Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum FOYD - Focus On Your Domain

The moniker change is because of expectations within the tuner/tech forum, but it was time. It was always woodog, named after my child's much beloved, late great talking dog, Mr. Woo. His real name was Charlie Dogprint Scarf (from my son gavin, five at the time). The name woo came about as this is the noise Charlie would make (as in, I would make) when he would jump off our beds. When Gavin had friends over, of course the dog would talk with them. One of his friends, Edward, maybe 7 at the time, said to Gavin 'your dad's weird. He talks for the dog'.

Gavin replied, "Well, Charlie can't talk for himself"

Charlie, aka mr. Woo, died in Sept. 2011, aged 17 human years. His only regret is not seeing the cat, Bosco, die first. He was the perfect dog, dumb but very sweet. And small... This is important since small dogs have small poop.



I'm scared of you if you ever decide to be ambitious!



And a very happy new year to you! You've been such a resource of information since I've been reading you. Very, very helpful advice!

My instructor assigned the Mozart sonata K 332 for the next year as a piece that would stretch me. I had to let the Mozart K 576 go as there were too many ingrained errors from a poor approach (plus it was WAY to difficult for me at the time... Still is). So I've got a good mix now of the Schumann with its milder technical demands, The two Bach fugues with more advanced demands, and then Mozart, which will definitely stretch me, but which I have been approaching deliberately, paying attention to the whole body and spending the past month listening, and scheming, and working out fingerings away from the piano. It helps that the Mozart is a thing of beauty, but let's see if I have the same view a couple of months from now.

Finally, I asked to be put on a steady diet of scales, arpeggios, and chords, so I'm working my way to crotchet = mm 160 for the scales.

The cruise was okay, but Greg, my partner, got homesick at the same time as I did, but for different reasons. Instead of staying in southern Florida with the balmy weather, we high tailed it back to Kentucky, our cat, the piano, and blessed quotidian life full of solitude. I do so love the process of practice. I need it, even.

All the best and a happy, musical new year to the rest of you crazies!

Forrest

I almost did everything I should in this week.

Schumann (Sonata g minor) - only one page in the second movement left to memorize.
Rachmaninoff (Sonata b flat minor) - I practiced the first and the second movement.
Rachmaninoff (Prelude b minor op. 32) - I equalized the chords, fixed my counting, speeded it up a little
Chopin (Ballade f minor) - I was working on hard spots. I feel lost in this piece
Chopin (Etude C major) - It's memorized and in a middle tempo, but can't do it without some mistakes.

In next week I'll have more time, so:
Schumann (Sonata g minor) - I'll learn the whole thing. Practice last movement, and the hard page in the second movement.
Rachmaninoff (Sonata b flat minor) - I'll practice the hard spots only
Rachmaninoff (Prelude b minor op. 32) - I'll think about the phrases and voices more
Chopin (Ballade f minor) - I'll shape the whole thing more
Chopin (Etude C major) - I'l not make mistakes in middle tempo, fix the middle notes in passages.

I feel lost in the Chopin's Ballade. I could use some tips, remarks, advices or simply the things you don't like: ballade f minor . Please.

This is a "catch-up" post for me. I had my first lesson with my new teacher a few days before Christmas. Actually, this is not a new, new teacher, but the teacher I had over the summer.

1. Added melodic minors to my scale practice, which for now is F, Bb, and Eb and their natural, harmonic, and melodic minors.

2. I've been assigned some Hanon exercises, my first ever.

3. Focus on RH legato in Brahms Waltz in A major. I played this at my lesson and we then spent some time on getting a better legato sound in the right hand.

4. Continue with the sonatinas I worked on this fall. This was not part of my assignment, but they could use some work!

5. Sightreading. I'm trying to get in reading through something new at each practice. These pieces have been at my level or below.

I'll be scheduling my next lesson soon. I'm going to take my teacher up on her offer to come in and practice on one of the grands at the school once or twice a week.

