Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Achievement of the week - what got you excited?

Ohh feel so bad I posted a while back and just now caught up. Apologies I'm going to jump around and probably not hit the latest AOTWs, since I've just read about 5 pages of posts.

earlofmar - Woot woot on learning the scales. And bigger woot for stopping a few times, but then still going back.

rnaple - Very Cool on the doggy save!

Whizbang - woo hoo you played a piano in a high traffic area? That alone would be a winner for me. Who was the "other fella who did rags that people don't know about?"

JimF - Kudo for creating a piano party!

bstark - that totally happened to me to couple weeks ago. After banging away on the same "lesson" song for weeks without much improvement, went back to an old book, just for a change of pace. I was actually able to play a few things!

Donzo - love your rationalization. I will "get tangled" with pride. :P

And to anyone who's done a recital. BRAVO! If you got through an entire song in front of an audience without losing breakfast on the keyboard, you're my hero! :P

And thanks to all the advice from casinitaly, atallguy, Sand Tiger and the rest. I just a got a new piece and will totally try playing it REALLY slow, and breaking up the hard parts. And will remember to revisit previous pieces after working on the new stuff. I've also decided not to record myself until after I finish level 1. I will check out Artistry Alliance, too. - always looking for websites or apps.

My AOTW: Went home for week to visit my mother who just started playing again. Well, she started then stopped, because she was not anywhere near the level she was at when she first stopped. Said, "it was too depressing..."

She's 70+ and hadn't played in 15yrs. I took her to a music store and bought 2 super-easy big print books (Joplin & JS Bach), "for me," and asked her to help. In less than 10min she was playing more notes than were on the pages, and saying, "Oh I remember teaching this."

Next thing I know, we are in the basement pulling out music from dusty file cabinets. She had tons of easy to intermediate Jazz, Classical, even old Disney sheet music/books, and even a smattering of methods books from her teaching days. We had a blast for about 3 hrs sometimes plunking and sometimes playing everything from Autumn Leaves, Sheep May Safely Graze to The Entertainer and more! Who knew there were so many Menuets?

One of the reasons I started playing was so we could have afternoons like this. I'm so glad I started now, instead of waiting until I inherited her piano after she passed. And a big Thank you, to everyone here!

Congrats - me too last weekend!



Arrgh! Don't pick a song you hate



I hear you. There were 3 other adult students at my recital, but they were all violin players and they all had a few years under their belts. They sounded awesome. Surprisingly, afterwards I found out that they were all s***ing bricks before the recital too! But the vast majority was kids.



Hey, this isn't your story, this is MY story!!

To tell you the truth, although I'm rationalizing my poor performance and trying not to beat myself up... I'm also a little discouraged and am not practicing as much right now. Kind of taking it easy. I'm playing really easy pieces because I just don't want to concentrate hard. It was a lot of work to prepare for the recital and the result was disappointing. I just feel like taking a break.

So I hear ya. Luckily, the sun comes up in the morning and also luckily, we play piano for love, not money. I'm trying to chalk it up to experience and also... trying to convince myself that not doing the next recital is the coward's way out (not sure when the next one is coming but I'm sure there will always be one coming).

Anyway - I hear ya brother (or sister - not sure of your gender)... we're all in this together!

Don

I take my hat off to any beginners going into a live recital, the pressure is enormous. Although I may never find out, I think the pressure of the PW recitals are enough for me.

One way to make it easier is to pick a piece below your playing level, or that you just find easy. We often think of recitals as playing a very difficult piece and the audience being amazed, however most can't tell the difference. Playing something you find easy gives you a bit of a safety net.

Oddsox,

What a beautiful day. Thank you for sharing. Sometimes I think teaching is more important for the teacher than it is for the student.

May you have many more happy lessons with your mom.

Thanks to all for the congratulatory comments! Reading AOTW had become depressing for me as the only achievement I had for so many months was a small bit of practice each day - which had started to feel much like treading water in high seas.

It's amaaaazing what a shift in perspective does.

My AOTW - sending emails to local piano teachers. It will be interesting to see if any reply.

Hello and thank you very much!

Great stories, as usual. I love reading this thread. I'm not writing individual comments as I wanted to do, but I'm following all your achievements day by day.

Just to announce that I'm going to participate in the second edition of BESTalent - a contest organized by my company -. This time I'm going to play "Life" - Ludovico Einaudi - and my goal is to make the finals as I did last year.

