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My teacher started me on serious ear training exercises using some Invention exercises from Bach. Never focused enough on ear training . Starting to get it as I can tell when improvising.

Mrs. JimF 90 days ago: "OMG what IS that you are trying to play... its not music is it?"

Me: "Its supposed to be Chopin sweetie"

Mrs. JimF yesterday: "OMG what IS that you are playing, its Gorgeous!"

Me: "Its Chopin sweetie"

Yep, somewhere between January and yesterday, Chopin's C# min Nocturne evolved from an ugly duckling to a swan. Well at least in Mrs. JimF's opinion.
Then I went to my lesson where, without ever mentioning the Chopin or asking me to play it, my teacher lays out Liszt's E major Consolation #2, plays it, and says I think you'll love these harmonies.
Of course she is right, I do. And with that, it seems the Chopin passes to repertoire and I'm back at ugly non-music again. (sorry sweetie)

What I'm particularly proud of here is that it "only" took me 3-4 months for the Chopin and much of the work I did on my own... I mean things like finding ways to practice effectively, experimenting with different approaches to the music, working on precise pedaling.... bag-o-tricks type stuff. Feeling like all the years are paying off as some things that might have thrown me in past now seem fairly routine.

Feeling very good to have a real life AOTW!

Here's Horowitz playing the Liszt #2


Best to you all,

Jim

Congrats, JimF, on completing the piece. I know exactly what you mean. Just as I finished my Tchaikovsky, my teacher lays Clare de Lume out for me. It’s gonna take a while!

One of my goals is to practice 20hours a week. Having fallen woefully short in 2017 and 2018 I decided for 2019 to create a daily practice diary to jot down my practice times.

Thru April 30th if I hit my goal I would be at 320hours for 2019. When I added up my hours I had practiced 317.2 hours, barely 3 hours shy of my goal!

Another goal I had in 2017 was to regain the skill level I had when I quit in 1979. I predicted it would take 18months to recover. Well, it's been 23months and I'm calling it. The restart is over, I don't need to relearn any more, I've recovered enough...my new beginning is here, now. I'm ready to start playing again.

Congratulations Fidel! How exciting to start playing again. What will be your first piece now that you are no longer relearning?

Wow Fidel. I think it must have been 1979 when I stopped as well.

I still have some time to go based on your experience.

My AOTW is that I find myself saying something I have seen other people say but have NEVER been in a position to say myself!

"The ABF quarterley recital is about to open, I wonder which of these ready to record pieces i will decide to put in?"

I even have recordings of two already that would do, though I have specific areas to work on and improve so I am hoping to do better by submission time.

As I've mentioned before, I have been working on easier material with my teacher and the natural consequence is more material being learned more quickly compared to when nearly everything was at the bleeding edge of my ability!

Congratulations barbaram! That must be a great feeling. I've sworn not to present anything that I haven't been playing as finished repertoire for at least a year. CDL won't fit that category for another 7 months IF I can keep it up... recently fallen into a bit of disrepair as life intruded on practice time. Having good recordings in reserve is like a dream to me. Congrats.

Next level goals!

Since folks were kind enough to ask, the pieces I'll learn to play are:
1. WTC 1 preludes & fugues in C major, c minor, D Major, d minor and e-flat minor.
2. Brahms opus 79.

Then to study but not perform the Bach Tocatta in e minor, Beethoven opus 2, opus 10 and opus 90.

Learning Bach Prelude #15 (G major) slooowwwllly, and being pleasantly surprised at the progress. Trying the same thing with at least the first two pages of a Chopin Etude (Op25, No 7 - massive stretch piece for me, but we're calling it "an excercise" so I don't get scared), and finding progress there too.

In other news, we think we've turned a positive corner with my daughter's health issues. It's spring.

Bach's Partita #4 in D major now down at a reasonable tempo and with decent control. Of course, you're never really "done" with a work like this, but it's good enough to where I'll try to record a "keeper". Three Partitas down, three to go.

Hi,

My AOTW is that I have not missed a day of practice since my lesson via Skype last Friday. Which for me is progress after going weeks without really practicing. MOYD is starting to help me get to the piano more consistently and daily. Thankfully, after posting in that thread pretty frequently, I will not have to post about missing days this week.

i hurt my back last weekend and have been unable to play for most of the week. I sat down carefully yesterday, playing with
total relaxation, had to be, just focused on the music; dynamics, phrasing, timing etc without my usual body movements that just comes from me while playing.

While playing one of my standard repertoire pieces, I hit the last two final choruses, Suddenly, Goosebumps!
Yay! I continued with focus to finish to match the rest. Priceless.

I'm sure most of you have had goosebumps from listening to music, maybe even while playing, sometimes it can be what its all about!
A first for a long time on the piano, maybe an achievement of the month!

Very exciting!! Once in a great while I have had that feeling, and it is wonderful!

I just recently started (as in 2 weeks ago) and I'm already really grateful I know how to read treble clef from playing other instruments. Didn't know bass clef, though. Which is why this is my achievement of the week: playing with two hands tripped me up big time last week, because my brain took it's sweet time to actively recognize both notes. This week while practicing my homework I noticed that it already works a little bit better.
Not much, but an achievement for me nonetheless.

I love this!

So lovely JimF. I'm having a go at no3.

Parcival,

Welcome to AOTW and congratulations!



See, that's the thing. Piano learning is a never-ending stream of "not much" little-bit-betters. Waiting for impressive leaps forward is bound to disappoint because that's just not the way our progress usually happens.. But those little "not much" things are real accomplishments and do start to add up over time. The result is real progress.

So celebrate every little baby step!

Keep up the good work.

Jim

No. 3 is gorgeous. I recall struggling with it, but not much else since I've let it lapse. Sure wish Liszt's hands hadn't been the size of dinner plates.

Malkin - Mrs JimF yesterday called out "why are you torturing the dog" when I kept repeating a howl-inducing Liszt phrase in slow motion. I just told her he was trying to sing the melody for me.

Jim