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Hi,

I picked the piano back again after nearly 14 years of pause. I'm now in my 4th year of practice.

A few days ago I had the chance to play on a Yamaha C3. My oh my! That's a piano.

Hi, my name is Catherine, I am 45... got a tiny electric keyboard when I was 7, played by ear, started organ lessons at 11, switched to piano at 13, had 6-7 teachers between ages 11 and 16 (me, not the teachers), total of 3 years? Not sure why so stop-and-go. Hated practicing, maybe teachers gave up and I gave up. Assumed that a few months of lessons here and there was a normal part of life. Always complained I had a hard time sight reading, teachers never responded! I would muddle through and memorize ASAP. Had 6 months with LRAM teacher in my 30s, super for technique. Looked at ABRSM and guess I am grade 6-7? Church pianist for small group, but have to improvise and read hymns, transpose... informal but demanding.
Hoping to find encouragement here for consistency. My habit is practice 3 months, then stop for 2 years, and repeat cycle!

Hi all, thanks for all the great energy and in-depth reviews at this site! Needless to say I am passionate piano lover and so happy to find this place!

My name is Birba and I'm new here.
I guess that's about it!

Now I get it. You want info on me.
I'm a retired vocal coach who worked with the Rome opera house for 25 years. Now I'm back to working on my own repertoire and enjoying going over old pieces and working on new ones. The latter seems to be more difficult at my age! But I have lots of time on hand, and dedicate about 5 hours a day to practising. On another forum I was also doing some videos for pianists who had particular questions or wanted some criticism on their playing. That was lots of fun until we got some "fake" pianists.

Hello ! I'm a software engineer from France.
Long time brass player in several bands, I took my first piano lesson on April 2008. Apart from the acoustic piano (a Kawai RX-2) used during the lessons, I only play on, and owned, digital pianos, due to place lacking, and to preserve my neighbor's ears by using headphones. I first owned a Yamaha P85, then had a Roland HP-207, and bought recently a Roland V-Piano.
I'm also an autodidact organ player, practicing on my Roland VK-77.
To keep a trace of my work on some pieces, I post some of my recordings on YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/Panopeus .

Welcome!
You might consider a silent (hybrid) piano in the future in order not to disturb your neighbours... They are the best solution for neighbours, although a little bit expensive (being two pianos in one).
I hope you will enjoy PianoWorld!

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and I am another rusty intermediate. I took piano lessons and played the oboe as a youngster. I had a great lapse in playing either instrument while pursuing a degree and career in chemistry. Fast forward to life with three kids...About ten years ago I bought a piano and took lessons for a short while, but gave it all up again after a move and pressing motherhood matters. Now, since two of the kids are off to college, and number three is a fairly self sufficient older teen (with a passion for the electric guitar!) I am trying to play my beloved piano again with these less than nimble fingers. I have no plans at this time to take lessons. Rather, I'm just enjoying hearing snippets I can manage to play :-) Please be gentle with your responses to any of my queries...my ambitions are extremely modest!

B who's working on Chopin Nocturne Op. 72, No. 1 and Ginastera Danzas Argentinas No. 2.

Hello,
I joined this site last December (2010), and introduced myself on the Adult Beginners and returning... forum. I guess I've been a "Lurker" in the Pianist Corner. Since it feels a bit creepy to be a "Lurker"' I'll introduce myself.

I live in Minnesota, and am the manager of communications and volunteers for a nonprofit human services agency.

I just turned 63, and recently bought a Yamaha P155 after a 35-year absence from piano playing. I had taken lessons for about 13 years, then quit practicing in college when I changed my major to journalism. I am practicing everyday now that I have a piano at home. I am really enjoying it.

I was afraid that I would never be able to play some of my favorite recital pieces. However, they are slowing starting to come back. I am so excited that I might be good enough to record some for one of the e-citals. Right now, a big challenge for me is the technology. It's wonderful, and sometimes frustrating (not unlike learning to play the piano!). My challenge (besides performing my recital piece well), is learning the technical logistics of getting it on YouTube, etc. I'm sure I'll be posting a call for help and advice as we get closer to recital time. In the meantime, I am happy to have found this site and the many members who are supportive and willing to help. Thanks.

