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I love that prelude, look forward to listening to it!

My ATOW is that I can now play through the 2nd movement of Pathetique. I have not memorized yet but kinda happy how it turned out. It's only 4 pages and I copied and taped all four pages together so that I don't need to turn pages. I am hoping my teacher make me not memorize this one... I would rather like to move on to the 3rd movement and finish the sonata (to the best of my ability). Anyway, I am happy I will have something to record for the next recital:)

My Rach piece (sigh) is another story. I can play through it BUT there are so much more work to be done. I don't like the way it sounds right now. I realize it's sort of like an orchestra piece. I have to bring out multiple voices. The more I try to bring out the melodies, the louder the entire passage become. I am frustrated but my teacher is calm and saying, "it's okay, we can work on the volume later and let's work on one thing at a time". She says I am really close.. I wonder if she is just saying. I don't feel close.

Anyway, my teacher and I have discussed the next piece after the Rach prelude 23-5. She thinks I could do Chopin Ballard 1 or one of the etude if I want to. I told her that I love the piece but it's a couple of steps above my level. She knows I like Chopin and she believes it's good to try something above one's level once in a while. I had my husband listen to both Etude #1 and Ballard 1. I told him to pick a piece knowing that he might have to listen to the same piece repeatedly for a year. He picked Ballard. Told me no way he could listen to the Etude practice for a year. So I will do Ballard since I like both. Well, I would say I like the Ballard better - it was in the movie "Pianist" as well.

Did you mean Chopin's Ballade No. 1? I wouldn't even dare approach that work at my level now, but I'm happy to hear that your teacher thinks you're ready. Have fun!

Lain, yeah, thats the piece. As you know, it is at least a couple of grades above my level. That's why I told her "please tell me that I am not ready for the piece. my feeling won't be hurt. let's do it in a couple of years". She said that sometimes it does a world of good for a student to try a piece they like even if it's above their current levels. In fact, she does not think it's a good idea to always teach pieces only within your reach. She said that she spoke at a teacher's convention before and she could see 50% of the teachers were not in agreement with her. But another half, especially young and "capable" ones, did agree with her. Mind you, I am not trying to open up a huge discussion here but she also said that t is often those teachers who never played those pieces who won't teach the students those high caliber pieces. I know she is crazy but something what she said made sense to me. So I agreed to do it. I could pick one of the four ballards. I just like the first one. I will see which one she picks. I am not sure if we are going to do all the movements (donno what to call them) or one. I hope it's one.

She just taught the piece to a couple of highschoolers for their Piano performance auditions for Universities. They both were accepted. I am thinking that's why she wants to teach me the piece. My ambition is to try a music school at or close to my retirement to pursue performance degree. I already have masters degree in other area but studying music is something I dream of for years. I cannot do this now because I am the major bread winner in my household. I have a while to go until my retirement but I think she wants to start preparing the future audition pieces from now. If I try these pieces early on, it will be easier to brush them up later when i am much more ready. She is old (61) and might be thinking to get me ready before she retires.

I am as curious as you are as to how she is going to teach the piece to me. Both students were talented but not genius. She routinely sends students to conservatories and piano performance majors all over the country. Last year, one of the students entered the school started the piano at age 14! I was amazed. She is great. She can play all those pieces she teach. I am lucky to be in her neighborhood and lucky to be able to go there during the lunch time otherwise I could have not taken the lessons. Once the lesson started, I will let you know how she is teaching me, not-so-great-material.

The Madien's Prayer~ Last week I was having hard time to play those arpeggios and trills nicely. The arpeggios did not play as a phrase, just like some broken notes link together, However,when I played the piece on the lesson, my teacher told me to pay attention on some details area. Now I can play a lot of better now. Another happiness is I can memorize a part of piece now, hooray

Jim & Casinitaly~ Yes, this is a beautiful piece. Glad that you like it

Farm Girl it seems you are working really well with your teacher - that's wonderful.

My accomplishment is simply that I had a lesson! Our first after a very long unavoidble break.

