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Thank you Donzo. I am glad to know that I am not alone in this. That someone was ahead of me are doing it too and making progress.

Thank you

MandyD the Australian contingent was quite sparse for a while but you must have wrote "heaps" in one of your posts and I knew we had another. Thanks for sharing and look forward to your recital debut this one or next.

pdxfz1 - Welcome to PW!!!
Really nice to know that you and your sons are in this journey together. As a father of two (13yo and 17yo) I know how music was/is important in our family. I see you like to listen "calm music", but what do you like to play?

MandyD - Welcome to PW!!!
I would say the same thing I told to pdxfz1! Looking forward to know more about your novel
What kind of music do you like to play?

Hi, everybody. My name is Mike and I've just joined. I started piano in early May (with a teacher) using Alfreds All in One, Adult. I'm currently on o Sole Mio. Having played a little guitar. Timing and the treble clef weren't major hurdles but the bass clef was like a foreign language! Anyway, glad to be here.

Mike

Welcome aboard Mike407.

Hi Mike, I hear you about the bass clef. I started lessons about the same time as you and you are much further than me so well done.

Carlos the only things I can play at the moment are the little tunes in the Alfred's L1 books! However I would love to be able to play Claire de Lune, Ballade pour Adeline, Jessica's Theme and anything pretty. I love a lot of classical music but find some of it to be a bit heavy (for want of a better word). I'd also love to be able to play musicals as well as pop & rock. So basically everything!

Welcome to PW, Mike407! You are in the right place; PW has lots of resources to explore.
Keep us up to date with your progress and achievements. Have a nice journey!

Oh, that's a great collection of pieces to play, MandyD. I love the "anything pretty", btw

About 25 years ago I starting taking piano lessons when my daughters were quite small using Alfred's. Bought a nice Kawai DP and took lessons for about 2 years. At that point my teacher moved away, I got stuck, the lessons stopped and the Kawai was sold.

Eleven months ago my wife and I saw a story in our local paper about a teacher who seemed like a perfect fit for us. Not only did she have a lot of teaching experience, but over a third of her students were adults.

Well we bought a nice Kawai CN34 and away we went (using the Faber series). About three months ago we decided to upgrade to an acoustic piano. After a dreary two week adventure with a Yamaha AdvantGrand N1, we found a great deal on the new Yamaha CX series. We have had this piano for about three months, and it has been a great experience so far.

The best part is that according to our teacher our playing skills have advanced quite a bit, probably thanks in some part to the C2X, and our increased practice time with it.

A final note: I would hazard a guess and say that most of the "regulars" here that own nice acoustic pianos are not beginners, and have at least some intermediate skills, all the way up to professional status.

See it from my point of view. Eleven months ago I was back at ground zero. As of today, I can play music at a level that far exceeds my original expectations. This probably is because of 1) my teacher, 2) my work ethic, 3) my instrument, 4) my lesson books.

Needless to say I'm thrilled

Great story BrianDX, thanks for sharing. And great progress too! As far as I can see, you are in the right path.
Very nice to know that you recovered your passion for piano.

Thanks CarlosCC

Thank you CarlosCC. My wife and I are excited. We are hoping that we can continue with this journey for a long time. This morning right before I was about to take my boys to their daycare the delivery truck arrived.

I posted some picture at my original posting here at Piano Forum. Today will be the first day of our exciting journey.

As far as what I would like to play, I am hoping someday I could play Chopin Nocturne no.20 and Beethoven Moonlight Sonata.

Good morning n301291 :-) If I do my name in your pattern it would be n050266

I felt sad when I read your post. I hope you are still alive and kicking!

Life is already too short, so why people in a hurry to end it?! I mean if you are going to live 1000 years, maybe it is a long time, but say 90 years is not a long time.
I also tried to kill myself when I was 20 years old. I'm glad that the pills were not strong enough and they could save me :-) I would miss this beautiful computer, Casio DP, Virtual studio of many great synths and of course my 90 or so great games of all times (mostly RPG!).

I born and grew up in Iraq, then lived in Greece for 10 years, Uruguay for 4 years (got married there) and New Zealand since 2006 (got divorced here!). See, if I killed myself, I wouldn't make this big travelling around the world and living in those very different cultures and I wouldn't met wonderful people around the world. Of course everything is not that nice! I suffered a lot from racism (and still of course), but I got used to it and the less you talk with people around you, the better ;-)

Three years ago, I had a heart attack and this the most important event in my life! Being 45 years old that time, it was early. I could survive, and this experience has changed my life. Maybe you think I became religious ....etc. No at all! I was kind of spiritual person believed in incarnations ...etc. I changed all that, no illusions any more! Just science and 1 +1 = 2! No cigarettes (damn! how difficult it was), very rare alcohol and of course "No woman, no cry"!

