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

Sophia · 2024-05-28T02:50:57+00:00

Well, it seems that this forum is a nice refuge from another place that has too many ads and too much drama lately! I see we already have a nice Alfred 1 thr...

Animisha

Sophia Side note 1: I hate music notation! Why on why did they not make the treble and bass equal?

There is this looooooooong discussion about musical notation somewhere else here on the forum.
But I couldn't agree more! I would be so good at sight reading if only they made the treble and bass equal.

Sophia Side note 2: Why is it so terribly hard to read bass clef when it's the top bar?

Because you are a normal human being with a normal brain that makes shortcuts and rules of thumb.

Nightowl

Oh, yes, for me it's the main reason why learning piano is so devilishly difficult - the fact that the notes are placed differently on the bass and treble clefs. I'm sure some bright people can come up with many reasons why the grand stave has to be notated in this way, but sometimes it feels like an instrument of mental torture! 😬

Sophia - I feel your pain, it's SO confusing when they position bass/treble notes in places where they don't normally appear! It makes my brain hurt!

I have 3 pieces left in book 2, but I only like one of them. 😒 I think I will be kind to myself and only play the first 2 pages of the final piece - Canon in D (or Canon Dirge, as I tend to think of it). It's probably not wise to skip it completely but there's only so much I can tolerate. 🙃

Sophia

Nightowl it's SO confusing when they position bass/treble notes in places where they don't normally appear! It makes my brain hurt

Right? They have all these notations like 8va etc... you'd think they could make use of that rather than suddenly switch clefs on us. You might be onto something... hmmm mental torture. Yeah, I'll buy that!

Player1

Sophia

Part of it is to teach us to pay attention. Part is to teach us that not everything is uniform.

The rest is just mental torture.

WieWaldi

Sophia Side note 1: I hate music notation! Why on why did they not make the treble and bass equal?

I also hate music notation.
Why isn't there just one single clef - with a remark for the octaves used?

Sophia Side note 2: Why is it so terribly hard to read bass clef when it's the top bar?

Because we are not used to it. But feel free to re-write it in treble clef and add an "8va bassa". Okay - I know the hard-core classical pianists amongst us tell you, "Don't do it - this isn't allowed in music notation!". (8/15va alta is only allowed in treble clef and bassa is only allowed in bass clef... 🙄) The not so serious players (me) don't care about it.

Animisha

WieWaldi "Don't do it - this isn't allowed in music notation!". (8/15va alta is only allowed in treble clef and bassa is only allowed in bass clef... 🙄)

Which parliament created this law, who is the police to make sure that we abide by this law and what is the punishment if we don't?

Kaydia

Sophia I completely missed the two bass clefs at the start of the tune!

This happened to me recently, except it was treble clefs. In my case I didn't suspect anything was wrong. I only caught it because I looked it up on YouTube to see if I was doing the technique correctly (it's an etude).

At least we first try working our pieces out ourselves. I like doing it this way because I feel I learn better by making and correcting mistakes, so I tend not to watch any videos beforehand.

Sophia

I confess... sometimes I'm a little lazy and check what it's supposed to sound like. Especially with a tricky rhythm. But the one time I don't cheat, I get punished for it 😁😄😅

Kaydia

Sophia I wouldn't call it "cheating". Just a different approach. And mistakes aren't punishment, they're learning experiences. 😇

Sophia

Sigh. I have a very good mind to skip the rest of Alfred 3. It started nice enough, but now there is piece after piece of Rock-a-My-Soul (which I hated the first time already), Sea Chanty (aka Drunken Sailor), Dry Bones, etc etc. Honestly... I don't even want to hear those, let alone spend weeks practising them.

It's not very motivating to play stuff like that, so I have been stalling a little with older pieces and other beginner's books. I was very pleased to get my ancient Folk Dean Melodic Studies out, which I have never been able to read, nor play. And I could actually sight read through the first two pieces, fairly easily. Ok it wasn't smooth, but it's finally some solid proof that I am now further than at any point where I quit in the past. So it's not ALL bad 😂

Animisha

Sophia I have a very good mind to skip the rest of Alfred 3.

Very, very few people actually finish Alfred 3. There is absolutely no reason to torture yourself with those pieces.
You have now got a nice ground, and you can choose how to continue.
If you want to keep on working with Alfred's method books, take a look at Alfred's premier piano course. It moves somewhat slower than AIO, so maybe book 4 or 5 would suit you? The pieces are so much more enjoyable than the ones in AIO 3.
But apart from that, there is so much out there. RCM books, ABRSM books, Keith Snell, you name it.