Haven't posted in a while. Definitely working on the long term goal.
I wasn't happy with how I was doing with piano. I wasn't focused. It wasn't coordinated to me. Then I came across Mary's Artistry Alliance. It read to me like beauty. First time, studying piano that anything came through to me as real and deep.
So I tried getting rid of my old mindset. Playing less. While studying material. It didn't work. I couldn't settle on this. I know if I kept going like that. I'd just be another hack. My mind was playing games. I decided to just put piano away for a little while. To flush out all that. I picked up another hobby with pure intent to be a rather compensatory exercise to piano. It's working. I thank my God and all the knowledge I have in exercise training. I'm building a complete different brain. You could understand it as building the pathways and such to play piano. I don't know for sure what is going on up there physically. I do know, in everything I do. I'm creating a more sophisticated mindset. I'm having to work at remembering, anything. It's like I'm creating different pathways for everything. I'm going from so much abstract thinking. To applying that physically. I'm getting much more focused. But with a larger actual picture on things. Not just a large abstract picture.
I do intend to go through with my simple little Schumann piece in March. It really isn't much. I'm diving in with Mary's teaching in Artistry Alliance. Her music does a wonderful job of developing high sophistication with little pieces. Without overdoing it at each level. Because she understands how the brain learns. That is where it all really broke through for me to real playing. In my abstract mind. I saw this immediately. Now am working diligently to bring it to reality. It is working.

Hi rnaple,
when something like you described happens, it's good to change practice methods (like you did), take a break and start fresh. It's very good that you solved that problem. Fresh view on playing really helps with not getting annoyed.

Well the return to serious practise has happened a little earlier than I anticipated and I'm really excited about starting the Brahms Intermezzo with verqueue. I'll be kicking it off at the piano tomorrow.

I have made some minor changes to how I intend to practise this year to try and work more revision into my daily routine and take more advantage of the spaced, varied and interleaved initiatives doing the rounds presently. I seldom do more than two or three repeats each day and concentrate very hard while I'm doing them. I plan to do only one or two now then move on to another phrase and a different piece and try and cycle twice round four or five pieces.

As I only practise small extracts I usually finish my daily stint by playing through a piece or two that I'm revising - to avoid the mistake of playing through the piece I'm learning but still satisfy the urge to play something - but I think I'll stick a larger extract between each short phrase of my learning pieces, rather than a full piece at the end.

We'll see how this pans out.

verqueue, this counting out loud thing is really working well for me and I can't believe how many problems it's solving so thanks ever so much for that gem!

I hope I don't disappoint your expectations...


Ah, so you'll try some variation of interleaved practice . I'm very curious if it will work good for you. It seems a good plan for someone, who doesn't practice much, but likes to finish things. Don't expect effects right away, probably after one month you'll be able to judge it.


Sometimes it's better to play something and even play it not well, but enjoy it. Don't be too harsh on yourself. Your practice routine is very thought out, but some spontaneity helps with enjoyment, which cause more willingness to practice. But of course do as you like, my comment is my opinion, not a recipe.


I'm so happy that it worked for you! I know how much effort you needed to even try it. You can now spread the idea .

Ron! How nice to see you back! And glad the plan is still working for you and that you're enjoying the learning and changing. Nice to keep open like that.

Well, at least I've been back to playing awhile each day over the new year's break. It's great. What's been fun is that I have a "sing along" gig this Friday, so a lot of what I'll play are just old familiar "singing in the car/Girl Scout" tunes that I don't have arrangements for - Home on the Range, for instance So I've been playing a *lot* by ear, and experimenting with the basses and little fills and licks and endings and the like. What I find on one tune I'll then try on another - makes the tunes all sound alike, but I get a lot more in to my ear and fingers. It's been interesting that some of the rhythm patterns I got going in Sail Along Silvery Moon have been translated in to fills in other tunes. I've also found that I can begin to do some boogie woogie bass. *That* is a trip.

I'm not really back in to the "total focus" of last summer before I got the extra job, but I think the break may be a really good thing - it's taken me very much out of the "sheet music" habit, particularly since I've only used the sheet music in order to memorize for several years now. So when I sit down to play it isn't at all a habit to reach for sheet music, and I'm much more open to just figuring things out.

It also was kind of an eye-opener over Christmas when I got out my Kiddie Christmas book, which is my go-to book of early primary Christmas tunes . And I realized that the simple accompaniments are all things that I've been working out by ear. Oh my! I can do this! It felt like a real validation of something I thought of before as just terribly simplistic but all I could do. This is where everybody starts!

