First of all - congrats you succeeded this dry lesson. (Yes - it was dry for me, too) Unfortunately, this wasn't that much of fun for you - it was impossible to overhear. Especially the last note said: "FINISHED! AND I NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN! AHHHHHH!!! " Next lesson is more musical - promise. I am very confident you will finish it before I have mine half done.

Sophia and the drone lick was straining my hand

That's bad to read about. I got a nice hint from another youtube channel and this is helping me out to avoid hand strain: Play faint. This makes you also play slower in many occasions and really helps to reduce the strain.

Sophia I know that once I go into full improvisation mode, I will not use it much 🙄

sorry - Sophia. You won't get rid of it! And for improv this is a real powerful tool - play a one-finger-melody and bump it up with the drone. Works always.

Maybe the drone lick was the boring "Hanon" work of the beginner lesson, but it will be used a lot in the future lessons from now on. So it is good you masterd it.

Speaking about Hanon: I am at the 3rd of my 7 Blues-Hanons right now, and I bumped my metronome up to 70% of final speed. Okay, if I switch from C7 to F7 or G7 my RH starts to make nonsense. Anyway, I see a light at the end of the tunnel - but it could also be an incoming train

        Haha yeah I was so happy for it to be finished. I guess I don't mind the drone lick in one or two bars. But 36 bars non stop woompa doompa is too much!

        WieWaldi Play faint. This makes you also play slower in many occasions and really helps to reduce the strain.

        Do you mean the same way Bart suggested - one hand soft and the other normal volume? Or both faint?

        WieWaldi I see a light at the end of the tunnel

        Hang in there 😃 Boring lessons are for our own good (or so they try to tell us) 😝

              Sophia Hang in there 😃 Boring lessons are for our own good (or so they try to tell us) 😝

              Reminds me of my mother: Food that doesn't taste delicious is healthy! Always!

              Sophia Do you mean the same way Bart suggested - one hand soft and the other normal volume? Or both faint?

              I don't know what Bart suggested (didn't read all forum). But it makes sense to play faint with the one hand you feel the strain. And then you should play more faint with the other hand, too. Otherwise, it starts to sound bad. Anyway, it is a good exercise - if you play chords with LH (3 or 4 notes at the same time) and a simple one finger melody with RH, you run into the problem that LH is droning the melody out.

                  Yeah that's what he said too 🙂 Great minds... etc 😃

                  I started to listen to lesson 10. He finally said the magic word.................... IMPROVISATION! Wheeeeeeee! Of course the first thing he recommends is the drone lick... you are right. There is no getting away from that anymore 🤢

                  9 days later

                  Well, this one is @PianoMonk's fault. He mentioned he wanted to see cats... so I decided to play a duet with my OTHER kitty. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, I'm sitting here my jammies. Yes, it's 75% Christian licks, 25% "improvisation" attempt. Yes, there are too many mistakes, but I had 100% fun doing this 😂 Behold... lesson 10! I needed that after the previous boring lesson!

                    Instantly, I can hear Christian singing "🎶 I have no money 🎶", hahaha
                    "🎶 I need no money 🎶" - LOL

                    And yes - there were some parts I didn't learn. Good job to start to develop your own licks. Well done! Honestly, I expected you to make a fun video, but I was more thinking about a fancy dress with a big fruit or this elegant red keyboard. Your idea was even better: What a brilliant idea to play a duo with the cat!
                    I see - If the kittens are out of town, the Cheshire Cat appears from nowhere and jumps in!

                    Oh - and the MOAT as intro works perfect. Well played

                    Next one has a really cool bass line.
                    How cool? So cool:

                    Currently my favorite one. Enjoy!

                    Oooh nice! I look forward to lesson 11 😃 I know my playing wasn't very good, but I can play those licks without the kitty duet part and I just wanted to have some fun. I refuse to sing about money though, because I sound way worse than poor Christian lol! 😛

                    I had this idea because of PianoMonk and also because we talked about keyboards with narrow keys a while ago... I wanted to see if it is possible to hot swap (answer, yes!). AND I wanted to play this keyboard so badly. It was the only way I could sound more than 2 notes at the same time 👇🏼👇🏼

                    A two note polyphony cat?!? What a high tech device - normally only pro stage keyboarder use it^^
                    I was already wondering how you to manage to play fullsize keys together with minikeys. I will never be able to do this. But as I already said: Your brain🍟, my brain🥔

                    Anyway - good news here: I managed to get all notes of the Hanon lines... Okay, still very slow, a lot of mistakes, switching from C7 to F7 often disturbs me, and going to G7 makes a knot into my fingers. And I am about half through the slow Blues section. The good thing about the slow Blues part is, there is no need to get it played fast. I think in one ore two weeks I can show you...
                    Only one thing: Don't you dare to post a third time in a row before!!!!! 👺This feels humiliating. 😖

                      Haha of course you can play two keyboards at the same time... all you have to do is hit those notes 😁
                      Now I forgot who submitted playing piano and guitar at the same time... left hand piano and right hand guitar. That was amazing!

