Alfred's Adult All-In-One Piano Course: Level 1

Quitter · 2024-05-27T16:11:19+00:00

This thread is a place for folks to discuss the Alfred's Adult All-In-One Level 1 experience. There were many of these threads on another, un-named piano fo...

hebele

Pallas I've also heard people speed running method books. Moving on when they're about 50% with a piece. Or skipping it completely. Which is fine. It is efficient if they can judge it well. I am worried that if I go that route, I will hit a wall later on and lose my motivation. And these are the easiest pieces so I don't think skipping them would save much time in long term.

Or they're very talented. Or they're putting in more time. So I keep telling myself there is no need to rush. Keep it fun and sustainable. Comparison is the thief of joy.

Pallas

hebele Comparison is the thief of joy.

You are singing my tune! It has been a challenge to be patient, but I feel as you do about hitting a wall and losing motivation. Do not want. I think that will likely happen at some point, but hopefully I'll have built some grit in facing the difficulty of one small but hard piece after another. Many of the pieces at the end of book one are very hard for me, and I've had to have patience!

Nightowl

I found the pieces at the end of book 1 quite difficult, too, and was tempted to skip several of them to move on to book 2. In the end I only skipped 2 pieces out of the entire book, but there were pieces where I did not linger. Also, I only played 2 of the 5 optional pieces at the end of the book, because I didn't like them much and was unwilling to spend time on those pieces, which seemed optional rather than essential.
I would warn you that many of the pieces in book 2 are not great, either. So far I've skipped 2 pieces, out of the first 45 pages of book 2. My tolerance towards spending time on pieces I dislike is reducing as I move on, but in my defence when my husband listened to videos showing professionals playing book 2 pieces he was surprised I had the patience to stick with them, as there was barely one piece that he liked. I am playing some pieces from my Hits book 1, as light relief. Good luck, stick with it, but don't beat yourself up for skipping the occasional piece.

Pallas

Nightowl I have only skipped one piece and got about 3 to maybe 80% and polished the rest, but I'm thinking I'll do about half of the extra pieces. I've been listening to play-throughs of book 2 and I think I can grow to like most of them for what they're wanting to teach. I might skip the Hokey Pokey or only give it 80%. I hate that song! But I'm actually looking forward to Hava Nagila, which I thought I would hate. I hate the way most people play La Bamba from Alfred, so I'm going to have to change it to suit me, which I think is a good skill to practice! I think it's a highly personal thing, how to approach these books! I do like thinking about it.

Nightowl

You've set a high bar for yourself, I think many people would be happy with a much lower standard for the majority of pieces, and would just polish the ones they like (which might only be a dozen or so, out of the 60 odd pieces, due to the dire choices made by the authors). Anyway, having high standards is better than having none at all. 🙂
I will be skipping the Hokey piece - it's dreadful and the dance that goes with it at weddings is cringe worthy. La Bamba is a bit annoying, but I do quite like the little base melodies/riffs in that piece, they save it from being completely banal. It would be good if Alfred issued new editions of their course books to include some more modern pieces, but the books clearly continue to sell despite the lack lustre material, so there is no incentive for them to bother. I trust the methodology of the books though, so I'm trudging through the dross and am grateful when nicer pieces appear from time to time.

Sophia

Haha that's so funny. I love it how all our tastes differ. I really enjoyed playing the Hokey Pokey. I positively hate Hava Nagila, though I finally did play it all the way through a few weeks ago.

I get bored easily with pieces especially if I find them particularly dreadful or boring. I can't get myself to spend too much time polishing them, though I enjoy going back to older pieces a lot.

So far though I haven't found anything quite as steep a learning curve as the last pieces of Alfred 1, so once you conquer those, I have a feeling it'll be downhill from them on for quite a while, Pallas.

Pallas

Sophia I just tried Chattanooga Choo Choo for the first time, and I think Laura is harder! I have been considering skipping it in your honor. 🙃

Sophia

Pallas Hehe well if you do end up playing it and perfect it on your third try, please do me the honour of not telling me about it. I'd probably give up on the spot and spend the next month crying 👽

Pallas

Sophia I think it's very unlikely.

Nightowl

Pallas You've "... heard of people doing all 3 books in a year" - good grief! Perhaps they practise for 3 hours a day? Or maybe they didn't polish many of the pieces... maybe not any of them?
For me, the first third of book 1 was fairly easy and my enthusiasm drove me through pretty quickly, the second third became more challenging and the final third felt much harder. My progress in book 2 has been much slower - it's been nearly 4 months and I'm only on page 60. The pieces are definitely growing my skills and it feels like quite hard work at times, but it feels like a case of no gain without (some) pain.

Sophia

Well, I'm nearing the end of the second book. So I am celebrating that by playing through the first book (once more) 😃 The first half of the book was absolutely effortless and error free, but around The Entertainer it took a little longer to get the pieces back into my muscle memory. However once done, they are soooo much easier to play now!

Even the dreaded Laura is... well... okay, still not SIMPLE, but at least it's doable. I'm still not aiming for perfection on that one, but the progress is noticeable. A few more and then onwards to the second book - I'll play that from scratch again too.

Anyone who is a beginner at learning piano (like me) take heart - you WILL get better 😃 It just takes time!

Nightowl

I've also recently played through most of the pieces in book 1 again, to consolidate my skills and give me confidence to move forward through book 2. It's pleasing that certain pieces which took several hours to learn the first time around can now be played reasonably well after 10-15 minutes of practice. 🙂

Sophia - I never liked Laura and have still never played it, but I've had a similar experience with Somewhere Over The Rainbow, which feels a bit easier for me now. However, even second time around I cannot play it fluidly and error free. But I'm not lingering on it - it just doesn't matter that much to me.

Sophia

Yes, I had that same experience. The latter pieces are really a lot smoother... but still not flawless. I'm just about to finalize the book with Chattanooga Choo Choo, which I believe is not in your version. I'm having fun with it though, because it ties in nicely with my blues course (which I have placed on halt for just a few weeks until I finish playing through my books and the duet).

I am not sure if I will ever pick up Alfred 1 again after that - not until I'm a concert pianist and able to play those tunes like this 😃

Nightowl

OMG, that girl in the cartoon reminds me of the possessed girl in The Exorcist, the one whose head turns around 360 degrees! 😲 Sophia, if you ever start to resemble that image, just call a priest, pronto!
What's the object on the floor meant to be - some kind of remote control? Also, why is there an alarm clock - does the girl sleep on top of the piano then go into some weird possessed trance and start doing her backward playing? So many questions, but I'm not sure anyone has the answers, except a psychiatrist maybe... I might need therapy if I look at that image much longer.

Sophia

Haha blame it on AI imagination... all I asked was a very simple question of a pianist playing upside down. The rest is not mine ^_^

Nightowl

There is talk of AI taking over the world one day, and if that's a taste of how AI sees things we should be scared... VERY scared! 😬 I just noticed the feet only have 4 toes and the hands look sort of twisted and seem to have mini hoof-like ends, instead of fingernails - it's an absolute abomination, but I can't unsee it now! <shudders>

Anyway, if you want to see a pianist playing upside down, take a look at this clip of the recent Olympics closing ceremony - they had a grand piano suspended in the air, with a pianist suspended upside down in a chair, moving his hands over the keys as though he was playing it. Another abomination. The world's gone mad, I tell you!

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