Carl

Hi everyone,

I am 23 years old and have been playing piano since I was 5. I did, however, have a few breaks here and there including a 4 year lapse during college where I learned guitar well enough to play with a band my friends and I created. I had a lot of fun but after we all went our separate ways, and a few good gigs with my Orange TV200, I decided to go back to my roots and work on my real passion.

I came across this wonderful site about 2 weeks ago in search of information for my first personal piano purchase. I just got engaged and will be needing a piano of my own. I've been reading NON stop since then. I'm really looking forward to participating here and FINALLY finding some piano enthusiasts besides myself. (It gets lonely talking to oneself when no other alternates are available to speak to.) :p Thanks.

Rudy

Hi there. I ran across this forum a few times when researching things and I noticed that there are at least a couple of amateur Chopin scholars hanging about, so I thought I'd join and see if I could learn something.

A bit about myself: I live in the Deep South portion of the USA. I only really like Bach and Chopin, aside from a few exceptions here and there. I am not a particularly good pianist, but at the same I am very picky when it comes to listening, to the point that most professional pianists bore or frustrate me most of the time. I like Gould for Bach though he often annoys me (not with the singing, which I don't really care about, but with other eccentricities), but I don't really like anyone for Chopin in general, though I occasionally come across a performance that moves me (same with other, non-GG performances of Bach).

There, that's probably more than anyone really wanted to know. Nice to be here.

Edit: Oh wow...after a little more looking around, I realized there are some real Chopin scholars hanging around as well. Awesome!

Hey Terez... do I know you from Piano Society? This one of my favorite hangout spots, so welcome!

Hello everyone! I'm from Dallas and this is my first post, though I've been reading for a while.

I've studied piano since I was around 5 or 6 and continued through college & grad school. I'm now getting back into it after a 4-5 year "serious playing" hiatus. I'm recently married and my husband & I's first joint purchase is a new piano -- which will be delivered this week! We can't wait.

My favorite composers are the late romantics/impressionists (Albéniz, Ravel, Debussy, etc.) but as far as playing, I'm much better at Mozart-type stuff. I'm a terrible sight-reader, so I'd like to work on that, and I'm also trying to teach myself jazz piano.

It's great to be here; this is a wonderful forum!

Yup, that would be me. Now that Alfie has gone there is hardly anyone to talk with about Chopin scholarship aside from Monica, so...here I am.

Well, I'm glad you're aboard... there's almost always something up around here at PW. There are also a number of Chopin lovers and scholars lurking around (I'm in the former, but certainly not in the latter ).

Hello I am new here and just wanted to introduce myself.
I am a a piano enthusiast and hope to gain many valuable tips from this forum.
Feel free to check out my new website http://playthepianolikeapro.com

Greetings, all! I am a junior piano performance major at Cal Poly Pomona in Southern California, currently pursuing the complete Liszt Transcendental Etudes and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7; I recently made my orchestral debut in January with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Pasadena Community Orchestra (concert is uploaded on Youtube... 3rd movement is sketchy and rushed, as I learned this concerto in only 6 months for the concert). I'd ramble on for hours about my experience as a pianist but I'll just leave it at that. Looking forward to contributing to this forum!

Hi! New guy on the block!

Hello all,
I've been lurking on here for quite some time; perhaps it's time to make myself known!

I'm about to turn 15; taken lessons since I was 7, but didn't apply myself (i.e., four or more hours of daily practice, auditing graduate history and theory courses at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, getting the chance to play for Dr. Robert Roux and other teachers there, and generally being involved with the Houston music community) until I started taking lessons with a world-class teacher about 14 months ago. I went from knowing barely a third of my scales and having great difficulty with Beethoven's Op. 2, No. 1 (1st movement) to knowing my scales inside out and upside down, and playing Chopin's 2nd Ballade and a movement of a Mozart concerto, with plenty of smaller repertoire in between. Not easily of course, but not out of my reach at all. In fact, I'm performing an excerpt of the ballade tomorrow for my birthday festivities!

Nice to have such a supportive and active community on here; always fascinating topics being discussed!

Cheers,
Noah Alden

I'm new to the forum...an old guy. I play piano (and other keys), drums and bass, each with varying degrees of facility. My undergraduate degree was in music composition and that is my main focus. Not a flash player, but rather a jack of all trades. If you like jazz fusion, you can hear some of my recordings at http://www.anonymousinventions.com