                      I will not have another lesson ready before you... I promise 😄

                      Probably yes. You will need some time to get the bass line running. This is an entire new LH pattern, an entire new order of finger movements. But after managed it, it sounds so cool. You can play Rock n Roll with that. And it could work for Boogie, too.

                      The real reason why I can't on minikeys is that I don't want to spoil my muscle memory. I think it slows down the progress. Funny thing about it, I started on a kids toy keyboard, borrowed from relatives while I was waiting for my piano to be delivered during CoVid. At this time all pianos were sold out and the waiting lists were long.
                      I remember the day of the delivery of my Kawai, the January, 27th 2021. It was way earlier than expected. I quickly recorded the beginner arrangement of an easy version with less notes in a simplified form for bloody starters of the Entertainer. And only the A section, because in one month I couldn't do more. U know, slow learner, yada yada yada.
                      And then I said: "Hello my new piano! Let's play the Entertainer on a real piano." Didn't work. And it cost me a long time to re-learn with fullsize keys. My fingers constantly hit the wrong notes. This is the true reason why I avoid mini-keys while I am in a beginner level. I don't wamt to screw up my muscle memory. Let me count again: total -> absolute -> early -> true -> real -> prolonged -> extended -> eternal beginner. Eight more years - minimum.

                        Just found the recording on my previous smartphone:

                        (Just uploaded it, otherwise it will get lost sooner or later. This would be a pity for me.)

                          WieWaldi I don't want to spoil my muscle memory. I think it slows down the progress.

                          Maybe... but I think any brain can learn to handle both. Just like we can switch between auromatic car and stick shift. Or between acoustic guitar and electric (different size fret board, different angle, etc). And then switch to bass guitar (4 strings, different attack). Awkward at first, then it becomes normal.

                          Of course, if there is no need to switch keyboards, then it is better to put the energy into more useful things... such as Hanon type blues licks 😂

                            WieWaldi love the hat! Nice playing too, that is the Faber version right? It's good to keep those videos so we know that we're actually making progress 👌

                              I googled that song and found a free download version at pianospel.nl

                              You can compare with Pallas and iternabes recordings, I don't know who did Alfred or Faber, but it is different from mine.

                              Pallas did the Alfred version which I did too. Iternabe submitted the shorter Faber version, but I don't remember it as well because I never played it. Yours is definitely not the Alfred version 😊

                              The Faber version misses out the intro. Besides of that, I find both versions a quite similar. Alfred's has maybe a tad more notes.

                              WieWaldi Didn't work. And it cost me a long time to re-learn with fullsize keys. My fingers constantly hit the wrong notes. This is the true reason why I avoid mini-keys while I am in a beginner level.

                              Ok, late reply to this but... I have been thinking. Maybe you experienced the difficulty because you went from mini keys to full size? Perhaps it's like going from automatic to learning stick shift car: apparently that's hard. Or from electric guitar to acoustic, same. But the other way around is perhaps 5 minutes of adjusting, then you feel comfortable.

                              Of course with only 2 polycatic notes to play, it may be not the best litmus test. But it honestly wasn't hard - in fact the hardest part was to get the black keys to sound because they are very heavy to play. Now I want a "proper" mini keyboard just because I'm weird 🤣

                                  Sophia Why not? A mini keyboard has some big advantages. It is cheap, it is lightweight, and you can take it with you when you visit friends. Just think about christmas or birthday parties of relative's kids. And on top of that, you can reach a 10th, easily. Seriously, you will be able to play advanced music on the mini keyboard, but you can't do with the Clavinova.

                                  The comparison with the guitar fretboard is good. Still, I think in my beginner stage I should not mix up key sizes. One day in my life I want to play stride piano and ragtime, LH constantly jumping octaves. This needs a lot of burned in muscle memory.

                                  As a 12 year I played a lot on a mini keyboard. Right hand only. The left hand was pressing the buttons of the trekharmonica. I didn't enjoy this nealy as much as I enjoy piano today... I played enough minikeys for my lifetime.

                                    Sophia Wow, that was a great combination, you were very creative with your use of the kitty keyboard. That piece has some nice trills and you're really getting the hang of this style of playing now.

                                    As for lesson 9 - I'm with you on this piece, it it just not pleasant on the ears and has few redeeming features, except for maybe it helped you to play lesson 10!

                                    WieWaldi It's good you have that recording as a record of the early stages of your playing. The keyboard does sound a little tinny, definitely more of a toy than a proper instrument, but it gave you a head start when you could not get a piano during the pandemic, so had real value at a dark time.

                                    I am considering getting the Yamaha PS50 keyboard, as a way to change things up a bit. It seems to have some of the quality of a full size keyboard and a reasonable sound, plus ways to create background rhythms/harmonies (which are a mystery to me as I'm not very tech minded, but maybe it would do me good to experiment).

                                    "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)