Nightowl

It's totally understandable that you've had enough of book 3 - the selection of pieces is pretty dire, from what I've seen. I listened to every piece listed on the contents page and found that I only liked 11 of them, which is why I decided not to buy book 3. I just wasn't prepared to endure playing around 40 pieces I didn't like, for the enjoyment of 11 pieces that I could find elsewhere. It's a shame because Alfred's course books seem well laid out and I'm sure that each piece is chosen to help learn new skills, but book 2 has pushed my patience with playing awful pieces to the limit.

Sophia, I think you'd benefit from playing music that you love, it will motivate you. Maybe you could buy a book of boogie woogie/blues pieces, then work through that in a methodical way - perhaps starting a new piece each week, while working on one or two pieces that are already works in progress. In short, you can plot your own path now. You have trawled though the first two books and around 2/3 of book 3, so you have a good grounding in piano skills (not to mention those MUSICAL GENES - in case you forgot about them!) - I'm sure you can develop your skills without forcing yourself to play Drunken Sailor or the other abominations of music that Alfred offers! So, congratulate yourself on coming this far and move on with confidence!

Sophia

Nightowl book 2 has pushed my patience with playing awful pieces to the limit.

Exactly, that's how I feel about book 3. I think I have skipped about 70% of the pieces already and I think there might be one nice piece left, the rest varies from meh to ugh. I still want to continue to learn piano "properly" (whatever that actually means), so I am half tempted to still plod on with Alfred regardless. As you said, the lessons are well laid out and the progress is gradual and steady - always something new but never too much to handle.

Now that the external turmoil in my life is settling down Alfred will become a little ~~less appalling~~ more appealing again, I'm sure of it. Ok, now let me say that again in such a way that it sounds convincing to me too 😋

WieWaldi

Nightowl (not to mention those MUSICAL GENES - in case you forgot about them!)

Nightowl, please stop acting envy because of Sophia's musical genes. If you want, you can get some musical genes for yourself, too.
👇

Online shop for musical jeans! 👆

Nightowl

WieWaldi Wow, great find WieWie! 😀 Loving your work!

The only thing is, I want both types of jeans/genes... like this guy:

As it stands, I'm currently identifying with another song by him. Song Sung Blue

Nightowl

Animisha Very, very few people actually finish Alfred 3. There is absolutely no reason to torture yourself with those pieces.

Wise words. 🙂 Also, that other book series sounds like an option - I might take a look at those books myself.

Sophia

HAHAHAHA

@Animisha thanks for that! Yeah, I think I will just learn the handful of pieces that I do like from the book, and then move on with other stuff. No use torturing ourselves, right? Now I want me a pair of musical jeans too... hmmmmm....

Nightowl

I have been working on Salut D'Amour for 10 days now, and parts of it are still tricky for me to get under my fingers. I had a look online at people playing various versions of the piece and found that the piece I'm playing is similar in difficulty to an ABRSM grade 3 version used in 2022 - this explains why it feels like a stretch for me. From online comments it seems that this piece can take a few weeks to master, so I just need to stick at it. I recently started Danny Boy, which is quite a pretty arrangement and seems to work well as a piano piece. Then there is just one piece left, the dirge piece that I've no interest in playing. I might skip it... not sure I can face it. My other music books are beckoning to me now, calling me away from Alfred's grasp - which is easily done, after some of the stuff he's inflicted on me (Blow The Man Down and Hokey Pokey, to name but 2 abominations).

WieWaldi

Nightowl Are you talking about this one? This IS pretty hard, if you ask me. Is this B_b Major? Three flats? In terms of difficulty, this is about the most difficult blues stuff I've learned so far. If not even beyond.
Anyway - can't wait to hear your recording. 👍

Sophia

Whooo hooo, congrats Nightowl! I know that feeling ^_^ I'm not there just yet, I decided to plod on for now with Alfred. Boring and dire as he is, he is also a good, methodical teacher so I have decided to stick it out a little longer. At least my current piece is lovely, so after this I might go back with renewed energy to some of the older pieces that I skipped. We'll see...

Both Salut and Danny Boy are very pretty, though I never spent the time to polish the latter to perfection. I think I just practiced it until I understood the lesson and moved on - but you almost fascinated me into going back to it now!

Let me know how you fare with your new books. After Alfred I am not sure what I will do - I am not quite confident enough to skip method books altogether, so I might go back to John Thompson, or get one of the Faber books. For now, I'm still choochoo-ing through that tunnel, waiting for that little dot of light at the end to get brighter 😁

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