little. Then I wrote out all the above. Especially when I record, the feeling of inadequacy is worse because recording seems to emphasize my problems and mistakes. The raw recordings don't lie, and when I listen back, I hear stuff I don't notice while I am playing. I will admit to editing out some pauses in the recent uploads.

This was a response to my very first post on the ABF last year in November. It's taken me awhile, but I am totally hooked on Mignon now. I'm beginning to wonder if the only cure to my Schumann addiction is to learn to play every piece I like! I've built up a list that progresses quite nicely. I'll see how my teacher feels about slipping this in after Erster Verlust (which I've made NO progress on, btw, so nothing really to report here)