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six months on and I have moved onto another book and level yet still cannot get Chopin Etude Op 10, No 3 to a level I am happy with. This despite this arrangement being a modified (presumably simpler) one. I would have given up on it ages ago if it weren't so darn beautiful a piece.

So if it isn't just me, there are a few surprisingly difficult pieces in this book I imagine.

So this book must be rather difficult to finish. Is there even a thread for Alfred's #3 ?


@Malkin - What piece are you currently working on?

Johnny,
It's that a lot of people move on to "real" music at this stage and either slow down or give up completely on Alfred. I stayed the course and I wouldn't say Alfred 2 is that difficult. If you can do the supplementary songs in Alfred 1 you can do anything in Alfred 2. Offhand, I can't think of anything really difficult in Alfred 2, though La Bamba never did sound really nice! I usually had 3 pieces on the go at once to give variety.

Yes, there is an Alfred 3 thread, but it's been inactive for a while. There were some good debates while it lasted.

I am working through Alfred 3, still playing Martha Mier Jazz, Rags, and Blues, although I have landed on one I quite like and I am working on making it stick, rather than forgetting it after 5 minutes away from it. I have spent the summer working on Stravinsky's Five Finger pieces and have just begun the last one in the series. My teacher is encouraging me to polish them all up and perform them or more probably record them.

My progress in A3 is slow enough that I am likely to still be there when the current crop of A2 (or even A!) students arrive!

malkin, you could revive the A3 thread, and you might find a few fellow travellers. As with A2, I didn't find A3 as difficult as expected, but in the Ambitious Section, at the end, most pieces are 4 or 5 pages long so need some dogged persistence. But I wasn't going to give up then, was I!

I finished A3 in July and am going slowly through Masterworks Classics 3 and the Kenneth Baker Complete Piano Player series. So much to learn....

malkin which Jazz, Rags and Blues book are you working in? I bought all 5 of them last week and just started working through book 1, although I've heard a lot of them performed on youtube. I really enjoy most of the compositions.

Malkin, I'm still in Book 2 - I will probably be there forever since I'm old, slow, and self teaching. LOL! But I follow all three Alfred threads, and I would love for you (and others) to keep the Book 3 thread going. Who knows, maybe some day I might just shock myself and finish Book 2.

Thanks to everybody for chiming in. After finishing Alfred's 1, I have been wondering things like what percentage of people who start Alfred's finish book 1, or how many go on to book 2 and finish it, and the same for book 3. What percentage of the people who use Alfred's are self-taught or how many have a teacher, and how much that helps in completing the book.

Anyhow, it's good to see that there are quite a few of you who have had success with Alfred's and have finished the series or are still plugging away at it. Congratulations, everybody.

Sydnal, I'm not certain but it sounds to me like you might be coming in too early on some of those eighth notes.

My new update, Tumbalalaika: http://youtu.be/2aQU4650bRI

It sounds nice.

That song is not in my book. Apparently, you are using an earlier version.

I reached the final piece!! Woo hoo!

The arrangement of canon isn't the best one I heard, but must persevere since its book 2 graduation time :-)

Good job, starbug. You're almost done!

The Bridal Chorus is coming together for me, and I'm trying to get it up to speed. I noticed the CD muzak for that piece is played very quickly, about 130 bpm. It's strange because I've seen it recommended as low as 84 bpm from a few different online sources.

Also, I started delving into Guantanamera. Does anyone else find that F chord in the 5th measure a bit strange? I think I would prefer it to be played as a C/F like it is in the 9th measure, but I'll have to experiment more with it tomorrow as I didn't really get much time to learn to play it either way.

Johnny D, congratulations on completing Book 1!

At first I thought the 130bpm for the "Bridal Chorus" was fast. But once I played it through a bit, I think that is a fine speed (maybe 120 would still work out). But really anything slower and it starts to sound like a funeral march.

As far as "Guantanamera", I did not find anything peculiar with the 5th measure. But I think its good to play around with it.

@Johnny D & starbug: Congratulations on your progress!

@mattroilanh_tt: Nicely played, well done. Too bad my version of the book does not have this piece, it's beautiful.

@Johnny D: I am guessing the eight notes you mention are the ones following the dotted quarters, so the pattern of dotted quarter + eighth is not coming out correct? I probably have lots of rhythmic irregularities here and there, but as one of the disadvantages of self learning; there is no one to correct your mistakes so you get used to them and they sound ok to your ears.. Can you be so kind to point out an exact time of the video or bar number so I can better understand the problem?

sydnal - I looked at a wave profile of your recording. You are playing the song very fast - 154 bpm. The CD plays it at 130, and I even think that is too fast. Maybe 100 -120 bpm would be good though I don't want it to sound like a funeral procession either like scorpio said. However, playing it that fast makes it harder to play those eighth notes quickly and correctly.

Most of your eighth notes are a little long (by 30% or so), and your dotted quarters are a little slow (by about 10%). I noticed it in measures 7 and 11 for example.

These lengths are from the 11th measure:

0.786 seconds - half note

0.528 seconds - dotted quarter

0.260 seconds - eighth note


So, you see your dotted quarter is about twice as long as your eighth note. It should be 3 times as long - something like 0.590 sec for the dotted quarter and 0.194 seconds for the eighth.


Do you have a metronome? I would first try to practice this at a slower pace like 65 bpm to work on the timing of those dotted quarters and eighth notes, and then bring it up to pace. You may not need to play it that slow as you have already learned the piece, but try it at 80 or 90 to get a feel for it. Count "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and", with the beat coming on the numbers. The eighth notes in this song generally come on that last "and" (after the 4) which is halfway in between the beats or ticks of the metronome.

Another thing, I think there could be more emphasis on those eighth and whole notes which follow them. This is supposed to be played loud and majestically.

I'm sorry to nitpick, it's just that sometimes it sounds like the melody is walking when it should be marching.

@Johnny D
Thanks for the lengthy explanation, I will check those parts when I get back home. Yes my digital piano has metronome function (which I used rarely so far, but I guess I will be using it more). This dotted quarter + eighth pattern is a very common one so I think I would benefit from bringing it to a more accurate level slowly using the metronome. One of the next songs (Theme from Hungarian Rhapsody 2) also has some.

As for the tempo, I think the main culprit here is anxiety. I first listen to the pieces from the CD or from youtube(when I did not have the cd) to get a feel of the tempo and start playing at a correct tempo. But as I make mistakes and have to start again I noticed I get gradually faster and faster. I guess I should keep the metronome ready at the correct bpm and correct my tempo once in a while.

Well, we need to develop our internal feeling for timing, but I believe the metronome is a great tool to be used initially when learning a song.

I started practicing the Bridal Chorus at about 60bpm. I'm at about 80 bpm now and eventually want to get it up to 100-120. Anyhow, when I was learning those eighth notes at a slow speed, I was wondering how hard it would be to stay accurate if I got up to 130 bpm, or at least it would be hard to even know if I was accurate.

As to anxiety and speeding up, it happens to me too, and to most people I assume. It occurs at tricky parts and people just tend to rush through things.

There also might be another thing in play here. Perhaps you are hearing the lyrics or melody in your head, the way you know the song, and the way you know it isn't exactly the same as the way it is written in Alfred's.

It is my experience that playing the piece extremely slowly at first is superior to immediately striving for the full tempo. You should be playing the piece with accurate rhythm at a speed slow enough to play the correct notes. Then you speed up slightly as you are able, until eventually you can play at the proper tempo.