I've also been going thru the whole stack of instruction books - everything from Michael Aaron book 1 to Dr. John - and seeing what feels interesting. In the old primer and easy books I've been trying to make every little 8 measure piece in to music, and watching for the dynamics and articulation, and seeing what it is they are trying to teach. I've also been filling out the harmonies and discovering different chords for what might otherwise be there, and listening to the different feel they give the tune. I finally noticed that it's cool to sub the 6-2-5-1 sequence for the 1-4-5-1 sequence if a melodic piece is repeated, and then remembered how many tunes I know that are notated that way. Sometimes I have not so much "aha" moments as "duh" moments

I've also been playing some of my repertoire, and much of it needs recovering But I haven't gotten out the sheet music - I've tried to recall what I knew about the piece, what little things I used to memorize them in the first place, or what I know must come next, and just working out the melody if necessary (amazing what I don't know if it hasn't been translated in to particular fingerings and finger arrangements) and just generally reconstructing it. At some point I think I'll take one or two and do my own arrangements, using whatever I can remember of what I memorized as hints to making up new stuff.

So - it may seem a little scattered, and some of it is, but all of it is geared towards more playing-by-ear and building on what I already know. I have to keep reminding myself that I didn't learn those 40 tunes by memory in a day (more like 10 years ) and I won't be a sophisticated ear player in a day, either. So just enjoy the fun, and play even the simplest stuff I can do musically.

Cathy

I could not do as much as I planned.
1) just played through Spanish dance. Decided to postpone this one. I have too many pieces right now
2) Grillen - finally practiced yesterday and today. It's my number 1 priority now. I have to be able to play for others in a couple of weeks. Tight but doable.
3) Bach - made most progress. Not fluent enough but voicing and articulation is working.
4) Rach - middle section sounds much nicer. I still make a bunch of mistakes in the last two pages. Have to work on Rhythms in the last two pages as well. I get off at three against five. After that everything goes downhill.
5) Purcell - I read it through twice. Except coda. I will continue the effort from coda in the weekend. Perhaps with metronome.
6) Technique - practiced Russian scale upto A-flat major. Did fully diminished arp. I practiced Moszkowski étude no 2 g minor for a couple of days. But could not do yesterday and today. Not enough time. I can only play it slowly. It's much easer than Chopin's étude but it still give lots of finger work out.
7) Ravel's prelude - perhaps the shortest and easiest piece of his. I know I haven't got time to fool around but did. I may play this for piano club instead of Granados Spanish dance.

Well, starting off the new year, I'm really working at having a more structured approach to my pieces and I will try to be more regular about posting here -not that you need to read it, but I think it will help me

I just recently learned about the interleaved practice technique and I'm trying to work on that. At the moment I'm only working on 2 pieces, but hey, you have to start somewhere!

I'm working on the first 2 movements of Clementi Op 36 N1 - I will start on the 3rd movement in a bit - my teacher wanted me to study something completely different before working on the third movement. (We've been really working hard on the first 2, training heavily on HOW to approach a piece. It is paying off in spades!
The other piece I am working on is Tchaicovsky's Morning Prayer. I had originally signed up to do it in the Tchaicovsky themed recital but had to withdraw. In retrospect, it was a good decision because even now I'm finding it very difficult.

So, my FOYD goals are:
1. Clementi OP36 N1 - 1 - work at bringing the speed up a notch and keeping it steady thorughout. I tend to pick up speed as I go through the piece, so I do it once with the metronome and then on my own. I will also go over bars 6&7 and the last 2 bars, as they are my weak point in this part of the piece.

2. Clementi OP36 N2- 2 bars 7, 11,14, 16,17,18, 24 & 25.

3 Tchaicovsky Morning Prayer. I've just started on this piece, so I have just figured out the fingering for the first phrase. My goal is to be able to play it - regardless of speed and rhythm - correctly. Correct notes and fingering. That's all for now.

I'll also work on my scales and arpeggios.

I'm still fussing with both of Beethoven's Ecossaise's I have the right hand for the G major one down and need to work on the left hand and merge those two together. The one in Eb needs major work on accuracy before I can get it up to tempo. Not difficult pieces but enough of a challenge for me to keep me busy.

Hi everyone! I've made a resolution to get back to posting on FOYD. I've missed being able to participate.

Today I will be doing a short performance for some friends at a small gathering. I'll let you know how that goes. Tomorrow I have a lesson and will have a better idea of my plans for the rest of the week.

Richard, I'm still working on the Fantasia and hope to complete it next month. I've also sent you a PM.

I must be off to get ready for my gig.

Have a great day!

I need to reFocus my Domain for the coming year. My practice routine has been somewhat less efficient than I want. In fact, it has been a bit scattered. The result being slow, and slower progress. My first goal for the new year is to refine my practice schedule and develop a routine that supports my piano development goals.