Last year I "won" this video with "Indaco":

That made my day... what a moment to cherish.



The strange thing about I have found regarding many things I struggle with, is that sometimes a certain amount of time must pass before something sinks in. It doesn't matter how hard the effort, the brain just has a backlog of things to noodle on and may take a bit before it all comes together. Strangely I found one song I was practicing on over and over and just decided to take a break from, a week later I tried it and somehow it all came together. How an why it did after a week of not practicing, I don't know.

CarlosCC congrats and I am sure you will do well once again! Love your piece from last year.

My AOTW, was finally playing this piece https://soundcloud.com/brad-stark-5/theme-from-scheherezade through without major mistakes. It isn't a difficult piece, but somehow I always flubbed something. I am getting near my one month anniversary of buying a digital piano =)

this is great and only after a month, you should also post it our neglected first submissions thread "Ecco Fatto Cafe" here. It will reach a wider audience and maybe also inspire several others to submit.

Tararex, congratulations on your retirement. Wishing you many happy and fulfilled years ahead, where YOU decide the timetable!

JazzyMac, what can I add to what everyone else has said!? You did it, you weren't happy, but you survived and I think it's clear you learned a great deal from the experience. Onwards and upwards!

JimF, kudos to you in your recital performance

Oddsox, thanks for sharing your beautiful story. Honestly, it nearly brought a tear to my eye to read about your mother rediscovering her joy in making music

For me it's been a good week. We had a long weekend here and I managed more practice than usual which really paid dividends.
I mentioned I had started a piece a couple of weeks ago and it was coming together surprisingly quickly.
It's really almost there now - the last two measures need sorting out, and overall polishing is required, but basically it's there. I was exploring a couple pieces to try and decide on a more challenging piece to take on next and my AOTW is that I have made a decision - to go for my first Chopin Nocturne. It's the C minor KK IVb no. 8 which is regarded as the easiest (NB NOT C Minor op 48 no 1 which is generally regarded as the hardest!).
Stylewise it's completely new to me, and it looks a lot more daunting on the page than most of what I have been playing up to now. However I'm beginning to realise that once I figure it out it will in fact be manageable. I'm totally hooked!

My teacher is starting me on George Handel's "Sarabande".

Ok, its a bit quiet here so I'll blab....


There is another thread on ABF talking about beginner recommendations for Tom Waits or Nick Cave songs. I have been jonesing to play those guys and have bought some books and sheet music but my first attempts at it showed it was too complex. Typically requires too much hand motion combined with lots of complex chords. I tried a few months ago and put them aside.

That thread motivated me to take another look. Started with Nick Cave's "People just ain't no good" (I found out about it through Shrek2 - which my kids have watched a gazillion times :)).

Still too hard. 4-key-chords that span an octave and change in quick succession

So here is my excitement of the week - its not an achievement yet but isn't it the intention that counts?

As a new experiment, I've started eliminating notes to simplify the chord forms and it doesn't sound that bad. (Not sure whether I'll still be able to play it but it is a start towards simplifying). This is a new thing for me, I've never tried to do my own arrangement before.

I'm now transcribing the first dozen bars into MuseScore and trying to simplify the music - basically keeping the highest note or the highest 3 notes. I realized the cool thing is that I can have two versions of the file, and even if I can't play them smoothly on the piano, I can have the computer play them to me and compare the full version to my butchered one to decide if I think it is retaining enough of the feeling.

So - yeah - first time I've ever started tampering with music on paper. Its fun! Hopefully I'll generate something I can play and then that'll be my AOTW in a month

(BTW - MuseScore is a free open-source music editing software and I use it mostly to transcribe music out of books I've bought so I can print them out. Big fat books don't fit onto my piano's music stand, single sheets are more convenient, and I prefer this to photocopying because I can often shrink a 7-10 page song down to 3 sheets by cutting down spacing, and removing the vocals staff, etc... and I figure anytime I'm playing with music notation, it is a good learning exercise.)

Don

Donzo,

Good for you for giving it a try, whether it works or not you will have learned something. There is nothing wrong with modifying this kind of music.... altering someone's arrangement isn't in the same league as trying to alter, say, a Beethoven piano score.

Re those four-note chords, a couple of things you might try in addition to what you have stated.

