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Hello Paperkite. Your handle reminds me of my childhood years. Welcome to Book One

I will mark up my sheet music as I play. I often pencil in fingering or other notes to aide me (i.e. ‘right hand louder left hand softer, or shift hand position here). Most of my scores have carried some sort of commentary over time, markings other than the published material. I do that as part of learning the material, but I erase as I feel comfortable with having resolved the issue. So in the end, I am back to original published score. I eventually erase all my marks. I do try to pay particular attention to playing exactly as written and reading the staffs as I go as part of the final smooth of the piece. ‘Final’ being a temporary condition, because I most often go back and do the old pieces again.

I don’t know if that provides you any insight, Howser. But that is what I do.

One fingering in particular I found difficult. The very end of 'Lullaby' has a fingering published that I just don’t like to play that way. I marked it up as a permanent change to that measure.

At this beginning stage of my piano skills, I think I am more concerned about just getting the playing time in than I am concerned about fingering technique. That maybe short sighted on my part. But I don’t worry too much about being overly focused on fingering or on other point of technique. I just try to get from start to finish without many egregious errors. That is what I am calling success right now. I think I am getting better. Once I have command of rhythm and flow, then I can worry about polish.

I have just had my first piano lesson this year. I have played "Scarborough Fair", "Raisins and Almonds" and "He's got..." and got a pass on all of them! So, it is two songs to go - "Entertainer" and "Amazing Grace". I was told that the "Entertainer" is not bad, but I know myself it needs more work. And I do need to work much more on "Amazing Grace" as I only played it probably less than 5 times.

Need to start practising for the exam now if I want to make it as well!

Nice work gintarec! That's a great accomplishment.

I have my first lesson in 2 days. I have spent the past week going over and over each piece from Jingle Bells to Standing In The Need Of Prayer. Some are good, some not so good. I am both excited to be starting lessons and nervous as heck because I don't know what to expect. I would like to think he might start out somewhere around Standing but since I can't do all the prior songs to my satisfaction I figure he'll pick somewhere farther back in the book. Hopefully not too far back. I am comfortable with all of the theory and concepts presented so far but the execution is lacking.

For those of you taking lessons, are you expected to just jump in and start a piece with both hands when you are playing for your teacher or do you get a chance to warm up to it? I find I can do much better if I can run through it at least once hands separate (just melody hand).

My teacher wants me to play as written without preamble. It is maybe a little brutal. I have never performed as well in session as I have acheived at home. But that is part of te training. The teacher is not brutal with me when I make mistakes. She encourages me to continue and get to the end. But she does not consider instructional time to be practise time. Not a lot of room for do overs. Fortunately she is lenient in passing me much of the time. Her goal is not perfection. She seems to know if I am getting it, learning appropraitely. On the other hand - she won't pass me on just anything. I have to do more than just show up. I have failed to pass in session things that I felt really good about at home.

I had a few goes this time at my songs - but that is because I restart the song if I make any tiny mistake. It has to be all perfect for me. My teacher is fine with that. It annoys me, as I can play them fine at home first time, but as soon as I am at my teacher's piano all goes wrong. I blame it on different piano...

gintarec, I suspect you are maybe your own most harsh critic. I know when I play for myself, I am really tough on getting it right. But when I listen to others, I am ever so forgibving and encouraging. I think you may be the same way. The teacher student relationship is a wonderful thing. I am sure each one works a little differently. My teacher gives me just the kind of motivation and guidance that I need.

Ha, ha. I blame the teachers piano (and bench) too. I say that only half joking. I do feel a little stange playing on the somewhat alien teacher's piano.

Good Job! Keep working hard. They aren't that bad.

My new teacher is much more a stickler for perfection than my last -but not insanely so. I don't get "warm up" time, either; we jump right in (and like you I play it much better at home) but we do usually go back over the piece as she's got more to tell me ("this time play it LOUD. Now play the first note in the base cleff of every measure LOUD and the others soft. Now play the melody loud and the accompaniment soft. Now play these two cords -one soft and one loud by sliding your hands this way" etc.). She loves to work on "musicality", timing and flow. She takes one song and gets *everything* out of it. So somewhere in the lesson I am playing it pretty well.

My old piano teacher told me that he factors about 30% more mistakes are made when playing in front of him than when the person is at home, relaxed. So, he judges what he hears "on a curve". Probably all piano teachers are aware of this phenomenon?

Ok, I managed to upload my song from my piano to computer!!!! It was the first day I went to the office and brought my USB key home, so could try out.

This is my "Raisins and Almonds", done before Christmas. Will try and do some more, so I can send to my parents as well!

Raisins and Almonds

Bravo! Your parents will be very happy and proud of you.

Thank you! I am pretty excited about my first recording and want to share it with everyone! (However rubbish it sounds!)

I’m still listening to it. Not rubbish, not at all in my book. Who thought we can do this a few months ago right. You can definitely make it more musical smoothing out a few phrases and pedaling. I’m sure it has gotten better since Christmas. I like it.

I think it sounds great too! I can feel emotion in it which is what we are striving for.

I am happy to report that I had my first lesson today and it went much better than I expected. He had me play several pieces from my book where I told him I was currently working and one I was having trouble with. I thought I would totally flub them in front of him but I actually surprised myself and played them quite well. I also thought I would have trouble going from my digital to his acoustic but I was quite comfortable on his piano. He says I am doing fine and there is no need to go back so onward I go to Lavendar's Blue and Kum-Ba-Yah. I was also working on Love Me Tender in the Greatest Hits book and he wants me to be prepared to play that for him next week. I told him I don't like counting, especially out loud and he suggested we work a little harder on that. He said my rhythm was good in spite of my resistance to counting. We went through Lavendar's Blue together for the first time and it went well.

His philosophy is that learning to play should be fun and that I should learn the things I want to play so he and I think alike and I think I have found a good match. I am already looking forward to next week. I have started out with a 30 minute lesson but I can tell already that I may want to bump it up to 45 minutes.

DougF, I'm also at Lavendar's Blue and Kum-Ba-Yah. Hope to put some real effort into them tomorrow.

Glad your lesson went well!

So, about a year ago I got this book and a nice digital piano.. Got a little bit into the book to where you learn the g position. It was making me mad trying to remember those notes and fingering too as it seemed we just started with the c position stuff and ended up giving up.. But I'm back and I actually wanna get done with book #1 already and get going onto some real stuff.

I need to find a better way to record or at least to transfer/convert my recordings. I can record midi on my piano, which I download and then use online converter to convert it to mp3. However, my latest attempt (Scarborough Fair) sound nothing like it does when I play on the piano, to the point that the piano doesn't really sound much like piano and it sounds like I am not really using the pedal. Well, at least to me...

Scarborough Fair

Maybe this will help?: How to Record piano

AW2PP (a former book 1 student) has a link to it on his blog, which is where I saw it. It gave me some useful tips.

Thank you - I saw this before, but was reluctant to download any more software to my computer (it is work laptop...). But decided I have to. And the difference is incredible. Compare for yourself:

Scarborough Fair
Raisins & Almonds

I was using the recommended online converter, but no installed SynthFont and it sounds much better. At least to my ears.

That is a huge difference, and nice job on the performance too!