I keep working on the sometimes almost 2½ octave arpeggios for the left hand in the theme from Love Story.
Sometimes adding in some parts for the right hand, because I can't resist.
I'm making progress and have the 1st page memorized.
Getting just the left hand smooth and up to tempo sounds beautiful even on it's own.
Part of the harmonies remind me of some other piece of music I've worked on before...Possibly by Beethoven.
Haven't found it yet, but will be interesting to see when I do find it.

Ecossaise in G has been memorized and I'm now working on accuracy then speed.

I'm also working on Air in D Minor by Henry Purcell. There's only a few more grade 1 pieces that I could find that I'm going to go through (a few need a full sized keyboard so those will have to wait) before moving on to the grade 2 pieces.

So far so good this year I've been practicing every day playing through all of the pieces I know which is 7 (eight if you count just the right hand for Tambourin with some left hand thrown in there).

Focus practice is going well, interleaving is a little challenging as I only have 2 pieces I'm working on, but I'm trying!

This week I have to get back to working on scales - I'm seriously behind in that.
Yesterday I recorded my Clementi and that really brought into evidence where I still have weak spots so I'm going to drill on those over the next few days, hoping to do well at my first lesson of the year next Tuesday!

Having some fingering issues with Air in D Minor the second to last bar (or is it called a measure this always confuses me). I have to make an A octave jump and it's causing me an unnecessary hesitation while my left hand gets over there. I have to leave for work in 15 minutes so I'll post of photo of it when I get home at 6am as well as what fingerings I've been using for that. I wanted to just put this here before I forgot.

I have been working on too many pieces. It was fin during the holiday but now it's not possible with only 1 hour a day. I'm lucky my mind is there since I'm usually very tired. I decided focus on 3 pieces.
1) Granados Spanish dance .... On hold for now
2) Grillen - enjoyed practice today. I still have a long way but it's finally on track. Schumann is very different from any of composers whose work i studied. In short, it's kinda crazy in the way his two personalities inter mingle. Pretty fun.
3) Bach sinfornia #4 - I really don't know why I'm working on this piece. Several students are studying inventions in our studio. I probably wanted to join the crowd. I enjoyed playing it though. I feel like I understand this piece very well. In the last school recital one of my adult classmates played the same piece. He inserted lots of trills. I did not like that. I decided to work on voicing. I emphasized middle voice in the last two lines. Mine is very different from his.
4) Rach Elergie - focus piece. Middle section got better. Now I need fluency.
5) Purcell - on hold
6) Technique - Moszkowski étude no 2 g minor - did not do today. But it is a focus piece. Russian scale is finally reaching sharp scales. In a couple of weeks I can play the whole thing. I also practiced diminished 7th arp.
7) Ravel's prelude - on hold

I am also one who seems to constantly be working on too many pieces! So, I have at least narrowed it down to six.

Haydn Sonata in G- It was back to the drawing board on this one after my lesson. I am focussing only on the 1st movement exposition for now, playing very slowly and accurately.

Schuman Sonata in G Theme and Variations- This will be the focus of tomorrow's lesson. This had a lot of finger-pedaling with three voices and some awkward shifts. The focus this week is the triplet variation and the the staccato variation.

Schuman Knight Rupert - Still working on bringing up the tempo.

Chopin Nocturne in C# Minor - I still have some sticky points in the runs, and the 35/4 is no where near up to speed. That will be my focus.

Mozart Sonata in G K283 - I hope to complete the 1st movement this week. It needs a lot of hands separate practice as well for fluidity.

Chopin Prelude in C Minor - Work on voicing.

Tech- C, D, G: (Major, minor harmonic, minor melodic), arpeggios: tonic and diminished 7th. All in 4 octaves Grade 6 tempo.

I see I'm not the only one with too many pieces to work on. I had a good time last week performing a short program for my friends. My biggest problem was getting my hands warmed up enough to perform properly.

I'm continuing to make progress with learning Fantasia in D Minor (Mozart). I'm splitting my practice time between learning Fantasia and maintenence work on many other pieces including: Invention 8 (Bach), Clair de lune (Debussy), and Prelude in D-Flat Major (Chopin).

I have a lot more pieces on my list. However, I've been having better results when I focus on a few things every few days.

Finally, I've decided to prepare something for the next ABF recital. I have not done one for a few years. I think I'm ready to give it a go!