- roll it, bottom to top, usually works if the total span isn't too awkward
- redistribute one or more notes to the other hand
- use pedal to hold a base note
-figure out what the harmonic intent is...ie. what chord are you playing....and then choose a different inversion of that chord that is easier to play.
-similarly, figure out the intended chord, and then use a substitue that works well. ie...for a I chord, substituting a vi chord often works. The theorists among us can chime in with others.

I can somewhat kinda maybe play the ornaments in minute waltz somewhat decently maybe now!

Donzo -- The most crucial notes to keep are the root and the top (melody) note, rather than the top three notes. The root and top note of the chord may be one and the same, an octave apart. In that case, you'll indeed have the top three work perfectly.

Example: CEGC --> EGC

But, if you have a Major 7th and drop the bottom note, your somewhat ambiguous/mysterious CM7 becomes a much more pedestrian E minor.

CEGB --> EGB

Your GM7 becomes a Bdim:

GBDF --> BDF

...and so on. When there are inversions, it gets a little more complicated to figure out which is the root -- i.e. it's not necessarily the lowest note. If the original source that you are using has chord notation though, well I guess it's easy then!

Arranging is a lot of fun. The more theory you know (or the better your ears -- Mr. Super-Hunky is Exhibit A for this), the easier it is to make it work.

I use MuseScore too, amazing program considering what it can do and all the time that has gone into it by a fairly small group of extremely dedicated individuals all working gratis.


I somewhat congratulate you.

Jim and TallNHGuy,

Thanks for the advice.

I coded up the first 32 bars. By actually paying attention I realize that all 4-note chords are all 1 octave. I.e. of the form ACFA. In almost all cases. the bar continues with the lower root being repeated while the other notes are held... which is probably hard for me but something I can work on. So in those cases I am dropping the high root note. In one case the high root note in repeated in the bar while the rest are held, and in this case I'm dropping the lower root note. When I play it back with the computer I can't tell a difference between the two versions .

Actually, I have that wrong, don't I? ACFA is actually an F major chord isn't it? So A isn't the root. So what is the significance of the double A? I am not going to have a lesson with my teacher until July... I'm going to have a lot of questions for her! Anyway, sounds fine to kill one of them.

Its still fairly complicated, I need to do more simplification... but I guess actually identifynig what chord / inversion I'm playing first might be a good idea.

Anyway, thanks again for the support!

Hard to say without seeing the score. Helpful to look at:
-key signature
-other notes played at the same time... with the other hand or in the other clef.
- other notes preceding and following your ACFA
-preceding and following chords
-how it sounds

Hmm... ok, maybe this is getting too details for this thread and I should start a separate topic but... here is the score I've put in, with x's on what I've eliminated so far (not very much). I presume the key is "C" (since there are no sharps and flats - I'm not very confident with that kind of thing). Next step was to simplify the quarter-note and eighth-note chords to single notes and then give it a try.

See if I can figure out how to post a picture now...



Yeah, let me know if I should spawn another thread about this or take it to PM.

Thanks again,
Don

Yes, that is an F major. Technically it's also an Amb6 (A minor flatted 6th), which I think is why Jim is hedging a bit, but that would be a very odd way to "spell" the chord. This thread on a guitar forum (5th post mentions Amb6 as a particular example) explains some of the spots where you might see the same chord expressed in different ways.

When in doubt, go for the simple explanation (i.e. F is the root).

I would say that the lower A is simply there to help emphasize and thicken up the melody, which is (generally) the top note.

If you drop the top A, you are changing the melody, which I wouldn't do as a general rule -- unless you are comping, where someone singing or another instrument is carrying the melody.

As Jim mentioned, you can also shuffle that lower A over to the left hand. That is a common pattern in popular music, to have two notes (not necessarily the root -- some of the most interesting chords have something other than the root in the bass) an octave apart in the left hand and then repeat the upper note to provide a rhythmic pulse in the middle register.

It petered out after a year off-and-on, but there is a great thread for music theory here. Lots of resources there.

If you post to that thread (or a new thread -- but hey, I'd love to see it revived), I'm sure there are quite a number of knowledgeable people who will be more than happy to share their expertise.

This YouTube video on chords is a good one (from that old thread):
[video:youtube]5Y01jIorpeA[/video]


At the end of the day, the last point there rules the day!

You've sometimes cut out the melody note, which will sound rather odd.