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Did you see the jazz on that channel too? There is plenty there to keep one busy for a very long time.

Thank you for the welcome and tips, Progman. I'm pleased I am not alone in this age group. It is the ideal time for me to start as I have more time to devote to the piano now.

I find counting difficult but I do play with the metronome regularly. I plan to do more regular recordings too. Maybe on a Sunday as this is when I update my piano journal and assess how well I have progressed during the week and make plans for the following week.

I have reached When the Saints Go Marching In and not liking it very much. I was disappointed when I realised it has to be played twice with each hand playing the melody. lol

I understand the timing of this piece and can play the F chord with relative ease but the more I play this song the worse I seem to get. I am thinking of just moving on to the G Position chapter but coming back to it every day until I am happier with it. Not really sure yet but that is the way I am thinking right now.

Liking the piece definitely helps. Sometimes I found that I could focus on a certain chord or part of the melody that was beautiful in spite of not being enamored with the song. My teacher had me skip When the Saints Go Marching In, though, happily enough.

I'm just starting on The Entertainer and it's a lot of fun. I was told to keep just hands separate this week, but I'm already itching to put things together. We'll see.

Edit: When the Saints Go Marching In - 10 styles. Wow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_n5YAolWVM

I have been lost in these treads for a couple of days now, good thing it has been steady at work.
There are some very thoughtful and eloquent people replying, as a 58 year old noob these discussions have brought up then answered, then questioned the answers on many beginner questions. I think I will have to chew through it all a few times before deciding on my own course of action. Great stuff.
Unfortunately I live 3 1/2 hours drive north of the nearest piano teacher so Alfred and Piano Marvel and Pianotv are going to have to be enough to follow along with the seemingly endless supply of supplementry material suggested on here and available through Amazon. Thanks for the links and helpful words.

Janet how is Allegro from uDemy coming? I stumbled through it a few times but I finally had to look it up on Youtube to see what it should sound like. I like it. It sounds pretty cool with someone talented playing it. Now to just get mine to sound musical...the journey continues.

Welcome to the forum, Janet! I didn’t completely learn the flipped version of “When the Saints…”, either. Just attempted it a few times.

I finished Chattanooga Choo Choo a day or two after I last came here. So happy to have finally completed the book. Took me so long! Have moved on to book 2. It starts with a very simple song. Nice way to lure people in! The teacher in the Let’s Play Piano Methods channel, didn’t even cover it. The first section in book 2 is essentially a review of the key and time signatures covered in the first book. But the music keeps getting more and more complex as the section proceeds. Glad to see lots of pieces with triplets here. I am not very good at those.

Congratulations Tech-key!

Maybe you could check out Allysia from Pianotv's new online lesson option. I think plenty of teachers work across Skype as well these days.

There are also many teachers who now give lessons online, like my own, Morodiene. One only needs a decent Internet connection these days.

Thanks Gidget and Tyrone I did sign up for Pianotv's 30 Days of Piano course but I see she now does personal internet lessons as well which may work well for me since I'm a shift worker doing the lessons on the same day every week would not work. Your right this is a great time to be learning piano. Not to many years ago it would be tough unless the teacher lived nearby.

Wow indeed, Blague! Thanks for sharing this video. Good luck with The Entertainer. I am looking forward to reaching it some day.

I asked someone to listen to me playing When the Saints and they said it sounded great. I also recorded myself playing and weirdly, it sounded much better than it sounded in my head so I don't feel guilty about moving on.



I have enjoyed learning it and it is now near completion. I just need to be a little more sure of the very last bar. Sometimes I can play it fine but other times I fumble. I am planning to add it to my repetoire. It is probably a bit too difficult for this stage of the AIO but with my previous experience and taking it slowly with left and right hands before HT, it was fine. Just as a side note, I purchased the latest edition of Pianist magazine and a couple of back issues and found this sheet music in issue 107.




Thanks for the welcome, Tech-key and congratulations on finishing Book 1. I hope you have lots of fun with Book 2.

Thank you, Janet

Progman, you have been a great help throughout. Thank you for all your support

Aaron, did you listen to the three videos where he demonstates how to play it with the right hand, left hand and then both hands together?

I used the metronome as a crutch at the beginning also. It was literally impossible for me to count while playing at the beginning. So I found that I could do the metronome. I did it for 2 or 3 days, then I went to a piece I already knew, and tried counting it again and was successful. Since then I only used the metronome for a tricky phase or when I wanted to speed up play of a piece I knew.

When counting eighth notes { 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +} where + = 'and', I could never get fully comfortable with that so I changed the 'and' to 'a' and that flowed better. Some people use a word with the right amount of syllables also. There's lot's of tricks to get our brains to do something we want....

Aaron, did you listen to the three videos where he demonstates how to play it with the right hand, left hand and then both hands together?
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I did actually, it was just easier to find it on Youtube when I needed to get the tune back in my head while playing off the sheet music. I guess that comes down to reading more and "seeing" the rhythm in the notation. So far it just looks like marks on paper but I understand after some experience you can tell how it should sound just by looking at the sheet music.
I'm glad they invented Youtube so I can get it in my ear and help translate that to the marks on the sheet music. Baby steps.

I think the other thing that is hard to understand is the tempo It says to play it allegro, when I look that up it says fast, quickly and bright (120-156 bpm). If I'm playing piano somewhere between 120 and 156 bpm the drummer is going to be throwing drumsticks at me. Do you just all agree to a tempo before hand?

Thanks for this, Progman. I will keep trying. Hopefully it will get easier.

I find YouTube invaluable for so many things too.



I am not sure about the tempo. I am just playing it at the tempo it sounds good to me (and what I have heard others play it). Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will help us out.

I guess this is what we should be aiming for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9U0eIC4YF4

but at this stage I am just using this as supplementary material and, as I enjoy playing it, I will be adding it to my "regular play list". I think speed will come with practise.

Yes 120 bpm sounds good, and this is also supplementary for me after Alfred's AIO and Piano Marvel for an hour then an hour of guitar then this bonus material.