We discussed the global plan for the "school year" - I'll be working on my scales and arpeggios to develop fluidity, we'll be focusing on relaxing!!!!!!!!!!
I'm doing some technique exercises (Duvernoy) and I have some new Vinciguerra pieces as "play time" pieces, while I will be working on the getting down to nitty gritties on the first part of my Beethoven. I played both parts for her today - The first went fairly smoothly and my work now is to go over it in 4 measure segments and make sure I have it firmly memorized and at my fingertips. The second part wasn't as smooth, but she had only heard me play the first few meaures, so she was sufficiently impressed at what I had managed on my own. We will start looking at the parts of the Romance that are giving me grief (or are at least more taxing) during our next lesson.

She also asked me if I would like to take an exam in May. !!!! She is a partner/teacher at a school here, (I think I am her only private student actually)... and she says I could do the exam with the other students at the end of the year if I like. I have mixed feelings but I'm not saying no.

We also talked about more adult student recitals and that is going to become a reality. I'm very excited about it.

So, I don't know that I accomlished much except plannng, but hey, that's important too!

Just completed my first week of practice in 2.5 months! I'm back on easier stuff and focused on sight-reading, scales and exercises. On Saturday, I went down to the library and loaded up with graded collections and another series of sight-reading method books.

I'm very excited about piano again - an excitement I haven't felt since year 1.

My 5th Joplin piece is coming along nicely - it's memorized and is now in the polishing stages.

And...There are 2 pieces that I've chosen that I can't wait to play! One is a Bach invention and the other is a "pop piece" which one can actually sing along with. I bought the sheet music for the pop piece yesterday from this awesome YouTuber who makes very nice arrangement of pop tunes.

My time at the bench will definitely increase this month! Heck, I may even cancel my cable TV just to keep me on the right track.

I am now past my "Maple Leaf" slump...that was a piece that took a lot out of me, caused me to slump a bit, but I'm glad to have it behind me now.

That's all.... bottom line: I love piano again and can't wait to play (practice)!

Wow, Chopin Ballades and Etudes,Pathetique, Rach. There's a whole lotta very fine piano playin being slung around here. Congrats to you all for reaching a level where these pieces are even approachable.

Cheryl, glad you are back to the lessons and have your game plan in. I'll be interested to hear about the steps your teacher takes to help with relaxation, as that is something my teacher and I have focused on too.

I've finished with the Beethoven Sonatina - at least she says she does not need to hear it any more. Personally, I think it could have used another week or more, but I'm not going to argue with her. Maybe I will try to revive it in a few months and polish it up for the next recital. I did really enjoy playing it, especially the Romanze. New assignment is Tchaikovsky "In Church" which is kind of a study in legato chord changes in both hands, as well as control for super quiet ppp through mf. I've also started Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered on my own. Shadow of Your Smile is as finished as I can get it and just awaits a quiet time when I can get down a recording. Work on the Bach seems to be progressing at a snails pace.

Jim

For the moment my teacher wants me to work on scales and developing fluidity - NOT velocity - I'm to focus on keeping arms relaxed, elbows and shoulders loose, weight on my fingertips. So, the scales are part of the relax technique as well as grounding for fingering with 2 hands doing different things. In some ways we are taking a step backward because I have not been consistent in working on the scales (and arpeggios) and in some ways it is because (though I am making improvements) I have not conquered this beast of tension yet.

I don't think I'll be finished with Beethoven for a while yet - I haven't made the progress I would have with regularly scheduled lessons, I think.... and I do have ambitions to play this well, it is such a delightful piece.
I won't play it in the e-cital if you are planning to do it - I should have a chance to do it live at a recital for adult students only sometime before Christmas (If I'm up for it! argh).

Your new pieces sound really interesting too JimF, which Bach are you playing? I am listening to "in Church " now... that's dramatic! Very elegant. I think you'll have a lot of fun with it.

The "jazzier" pieces you are working on are great - I have both in a Dan Coates book, but have not done very much with them yet.

I love In Church, Jim. I am sure that you will enjoy learning it.
Cheryl, I found Romanza more difficult than the first movement too!! I actually never got a good recording of the whole sonatina because I kept flubbing up the Romanza. It might be fun to try it again soon.

