• Sophia

  • Post #95

Congrats @Kaydia - sounds like you're making steady progress! Funny, I did the same with When the Saints - it's fun to play both versions back to back and finding ways to reduce the page turning time gap. In fact it's one of the pieces I still play on occasion - it's so happy and bouncy.

Mind you, page turning is a skill we need to learn at some point... in fact I may need to face it soon with my current piece (I just started Moonlight Sonata which is two double pages long, yikes).

Another piece I really enjoyed playing (and still do) is Mary Ann, I believe that you already had that one. But then again I enjoy calypso type music and it has a very cute left hand melody 🙂

    Kaydia

    Be sure to learn your chords and scales by heart both on the keyboard and being able to speak/define/explain them.

        Kaydia Congratulations with your first recording! 🤸‍♀️ I wouldn't bother too much with the tempo though in this stage. It will take a lot of time to get it up to speed - I think you'll learn more when you move on to new pieces. You can always go back a couple of months from now and surprise yourself by finding how much easier it all will be.

        Also, don't bother yet with chords and scales. Too early!

        As you see, Player1 and I disagree on quite a few things, but that is the nice thing about a forum. You get different answers and you choose the one that suits you the best. 😊

        *
        ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

              @Sophia I did enjoy the challenge of doing it in both hands. Also, I agree, it is happy and bouncy. And I also liked the Mary Ann piece. My tastes tend to run to pop, country, folk tunes, and mellower stuff.

              Sophia Another piece I really enjoyed playing (and still do) is Mary Ann, I believe that you already had that one. But then again I enjoy calypso type music and it has a very cute left hand melody

              I liked Mary Ann also. I didn't know what calypso music was until I just now looked it up. I'll be checking more into it later. Thanks for mentioning it. 🙂

              Sophia Mind you, page turning is a skill we need to learn at some point... in fact I may need to face it soon with my current piece (I just started Moonlight Sonata which is two double pages long, yikes).

              I'm going to kick that "some point" down the road as long as I can. 😙 Good luck with your multi-page turnings.

                  Player1 Be sure to learn your chords and scales by heart both on the keyboard and being able to speak/define/explain them.

                  I will do my best to learn and memorize them, but not so much on the speak/define/explain part since I've never been good at doing that.

                      • Kaydia

                      • Post #100

                      Animisha Congratulations with your first recording! 🤸‍♀️ I wouldn't bother too much with the tempo though in this stage. It will take a lot of time to get it up to speed - I think you'll learn more when you move on to new pieces. You can always go back a couple of months from now and surprise yourself by finding how much easier it all will be.

                      Thank you! It wasn't so much the tempo itself, it was the realization that the tempo I thought I was playing and the tempo I heard on the recording were noticeably different. Otherwise, I agree with you about getting faster eventually, so right now I am not that concerned with tempo speed.

                      Animisha Also, don't bother yet with chords and scales. Too early!

                      As you see, Player1 and I disagree on quite a few things, but that is the nice thing about a forum. You get different answers and you choose the one that suits you the best

                      At this point I'm only learning the chords as they're presented in the lesson book. So far that' be 3 chords, I think. No scales yet. I don't see much point in learning more than I'm using since I don't tend to remember things unless I use them on a regular basis.

                      I appreciate the different perspectives. I just piece together different people's advice that I think will work for my goals and way of learning.

                            Kaydia

                            You probably already know at least 1 scale... C Major. C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C. All white keys. That's where everyone begins when they start learning.

                            There are things that go along with each scale you need to learn too. For beginners those are:

                            Chords
                            Chord inversions
                            Key signatures. (For C Major there is no Key Signature. The staff is blank with no sharps or flats at the beginning next to the Clef. All other keys have some combination of sharps or flats at the beginning of the score. The self study books do a very good job of not telling you that stuff.)

                            As you progress you get to learn new terms and other stuff like relative minors, but that's for later so don't worry about them now. Concentrate on your lessons and ask questions about stuff you don't understand clearly.

                              Kaydia I will do my best to learn and memorize them, but not so much on the speak/define/explain part since I've never been good at doing that.

                              Test yourself.

                              Make flashcards of chords and scales. (The card should just say "C Major scale" and nothing else. No explanation or description.) Place the cards face down and pick one card at random when you're getting ready to practice. Speak it. Play it. Verify if necessary that you did it correctly.

                              Do this at the beginning of your practice session for the day.

                              Otherwise it's difficult to test yourself when you're in a room by yourself so you have to find a way to give yourself a self test where you don't think of the answer first then ask yourself the question. Flash cards are good for that.

