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I liked your "Rock A My Soul". It sounds like a cute, fun little number.

That sounded great - gives me something to look forward to! I'm still being driven nuts by "Solace," and starting on La Bamba.

Nice one AWTPP!

Learning how to count in 6/8 time is a lot of fun. Glad Alfreds is throwing that at me now. I made a couple of mistakes on the page where it asks you to put in the time signature based on the notes. Whoops. Counting La Raspa was a challenge at the beginning but I'm getting better at it. I'm trying to focus more on counting generally.

Where is everyone? I can't be the only one who hasn't finished anything this week. I've had bronchitis for the last two weeks and haven't played as much as I would have liked.

Well I'm still here. I have Pomp & Circumatance and Dark Eyes running scared. Working on Chopin Etude-10-3. I'm just starting to take a stab at playing it with two hands! Novel approach, I know.

I have a subtle suspician that Alfred's may be teaching me more than I sometimes think. Still fun - that's the important part to me.

Oh, I love Chopin Etude 10-3. I can't wait until I get to that one. :-)

Still struggling through "Guantanamera" here. But it's still fun for me too. In fact, the struggle is a big part of the fun. :-)

Working on Calypso Carnival. Hope to have it presentable for tomorrow. It's a strange piece to acquire, I must say. I had hoped that after a few hours, one hand or another would become automatic, but it hasn't happened yet. Still playing it very slowly.

Hello everybody. I just wanted to introduce myself. I've been following along in the forum for a while but haven't posted anything yet.

After playing guitar for about 14 years, I decided to learn piano about six months ago, starting with Alfred's book one. I'm now working on learning Night Song in book two, while still polishing up the four or five songs before it. I have to say, learning piano has been a blast, even if I don't love some of the songs. I knew how to read music and count rhythm before, so that was helpful for learning.

So far, my favorites in this book have been Alexander's Ragtime Band, Solace, and Rock-a My Soul. My least favorites have been La Bamba and The House of the Rising Sun. And I still don't quite have my fingers around Calypso Carnival, even though I moved on from it a while ago (I still go back and practice it as an exercise).

I've enjoyed reading all of your posts. This seems like a very welcoming and supportive forum.

Welcome, Eddy!

Had some good bench time last night with Calypso Carnival, and I hope to pass it at my lesson tonight. For me, the trick is making sure I've got proper coverage with the LH, which I can then put on auto-pilot and focus on the melody. I'll try to get a recording today.

Thanks AWTPP.
Yeah, I've been working towards automating the left hand in Calypso Carnival, but I find it challenging, for some reason. I think the left hand pattern is just irregular enough to keep my brain from automating it, though it is getting easier with time, so that's encouraging. Part of the problem is I don't really love the melody. I definitely tend to do better on the songs I enjoy.

Just wanted to pop in to say that I'm still here and still playing (or at least trying). Welcome to thread 2 Mom3gram!!!! I took a long break from Alfred's over the holidays to work on some Christmas songs and started on book 2 the first of January.

At my last lesson, my teacher gave me Fur Elise to work on, so I've been spending most of my time on that, got the first page sounding pretty good, but need to still work out a couple of places and keep my rythm steady. In Alfred's I'm up to Alexanders Rag Time band, but haven't really done much with it,I'm finding Fur Elise much more interesting at the moment, but I'm afraid to turn to page 2, lol.

Well, glad to hear everyone is doing well and welcome newbies!

Hi, BarbVA, and thanks for the welcome. I spent a lot of time on Christmas carols too, and started Book 2 on January 1. I figured it was fitting to start on the first day of the new year. I'm only up to "Guantanamera" so far, but "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sounds like fun, and I have taken a peek or two at it. I've had a lot of distractions the past two months, and don't find myself able to sit at the bench as long, but I still try to get something in every day. Awesome that you are working on Fur Elise. I can see why that would be more interesting than a method book piece. I hope you post it when you are ready. Glad to know that you are doing so well.

Welcome to the 2nd book mom3gram Nice to have you back. I haven't worked on the book for nearly two months so I'm still on Guantanamera and Raymond. I just don't like the book at all, but I might get back into it sometime I just don't know when. Just playing random pieces I like now, maybe I'm not learning too much new things but I think I'm getting better. Maybe ill check the book what I'm missing out on and try get better.

The good thing is, I get to play music where the left hand is more involved and play songs I like. The bad thing is its hard to judge the level where it is at, and not getting better at techniques and such. I hope to get back to it soon, maybe a few more pieces, a month or two then maybe ill get back to this, songs just doesn't catch my interest yet.

I don't seem to mind the songs in Alfred, maybe because most of them are familiar to me, and that sort of helps. It also helps that they are relatively short. I'm just not ready for pieces that take several pages. There are always a couple here and there that I can't stand, but most of them I enjoy. Of course, playing real classical pieces, or even real pop pieces, is more fun, but since I'm working without a teacher I really need the instructional pieces too. I usually end up hating the blues pieces, and those are the ones that most other people like.

What are you working on now, Quagles?

I love the blues pieces! I also really like the Overture from Raymond - it's such a delicate-sounding piece. And Solace I like a lot, though playing it hands together has been the biggest challenge so far, I think. Not crazy about the Latin ones - La Bamba, anyway. But I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it.

I had to hunt for this thread, and found it all the way on page 4.

Tonight I started "Theme from the Overture" from the opera "Raymond". I like it so far. I've only done the right hand, but it doesn't look like it will be too hard to add the left hand in. I don't see any potential tricky rhythm sections, so I'm hoping that this one will go easy on me. :-)

Not so the next one - "Light and Blue", which I peeked at while I listened to PianoNoobAlex play it on youtube. I honestly can not see me playing this one any time soon. I haven't fared too well with blues pieces so far, although I do like the way this one sounds. Well, one thing at a time. Let's get "Raymond" down, and get "Guantanamera" a little smoother.

Speaking of "Guantanamera", I can't seem to play those arpeggiated chords at the end anywhere near fast enough. And in listening to PianoNoobAlex play it, he seems to just play it as blocked chords. I recall having similar problems with arpeggiated chords in Book 1. Anyone else have difficulty with these? Would it be wrong to just work on learning to play them fast as an exercise, but playing them blocked in the actual piece?

Yep! I am still having problems with those final chords in Guantanamera. It usually takes me two or three times to get them each time I play the song....

Hi mom3gram, I got Light and Blue down last week, took me 2 weeks. It seemed really hard at first and I didn't like the piece at first. But by the time I got good at it I really ended up liking it, and it has given my a ton of ideas I can kind of jam on now. So now I'm done with it I'm finding myself playing the first bar of Light and Blue and then going off onto my own thing for a while. It is like a seed for ideas!

I have really been enjoying "Theme from the Overture (Raymond)". It didn't really seem like much when I started it, but then a lightbulb went off in my head. I am a watercolor artist, and all my instructional books hammer away at "repetition with variation" as a compositional element. I realize that this is important in music also, and that it was used in most of the beginning pieces in Alfred, but I can actually SEE it and HEAR it in this one. Now that I've discovered this, I'm having a lot of fun playing it, and trying to come up with some "repetition with variations" of my own. :-)