I continue to take 1 hour lessons and my teacher has me working much more on scales and theory. Each lesson she quizzes me on scales and their respective chord progressions(she thinks it is important to memorize the key signature of each scale). The first time it really freaked me out (I am used to giving tests not taking them ), but now I find it motivating (and she is ecstatic when I can do what she asks, very forgiving when I cannot).

I discovered the music of Martha Mier!!! Her Romantic Impressions Collections are very nice and sound "harder" than they are. I would like to be able to play the entire first volume by Christmas. I am trying to keep them in my repertoire too. The other night.....my accomplishment of the week, I played 5 memorized pieces one right after the other. Hey, that was about 11.5 minutes of music!!!!!

Christine - I was introduced to Martha Meir by Keyboardklutz (he showed me a video of 2 students playing a jazz duet - it was great).... "Just Struttn'" is the name of the piece.


Which book are you using? What are your favourite pieces?
I didn't really know she had done Romantic pieces as well - and she has Christmas music too. I think I have to visit Amazon...:)

How wonderful you have an 11 minute repertoire! Congratulations, that is an accomplishment to be proud of!

I don't think it is going backwards, Cheryl. Last year to get at tension my teacher had me spend almost three months doing scales so slow you could knit a sweater in between notes. We started off with "play just one note, then compeltely relax your hand, then ONLY when your hand is completely relaxed play a second note.... repeat, relax, wait, play one more note." After a few weeks we went to two notes, wait, relax, play two more. Eventually it was in five note bursts then eight note bursts, then bursts starting at all different places. It was extremely frustrating to play this slowly, but the results in reduced tension were very dramatic. I did this every day for at least 20-30 minutes. We later tried for speed, but then stopped that as soon as any tension crept back in. Lately we are just working on evenness, but I still do 20-30 minutes daily. I think you will be amazed at how the scale work eventually translates into your pieces, so its really not going backwards at all.

The Bach is the C Major Prelude BWV846 from WTC. It isn't that difficult but it is the first piece I remember where almost nothing repeats, ever. So I think I've struggled a bit to find landmarks to remind me of what is coming up. Mostlly I think I just need to focus in a little tighter on smaller groups of measures.

I think we were posting at the same time Jim.... thank you SO MUCH for that information. I really need a lot of help on this. It really makes a tremendous difference to me, knowing what you did, for how long, and how much it helped you.

Thanks for the support!


(and now to check out the Bach piece on youtube!)

FarmGirl -- I'm also working on the 2nd movement of the Pathetique! You are much further along that me, however, as I just started it a few weeks ago. I'm trying to memorize it as I learn it, because memorization is one of the hardest things for me, and I figure I better get that out of the way sooner rather than later. That's great that you're working on the entire sonata. I'm just going to do the 2nd movement for now, and then move on to another piece. Your teacher sounds like mine, as far as wanting to assigning a "challenge" piece. These always scare me at first, but I end up being surprised that he can somehow break one of these down into parts that are actually achievable, and then help me put it back together into a coherent whole. It sounds like you have a great teacher who is really challenging you!

cas -- you must be so happy to be back to lessons after all that time. I hope everything turned out okay with the crisis your teacher was going through. My teacher has recently started me working on arpeggios too...which I think is kind of funny, because I've been with him for over two years now, and he just realized now that I need to work on this? Maybe he didn't want to scare me off before he knew I was hooked!

What happened that you didn't practice for 2.5 months?? Was it the ear problem still? It sounds like you're happy about being back, anyway. Keep up the enthusiasm!

CebuKid -- it's good to hear that you're out of your slump and ready to start on some new pieces. A pop piece and Bach invention should be a nice change of pace for you.

JimF, cas, and GlassLove -- well one of you had better play that Beethoven Sonatina at the next e-cital. I love that piece!

Aah, I love this topic. It's so inspirational. My AOTW is that after my sleeping problems two months ago, my concentration is finally back. Now I can practise 1 to 2 hours without problems.

My teacher won't allow me to do more than 4 pieces. And I have to finish them before moving to the next. I think that's a good thing, because there are so many pieces I want to play. So here they are:

Von Beethoven - Für Elise : The beginning of the second part I find it quite hard to do, but there is some shape and rythm. I have memorised it. So I hope I will master it in a few weeks.