                                  • Kaydia

                                  • Post #104

                                  Thank you Player1 for the suggestion. I agree flashcards are a great tool. I have already been using the sightreading.training website now and again to help with note identification. The site does have flashcards for chords, but I haven't used that feature yet. I'll probably make use of it to help reinforce the chords that I've already been presented with in my method books. But not until after I've nailed down reading notes better. I can only learn/retain so much information at a time. 🙂

                                      • Kaydia

                                      • Post #105

                                      Pallas There's a good reason to follow a method book! I've seen plenty of people try to firehose all of the information up front only to get overwhelmed and lose motivation and interest.

                                      Yes, I've 'been there, done that' with other stuff.

                                      Pallas You sound like you know how your own mind works and what's best for you. Bravo to you!

                                      Thank you. Getting old has some benefits, I guess. 🥴😆

                                          Kaydia

                                          Note reading will get better with time so don't stress on that. You'll learn the other things as they come along in the series. So, again, don't stress on it.

                                          The method books work, lots of people have used them to become pianists. Do the lessons, ask questions about things you don't understand, and take as much time as you need to progress. It's not a race and your progress is yours alone and shouldn't ever be compared to someone else.

                                              • Kaydia

                                              • Post #107

                                              Player1 I appreciate the encouragement. Thank you.

                                                I've now learned the F Major chord for the left hand with "I'm Gonna Lay My Burden Down", and then for the right hand with "Waltzing Chords".

                                                Next up was moving on to G position, and practicing the melodic and harmonic intervals with "Love Somebody" and "A Friend for You". I'm happy to report that on that 2nd piece, after quite a bit of practice, I finally had some success with the suggestion from Lets Play Video Methods to try connecting the moving notes in the chords.

                                                Then it on to learning the sharp sign with "Money Can't By Ev'rything!". I didn't have any issues with this one, so I focused on the dynamics and phrasing. The phrasing in particular, because I still keep having to remind myself to lift up between phrases. I'm wondering if this is something that becomes automatic with time.

                                                The last thing I worked on was A Leschetizky solution. What really shows up here when I do these exercises is that both my pinkies, but more so in my right hand, tend to get 'stuck' when going from extended to curved. From what I've read it's called trigger finger. It seems one of the possible causes may be due to arthritis. I've been diagnosed with 3 types of arthritis, so it's something I'll just have to deal with.

                                                That's it for now with the Alfred's book. I'm now going to get cracking on a supplemental piece for the 40P challenge.

                                                • Kaydia

                                                • Post #109

                                                I learned a couple more chords since my last update: G Major and D7. The practice pieces in the lesson book for these included "The Cuckoo", "Harp Song", and "Liza Jane".

                                                The most challenging one was "Harp Song". Mostly due to adding in the pedal and getting the up and down timing right. But also, for some reason, it felt more awkward to play the D7 chord in 3rds than as a whole. I kept missing or slipping off the F# until I eventually got the hang of it.

                                                • Sophia

                                                • Post #110

                                                Ah the Harp Song. My first encounter with the pedal. Can you tell I'm pedal obsessed? It's true 😁 But it's one of those skills that take a minute to learn and then a lifetime to master. I love it!

                                                Congrats on your progress!

                                                • Kaydia

                                                • Post #111

                                                Thank you, @Sophia. I'm envious of your obsession with the pedal. I wish I could say I was looking forward to more pieces with pedaling, but I'm not feeling it at the moment. 😬😅

                                                • Sophia

                                                • Post #112
                                                • Edited

                                                Right???? Well as a child I watched people playing (grand) pianos often, and always tried to figure out how they did that exactly. It seemed so random! I'd ask my mom (pianist, but obviously not a teacher type) how she did that, and her usual reply basically was "you just do it". So it took me all these years to finally learn it, and it was this post that suddenly made the light bulb explode inside my head:

                                                WieWaldi when the hand goes down (in my case LH), the pedal goes up.

                                                It was like the sun started to shine, rainbows in the sky, birds singing, springtime at last.... EUREKA! So simple!

                                                But yeah, then of course getting the actual coordination of limbs to cooperate, that's an entirely different story. But that too is gradually happening to the point where sometimes, just sometimes, I am pedaling without actually thinking about it 😂

                                                Edit: omg, I now realize I probably told that story of the pedal fascination 3 million times by now. Please forgive my senior moment in the endless repetitions of the same statement in endless variations 😁

                                                P.S. Have I ever mentioned before that I have a pedal fascination? Well............ Ok I better run before the men in white coats are sent this way 🤣

                                                    • Kaydia

                                                    • Post #113

                                                    Sophia It was a good read. First time I've heard that story. Though, to be fair, in my elderly years I do sometimes forget things. 😂 In any case, I love the enthusiasm. Maybe I, too, will one day have a similar eureka moment. 🙂

                                                        • Sophia

                                                        • Post #114

                                                        Kaydia Maybe I, too, will one day have a similar eureka moment.

                                                        Haha, yeah, you never know. Might as well have fun with our hobby, right?

                                                            Oh, just wait until they stop putting the pedal notations on the score. Then youse guys will really be having fun.