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

Palmpirate, speedy recovery, you inspire us with your strength, and I hope MOYD 2017 isn't a complete miss for you.

Palmpirtate,

Sending you my best positive vibe and wishing you a successful surgery and speedy recovery.

Jim

Thinking of you palmpirate, and sending you good wishes and positive vibes for a successful surgery and smooth recovery

At my piano lesson this week I butchered my Bach, but my teacher said my Mendelssohn represented a breakthrough. Being of a scientific mind, I told her it only counted if it was reproducible. Still, I was pleased with the compliment, especially after what I did to poor Herr Bach.

That's hilarious!

@Stubbie, what Bach and what Mendelssohn are you doing?

Worked with my duet partner yesterday and we are making progress!!! So much fun!!!

My teacher always laughs when I report a percentage.

I got a new teacher this week. Imagine my shock when after hearing me play she pulled out the RCM Level 7 and Level 8 books and asked me to pick something. I don't feel like I'm anywhere close to that level!

Sometimes we feel like we've plateaued at a certain level and then we realize after a while that the plateau is more of a gradual slope and that we've made a ton of progress. Well, that's how I feel now.

I started to tell my teacher it was an N = 1, but "N of one" usually gets heard something like "enovwon" and then there's a lot of explaining to do.

The Bach is the Allemande from French Suite No. 6 and the Mendelssohn is May Breezes, Op. 62 no. 1, from Songs Without Words. For the Bach, the fingering needs to be just so, but I had a hard time figuring out and sticking to a fingering for the Mendelssohn. I have a new newly assigned Mendelssohn, Elegy, Op. 85 no. 4. It's beautiful and, bonus, the fingering seems more straightforward.

Haha Stubbie!

"enovwon" would be a great user id!

Isabelle, the duet does sound like fun. Is it just for fun (and enrichment) or are you going to perform it for a group?

Qazsedcft, it's always a buzz when you get reinforcement that you're making progress. Congrats!

After some challenges with triplets over quarter notes, I finally made progress to end of page 2 of Debussy arabesques 1..with slow practice in play. So happy. Working on right hand fingering on first 4 measures on page 3...; Chopin nocturne 9.2, finally both hands for first 5 measure...slow practice...ha. Doesn't seem a lot if measured in number of measures, but significant for me and before next lesson. With e-recitals in play, plus a ravel that teacher wants me to tackle. I think I may do a staycation soon...🤗

Over the last week or so, I went back to finish up the remaining pieces in my RCM, Level 1 books, which, I had neglected in recent months in favor of more advanced pieces by Tansman, Gillock, and some others. Last night I finished the final RCM Level 1 piece.

I enthusiastically opened the Level 2 Repertoire book, and started tinkering with a couple of pieces. To my great pleasure, they started yielding to me almost instantly. I was a bit shocked. I think my excursion through these other composers, more in the Romantic era mode, really helped me. I never doubted that those materials, especially Tansman, were more difficult, but, I had no idea by how much. I'm optimistic that I will progress through RCM Level 2 materials at a faster rate than I proceeded through Level 1. I'm very happy and excited about this.

Ralph- what a great feeling! It is great when we start being able to recognize our progress in a concrete way.

I had another great lesson - yup, I'm on a roll for sure!

I played through the 1st movement of my new sonatina (Diabelli Op 168 N1) HT for the first part, HS for the second - but implementing the suggestions from last week rather well - I was happy, so was my teacher.

I also played Traumerei with the pedal and my teacher was pleased that I had a good sense of when and where to apply it - though he pointed out a few things I had missed.

Every week, for quite a while now, I've been feeling wonderfully satisfied with how the lessons unfold, and how I've been able to implement my teacher's feedback from one lesson to the next. I don't know how long this phase is going to last, but I am going to enjoy every moment of it.

I think one of the most important things that happened to me, internally, was that I finally, consciously, got to the point where I realized and accepted that the lesson is not a performance (well, 95% of the time). I've been able to separate the "demonstrating what I practiced" from the "ok, this piece is performance ready" moment that only happens at the end of the study period for a given piece.
That has helped me be so much calmer during lessons and lets me perform without worrying about errors or little glitches.
SwissMs posted about that and her message really hit home. So, thanks SwissMS!

I had a small AOTW I want to share. With some significant changes in my life over the past 12 months, I'm getting barely any time to practice, and I've been wondering how on earth I'll ever progress from here.

Today, being Saturday, I ignored the washing, the housework, and mowing the lawn, and instead managed to work my Mozart up from 70bpm to 90 bpm with only about another 10bpm to go. Woohoo!

I'm feeling confident I'll have this nailed for the EPP2017 (Bulgaria), yay!

Cathryn - that's a big leap in tempo! Good for you!

My ATOW doesn't come from any of the pieces I'm currently working on .

I was looking at my Diabelli OP 168 book and just flipping forward -- my experience has been that N1 and N2 in any given OP are easier and I was wondering what N3 would be like. I looked at the first movement and though...oh dear. Then the second movement...Hhmm. Not bad. 6/8 time, hmm, I started reading it and realized I could actually read both lines as if I were playing AND I could hear it in my head. Now, I don't really think I heard it exactly as it truly sounds, - but "close enough" - It's the first time I've read music "silently" like that to such effect.

I was very pleased.

Oh, and yes, my study pieces are coming along well too

Cathryn - That is a big leap in tempo. Good for you! which Mozart are you playing?

Casinitaly - Being able to hear a piece while reading the sheet music without playing it is a really valuable skill! It sounds like you are doing great.

I had my last "on the piano lesson" last Tuesday, and all of my pieces went very well. The teacher was very pleased with how my exam pieces are sounding, and she complemented my on my Beethoven, which I had not played in a lesson for a while. My AOTW was hearing that she felt my technique had really improved since we started lessons in January. That really made me happy!

I am taking theory and aural test lessons now, until my new piano can be delivered to our home. That will probably be two more weeks. However I am really enjoying the theory work, sight singing, and piece analysis that we do in lessons. It is like a crash course in music theory, and has led me to do more analysis of the pieces that I am playing. I am having a blast with it!

Hello everyone! Nice topic)
I've finally understood that it's almost a year and a half since I've been playing piano, but I still got no peices learned)) I mean, entire pieces, not just a small parts, a dozens of measures etc. It's so hard to learn one piece from the beginning to the end when all these sonatas and etudes and scherzos I like are so difficult and long)) So, I found an easy way out - to be learned from the beginning to the end, a piece should be short)) I've chosen nice little piece by Scriabin and made my first video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIlpKWWVT-c