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Congrats FarmGirl!

Farmgirl - it is great to here from you! It sounds like your music world continues with lots of playing opportunities. On the work front, I am sure will find opportunity in this unexpected change!

Casinitaly, Greener, torquenale, and Carlos- See you in Lisbon soon!!!

I'll have to join the "congrats to Farmgirl" contingent here. It's great to not have to work full-time, and you'll love it! I live pretty frugally, and retirement won't be much different than now, so essentially I've been semi-retired for the last 25 years. But SwissMS is right - there'll be all sorts of opportunity in this, and whatever happens will be silver-lining.

Cathy

Thanks everyone for congrats and warm regards. It means a lot to me. As Cathy mentioned above I am amazed how frugally one can live. I started cooking rather than buying processed food since I have time now. Then I lost 5Lb without doing any exercise. It's nice to have time. I'm rediscovering stuff I liked when I was younger, cooking, baking, reading and doing all sorts of stuff with my dogs.

Music life is full. Busy with prepping for chamber music performance. I am practicing one of the chamber piece with my oboe player friend tomorrow and separately practicing piano duet with Olly my duet partner. I chose my Schubert piece for the master class. I'm excited to play in front of a college professor and internationally renown pianist. This is an annual special event hosted by our local piano club. I am the least skilled of the three performers. I think that's why they asked me. I provide a variety. Two others are playing Chopin sonata no 2 and Brahms 76-2 respectively. It's in Sept. So I will post practice recording to member recording area in August. Phew. Sorry for the long post.

Hi Farmgirl,

Nice to see your lazy personality on display ......community college classes, regular teacher class, monthly piano group, monthly chamber group, recitals for both organizations, on-line recitals...oh, and now a master class?

Somehow I doubt you will ever lack for things to do with your time.

Happy to see you back at ABF again. What did you choose for the short piece you were looking for a while ago?

Jim

Ah yes, an object lesson in stubborn and self-defeating stick-to-itiveness!

I love Shel's ability to simultaneously entertain, lampoon, and teach children. His works are just as relevant and beloved by my kids as they were by me when they were first published. Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak & C.S. Lewis fit that category for kids, JK Rowling will likely join their company once a generation has passed, but it's a pretty small club. I suspect Shel isn't nearly as popular with those under 30 or so, but mostly due to lack of movie tie-ins and other marketing gimmicks, which is a shame.

Congratulations Farmgirl!

My AOTW is actually achievement of the month, I survived several extra busy weeks and starting today I'm officially on vacation. I don't work on July and August (it's a form of part-time my employer gives me), so June is usually a crazy month and this year has been even worse.
Yesterday evening I listened to the last 10 pieces of May ABF Recital, I was really late and I did not to want to miss anything.

Today I started to feel excited because in two days I'm flying to Lisbon with the family, to join EPP. The first participant is already there!

My ATOW remains simply fulfilling MOYD.

In about 36 hours we'll be heading to the airport for the EPP - looks like we're on the same flight as Torquenale!

I completed a blues song for my teacher and he loved it!! All the changes he suggested i agreed with and he explained why they needed to change instead of just telling me to change them. it was a fun assignment.

Same flight! How cool is that?!

Let's see.. short pieces. I bought a book that contains Alkan's miniature pieces and Scribian's Op 11 book. I will start playing them 2 short pieces at a time. Got a few Ravel pieces too. I also fell in love with MomPou pieces too. I think it will give me plenty of music for our monthly piano club meetings. Thanks for remembering.

Not really achievement but I write it anyway...
One of my chamber music piece by Devienne had 6/8 time signature with Presto mark. Presto is like 160, so I thought it would be applied to 8th notes. Wrong. The score shows that actually each measure consists of two beats of dotted quarter note... Yes, it means that I have to play it 3 times faster. When my teacher told me this, I gasped for air. All the sudden, this easy piece turned into a difficult piece. I only have 2 weeks to get it up to speed. My teacher said it is doable but I have to dedicate every waking minute for playing the piece. Then I will be ready on the eve of the performance. Seriously? I listened to the spotify only to find out she was absolutely right. The piece goes like tarantula. Frigging fast. I won't be posting much until this thing is over on 7/20.

Well after the piano party for my teacher's adult students I've come home with a new assignment list. Back to scales and a touch of Hanon to work on speed. Another Grieg...Nocturnno. She wants me to master 3s against 2s. I quote "if you want to play Debussy, this skill is a must". I'm back at the middle pages of the Beethoven sonata 14#1 (EM) wanting to at least have the whole thing under my fingers for performance ready someday. Some Schumann...cradle song which is not hard if you don't try to do it just right. And a Chopin mazurka that I hoped she'd forgotten that I never completed but she has a memory like a steel trap. And then all those I play just for fun.

My big achievement however was taking half a morning and resorting and organizing my piano music. I keep on shelves in magazine files so it is upright and easy to find. Had to go buy 8 new files from Office Max to get the job done. To think I've played from most of those books makes me feel like I have made progress over the years.

@Farmgirl, I looked up the Devienne piece and love it. Hope you'll be able to make it.

I love the nocturnno. It's an incredibly beautiful piece. Your effort will be rewarded by three times. Enjoy the trills.

FarmGirl: Wow, what a fantastic separation package! You're going to have a great time - at least until that next job turns up. Baking supplies have also dominated my shopping the past few weeks. Something about carefully metered weights and measurements is comforting when there's no daily pile of documents or decisions at hand.

earlofmar: Considering its difficulty level is much higher than expected by most, I think finding notes without looking is an often understated achievement.

Ragdoll: Obsession. It's a good thing. I'm doing the same here. After so many months of aimless wandering having real direction feels just wonderful doesn't it?

No real AOTW for me. My second real lesson last week consisted of more basic scales/arpeggios and essentially learning how to press D4 with correct relaxation, rotation, touch and timing. Focus is technique - Bach Musette in D - which I can smash out at any tempo without problem is vexing now that I'm in technique kindergarten. Learning how to really LISTEN for mistakes. Also picked up a simple Corelli Sarabande this week to work on left hand/right hand timing.

I've decided to move from 30 to 45 minutes a week - I did not realize how much information is exchanged in a piano lesson.

I was really encouraged to get nice feedback on my little exam. It is watered down (no sightreading) and the examiner was generous, but anyway.

I have also found myself a lovely piece of Scarlatti -- quite possibly the easiest of them all. My mother used to play Scarlatti and I miss him.

I have been taking lessons for 5-6 months. I had my first recital where I played Minuet in G major (bach) and Minuet en rondeau (Rameau).

Nailed it.

My teacher said she received a lot of compliments on my playing, which is always nice to hear.

Congrats. Great feeling, eh?

I am enjoying the reports and pictures from the EPP in Lisbon. What a great thing.

Welcome to the thread SigFigs.

Week 121: my piano week is light on practice as I start transcribing my original piece Pixie Dust. I am getting better with MuseScore and Midi input, but still find it clumsy at times. So far I have spent about four hours on the transcription and it is about half way to where it will be eventually.