Granados - Dance no 2 : Still doing it. The triller is really difficult to master. But now it sounds as a triller as it should. The trick is to do it with a lot of weight, otherwise I can't do a long triller. I'm still at 25% with this song. But doing the triller is a jump of 10%. Though this song will be for a long time on my 4 pieces list.

Gerald Martin - Black Eyes Boogie : again a difficult piece. But this piece I want to play for people when they come to visit me. It has a nice jolly energie even at a slow speed. It has a very wide spread of notes, from the lowest base to the highest pitch. And the ending is a glissando, which is really cool thing to do. I hope the energy of this song will give joy to my guests.

And my last piece is The Church of Tchaikovsky. I think that idea comes from this thread. Later I want to do The Witch also. The Church sounds really funny. The first part reminds me of pre barok music. And then the second part it is Tchaikovsky again. A jump of two hundred years, lmao.

Finally I started working at my scales (after more than two years). Many thanks for the info how to do it, Jim. It will help me alot.

Bye to you all,
Chris

The beast of tension is hard to defeat. I've been there, and it caught up to me during my "Maple Leaf Slump". It was actually that piece that exposed my tension and poor technique, and I worked very hard to overcome it - if I didn't I wouldn't have been able to play it at the proper speed. Now, I try to avoid tension with anything I play (though it still creeps in). The main thing I did was make it a "habit" to not play with tension. I also play softly (piano?) a lot when I find myself tensing up. Plus I play softly when I sneak runs in on my upright when everyone's sleeping, and that helps with tension as well.

It's good, Cheryl, that you and your teacher are working on this now, before it gets exposed or catches up to you. Playing without tension is so....relaxing. Plus it brings out a very nice, fluid tone on your piano.

CAS, thanks for your comments. It sounds like you are making strides:) No one teaches scales and arps unless he/she thinks you are ready for it.

JimF, the pieces I study are really fine compositions but whether or not I pull it off well is another question. I'm just trying. My teacher's pushing me to play a Ballard must be the result of me wining about the HUGE GULF between intermediate and advanced to my teacher... Anyway,ready or not, I am going to go for it.

MaryBee, glad to hear that you are doing the same piece. Everyone's interpretation is a little bit different. I am looking forward to listening to yours. Not sure if I memorize this one... I am so bad at it. I love the piece. This piece is certaily a crowd pleaser. I am in Utah this week. I was playing this piece (Pathetique 2nd movement) in a music instrument supply store. There were lots of kids trying out band instuments there today. I think they enjoy listening to it in spite of many errors and sloppy playing. I like this piece. It always makes me feel happy and peaceful. After playing the hand-breaking (gotta streach a lot) Rach piece, this piece feels so nice - it fits in my hands and I feel pleasure playing this one.

This really is my favourite thread in PW

CebuKid, thanks for sharing your struggles too - they are so NOT obvious in your playing, I would never have understood your difficulties if you hadn't said something. I have some "easy" Joplin scores in some of my collections and they look simply unapproachable to me. I am full of admiration for what you can do.

I am listening to Pathetique 2nd movement as I type. I know this music, but didn't know its name. There is a modern piece that is either THIS with words, or just HUGELY similar "Midnight Blue" (by Louise Tucker... I had to search for that, there are about 10 Midnight Blue songs!)

MaryBee, I would love to hear your Pathetique when you are ready - if you even come close to doing as well as you did with your Debussy, you'll have me all goosebumpy again!

Farm Girl - you too - I have the feeling that you are very critical of your own playing (a very normal adult pianist tendency)...but you must be doing well or your teacher wouldn't be giving you the pieces you're working on . I would love to hear more of your work!

I just multi-tasked and wrote to my teacher that I want Pathetique on my "to do" list ---with NO deadline, it just has to be on my list . I will also want The Church.

Paperclip - I've bought 2 Albeniz/Granados cds since we started talking about them a few months ago - you must be having a great time - their music is just spectacular.

I love that through this group of very enthusiastic pianists (no matter what the level or experience) I am exposed to new music, encouraged to look at familiar music with new eyes (or rather ears!) - to understand old music in a new way - and most of all encouraged to keep up with my new passion in such a circle of friendship.