Alfred Adult All-in-One Course Level 2 and 3

Hi Sophia, I'm glad you started this shiny new thread and I'm looking forward to the kittens popping in from time to time, along with a certain tiger.

I am nearly finished with La Bamba, which is good as I'm so bored with it now. Meanwhile I managed to crack Tarantella, a short piece that is pretty straightforward but involves a new fingering technique to move the RH steadily down successive notes, playing a repeated phrase.

Yesterday I started on Festive Dance, a familiar tune which is not too tricky. Pd'A is now tantalisingly close. When I reach that piece it will feel like I'm playing something worth making an effort for. I'm also dipping into my Broadway Hits book and am pleased that the pieces are manageable and give some relief from the tedium of book 2. I view many of the pieces as piano exercises to be ploughed through, rather than enjoyed, but so far I've been fairly diligent and have only skipped one piece.

Progress feels SO slow. No wonder many people lose interest in book 2, the pieces aren't exactly inspiring, but I'm confident that my sight reading is improving.

Sophia I have made it to lesson 3 so far - it's harder than it seems! But he is introducing new concepts gradually enough to keep the challenge manageable

This is fast progress. I think I needed almost 1 year and I am still not done with the playlist.
And you are doing Alfred at the same time? That is amazing!

Sophia Maybe we should create a beginners blues thread?

You should.

I mean, this thread is about Alfred all in one and we are talking about blues.

I've just begun work on Scherzo, it's a pleasant enough piece which travels up and down the treble stave quite a bit. It also involves the LH crossing over the RH, which is a novelty for me. The only problem is that it ends on some very high notes which my little keyboard does not have! Yep, the day has come when I've finally run out of notes! I knew this day would come, but didn't realise that it would be so soon. I wasn't really sure I had the ability to progress this far, but now I'm a victim of my own success! This hobby is suddenly going to get a lot more expensive.

Thanks Pallas. No, it wouldn't be terrible, it's just a repeat section where you're meant to play it 8VA, so no big deal. It feels like a bit of a milestone for me, in a good way. Trouble is, I'm torn between the idea of a beautiful piano with a highly polished wooden case, and the practical option of a digital piano. I don't really have room for an accoustic without changing the living room around and even then the noise level might make it prohibitive - the sound proofing on the party wall may not be sufficient for a piano that can't be played quietly. Or maybe it can - is there such a thing as a soft pedal option? Piano pedals are a mystery to me, but that is something else I will need to master and no doubt it will be a shock to my system going over old pieces and learning the technique of sustaining notes etc.

The number one thing most forget when piano shopping is maintenance. Acoustic pianos will have a tuner visiting your house 2X per year while a digital won't require that.

You can get digital pianos in a wooden stand that have all 3 pedals as part of the stand.

Thanks fellow Alfredos, all input gratefully received. I'm in no rush and will take my time, but it feels weird that I've run out of keys so soon, I thought it wouldn't happen until playing classical pieces at intermediate level.
Player1, it's good to know that I could get a digital with a wooden case - I'd love it to be beautiful as well as practical. Good point about the tuning, apart from the inconvenience the cost of a few tuning sessions could be more than a cheap digital (although if I want it to be pretty, I guess it won't be cheap).
Pallas, do you play the digital much, now that you have the acoustic? You seem very pleased with the acoustic, so will you be selling the digital at some point? (Not that I'm in the market to buy it... the cost of shipping it to the UK would rule that out).

Sophia Our 1970s acoustic piano had a mute pedal that you could lock in place, but I hated the sound because it was so muffled. I have no idea if modern pianos have a more sophisticated system than just a layer of felt.

Mine doesn't, and I bought it new 4 years ago. I had never experienced a practice pedal and loved the idea, but it makes the piano sound so horrible that I won't use it. Some people don't seem to think it's too bad so it must vary by manufacturer.

Great progress Sophia. I keep thinking of Santa Lucia when I hear that piece - I'm not sure if one is based on the other or if I'm just conflating two similar pieces? Anyway, you're way ahead of me (and always will be), but I'm happy enough playing Scherzo and have recently begun working on Introduction and Dance. This piece was the basis for Those were The Days - here's a link of the version that plays in my head when I think of this old song:

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It sounds great in Italian, and is a really iconic piece, but now that I've read the lyrics using the subtitles, I'm surprised about how chauvinistic they are! In the context of the story line in the opera there were probably reasons why the character felt like slagging off all women, so I'm not suggesting they should rewrite the lyrics to fit with today's PC world (there is too much of that going on already), but those lyrics are bad.
Every day's a school day for me, on my journey into classical music.

Well, I'm now playing Laredo - a tune that sounded familiar so I searched on YT and found several videos of different people singing this old folk song, including Johnny Cash. I must have heard this version on the radio when I was very young, because my mother always had the radio on in the kitchen and JC's version was quite popular back then. The pieces in book 2 are certainly more interesting than book 1, and the next song is Pd'A. It felt like I'd never reach this point but now I'm getting nervous about starting that piece, wondering if I'll be able to do it justice.
Meanwhile there is another piece about 50 pages on that is on my wish list to play - a Chopin Etude. It looks really scary but sounds so beautiful when I hear proper pianists playing it on YT.
I feel like things are clicking into place a bit now, and the early pieces in book 2 have helped to improve my sight reading.