I thought it would be a miserable life, but in reality for the first time I could feel happy without illusions.

Oh, I was poor (and still poor). I always dreamt of making my own band when I was young, but nothing.I had my first classic guitar in the late 80's and learnt for one year but the damn wars changed my life. I had Yamaha/Casio home keyboards in the 90's when I lived in Greece, and in Uruguay and NZ I went completely computer based with Midi controller.

Now I'm in Alfred's book level 1 and enjoying everything in the piano world including "Jingle Bells" and enjoying to be alive and breathing. so with all these laughters and tears, in the end "Life is wonderful", believe me :-)

Well, I just noticed that I missed some new PW members bios...
n301291 and EnGee, your stories are really full of emotions and I don't want to comment the sad side of it. On the contrary, I just want to welcome you to this wonderful community. Welcome to PW!

Thanks CarlosCC. Indeed it is a nice friendly community. I already learnt a lot. PW is already my main resource now for learning music :-)

Sorry for the sad bio. I just wanted n301291 (or anyone with a negative attitude towards life) to feel more positive about it. Sometimes, a tiny little idea can lead to a whole new life or direction.

Hello everyone, I'm not really that new, but I just saw this thread and I thought it would be nice to get to know the people who have been so kindly replying to my threads!

I'm from Singapore and am 27 this year, and in the day I'm a Math teacher. It's fun and I really enjoy teaching, but I love playing the piano too. I've been playing the piano since last year (though I did a bit of other music when I was younger), and I'm really excited by all the pieces waiting to be played!

Apart from playing the piano, I also enjoy reading and playing board games and other games (I think it has to do with liking Math). I am trying to lead a more active lifestyle though, and get moving a little more.

Once again, it's nice meeting all of you and reading all your introductions!

Hi musicalinfinity, and welcome to this thread (and PW!).

I'm not a math teacher but some say that I've a kind of "math mind" too. Some close friends tried to link this characteristic to my playing... The only link I can see is to have a kind of structured approach in front of a new piece - analyse to resolve -.
Nice subject. Maybe, you can explain us what are your experience and thoughts about it.

Hello, I live in Surrey in the UK and have just turned 50 and I started to learn piano in March 2013 so not that long ago. I new nothing about playing any instrument or reading music or how music really worked. I did very much enjoy listening to music though and always have.

It started as a bit of a new year resolution (2013 new year) to find out more about how music works, and as I read and found out more I thought why not learn to play something as well (its probably been something I have always wanted to do and I thought lets just do it now before I get much older). So I thought about guitar or piano and went for piano and purchased a Yamaha P35 as I was unsure how I would get on and didn't want to spend to much. I started with Alfreds Adult all in on course (which I am still doing) and I am now having lessons as well.

I have had two issues with the Yamaha with noisy keys once after 8 weeks or so (which meant it going back to Yamaha for a month) and again 6 weeks ago, so being rather fed up with it and with my 50th round the corner I went looking for something new (the Yamaha is back with Yamaha being fixed) so after looking at Acoustic and Digital and listening and playing and thinking I now have a new Kawai CA-15 .

I can be oh so easy to get frustrated when things don't go well but I have had the view from the outset that this is a 'rest of my life' learning process that will never stop. I don't have a 'target' level to achieve but I hope I will just keep improving but if reach my limits in the future then that's fine I will just carry on enjoying playing.

Its been a brain stretching journey so far , learning how music works, learning to read music and learning to play the piano - but I have enjoyed it all, my wife has also just recently purchased a guitar (I think spurred on by my efforts) and a few weeks back I played a duet with a friend on violin and will be playing in a little recital before Christmas with the other students (where I have lessons) so its been an immensely rewarding and fun time.

So that's about it for the intro, I hope to take part more on the forum and enter into the quarterly recitals.

Welcome aboard Kawai Player, look forward to reading more of your progress as it developes

How cool that you've been playing some duets, and that your wife and you may soon be able to jam together, Kawai Player. The learning process will keep you young and entertained for the next 50 years (I can vouch for the next 18, anyway)!

Nice to have you here.

Cathy

Just wanted to add one more welcoming voice, Kawai Player. You've got the right attitude to go far and enjoy the ride at the same time. You will find lots of folks with similar stories around here.

Hope to hear how you are doing from time to time.

Jim