• Sophia

  • Post #681
  • Edited

WieWaldi You see, there isn't no more room to do something else on the fly

Heh, I hear you... and it was a little unfair of me. After all, I know now how difficult it is to keep that left hand steady while the right hand makes all those variations. There is little room for more!

Funny enough I just started the next section of my "Peter Gunn" lesson. And I was bouncing up and down in frustration... I FINALLY managed to play the second lick fairly smoothly (still rough at the chord changes). You remember, the one with the blinking stars to look ahead. So proud... let's start the next lick. WHAT THE BL...Y H...L? Different left hand, different rhythm AND the right hand needs to learn something new as well? Sometimes I think he enjoys torturing us...

      Nightowl I think perhaps this video has been edited a couple of times - around 5.26 and 7.44?

      No, I didn't do any video editing except moving the camera. What you heard is me adapting to the metronome. If you look carefully, you can see the bottom of a smartphone on the music rest (lightblue hull). It runs a metronome app with loud tic-toc-toc-toc. I can hear it through my headphones; but it is not recorded for the video. The metronome was running to prevent me speeding up. But I did a few times, and then had to slow down. This are exactly the moments you pointed out. Same happened at the very beginning. My tempo was very unsteady, the first bars. Good ear 👂👍

      Nightowl but I would say that I was not keen on the ending; partly because it didn't quite seem to fit with what had gone before

      So you didn't like my ending? eh? 😡
      Joking aside - I don't like it either. The recording at that place is awful. But I wanted to finish the lesson and I didn't want to play again a 8 minute humptee dumptee left hand (Sophia is so right about that, sigh). Honestly, you are absolutely right, the ending was crap. I played it at the beginning of a 12-bar pattern, but it needs to be placed at bar 10 of 12 to sound good. This speaks for you, Nightowl. You are developing an ear for blues and how it should sound.😎

      If you find anything you don't like, please tell me. Don't be afraid to criticize me just because I started 3 years earlier. If you think, something sounds wrong, then something is wrong. Or like a friend of me said: "You don't need to be a chicken to know when an egg is bad".

      @Nightowl & @Sophia Thank you for your kind words and triple thank you for being honest!❤️

            Sophia Oh yes. Every time there is a new LH, I spent about 50% of my lesson learning time for the LH only. To make it fluid and automatic. I start isolated LH for a few minutes, then I play the RH "warmup-lick" together with the new LH all the time until it becomes autopilot. And then - and then - and then I play the next lick and feel like a toddler again with my LH. 😭

            I feel with you 😢

                WieWaldi "You don't need to be a chicken to know when an egg is bad"

                You hear that, Nightowl???? He's calling us too chicken to admit we're bad eggs. Some people 🥶 Dont worry - our revenge will be sweet! 😱

                Ok, enough teasing.

                WieWaldi Good ear 👂👍 (...) You are developing an ear for blues and how it should sound.😎

                YES! I always said she has a very good ear for rhythm and harmony. So lucky to be musical... and she has the nerve to talk about MY musical jeans! She should look in the mirror!

                Whoops, that was more teasing.

                Ok, teasing really over now.

                WieWaldi I play the next lick and feel like a toddler again with my LH.

                Exactly! I found that with my current lesson too. I started with just the LH and it was easy enough. Added the RH blues scale - whoa, that was hard... but ok, after two days it's going smoothly. I got this hand independence thing, no problem! Yeah, until I add a very miniscule new variation, and the LH is completely out of whack again. Rinse, repeat.

                I'm a long, long way from true improvisation, because I still need need to spend a lot of time mastering each small change before it sounds smooth. It was so nice to hear your 8 minutes of true (ok, almost) improvisation. I didn't see you use any notes or turn a page etc, which tells me that you are really getting to that stage now. Even though I suspect you still need to spend a little time getting each new lick into your fingers, right?

                        Sophia Even though I suspect you still need to spend a little time getting each new lick into your fingers, right?

                        absolutely

                          WieWaldi No, I didn't do any video editing except moving the camera.

                          So, do you mean you stopped playing and recording, then moved the camera, then started playing/recording again? I noticed the camera angles changed but thought maybe you had two cameras set up. I heard slight variations in tempo, but it was the different camera positions that really caught my attention.

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

                              Nightowl No, I use only one camera. My camera is on a fixed tripod and I film in good quality 4k (3840x2160). Then I tell my video software to slowly zoom in for some time (and pan a bit). Then I go back to total view and repeat. This is not that much of work, but let the video look nice. And indeed, the attention intension is to make it look like a multicam setup. 😇

                              Edit: bad English🙄

                                9 days later

                                From classical to blues, yeah, baby! Here it is, Easy Blues lesson 2. This one was quite a bit shorter than the first lesson and my concentration wasn't as thoroughly shattered, so it didn't take as long to learn. Sorry about the bonks and thumps, I was too lazy to clean up the sound 😃

                                  Sophia This piece seems a bit disjointed - the first minute is a bit dull and seems to go nowhere, but around the 1.10 mark there is a nice note run before it morphs into a new piece completely. That said, it's a blues lesson rather than a named piece, so that's probably why it doesn't follow the usual format of the short classical/folk melody pieces I'm used to playing from the method books. Anyway, it's another lesson under your belt. 🙂

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

                                    Ooooh yes, I was thinking exactly the same.... the pieces just don't add up. I actually left out the first "lick" which was that left hand pattern combined with the blues scale. YUCK, my poor ears. I agree with you all the way - the "mother of all turnarounds" didn't quite fit in the piece and I tried to stretch it out a little to try and tie the "rigid" pattern with the "jazzy" one. I think you are right that this is not a single piece, it's just individual exercises. 👍🏼

                                    Yup, another lesson done 😃 I think I'll tackle one of the eight pieces next, that should be fun!

                                    Sophia This one was played really well. The transition from straight to swing sounded a bit bulky, even with the use of the turnaround. But I remember very well, the lesson is what it is. Christian didn't tell exactly how to softly move over, he simply had another line, he played it in swing. Period. But you showed in a very impressive way, you truely mastered this lesson and you are free to move onto lesson 3. I will be a very smooth and calm one, with a wonderful ending.
                                    My takeaway of your recording - my positive takeaways is that someone can easily also learn some classical music from the classical era, despite spending a lot of time in blues lessons. This gives me confidence in one bright and shiny day I'll be able to do so, too. My other takeaway - my frustrating takeaway is that I am only 7 months ahead of you. I mean 7 WieWaldi-months, this translates into about 2 Sophia-months, two short Sophia months while Sophia is still learning Beethoven and Chopin along the way.
                                    tl;dr: congratulations for mastering the Peter Gunn Theme lesson. It was - as always - a joy to listen to your recording and see your cute tomcat on the screen.

                                        Thanks WieWie! Yes, true, Christian just shifted from straight to swing, so I tried to use the MOAT as an in between. It didn't go too smoothly... but better than nothing.

                                        I decided to take a break from the Easy Blues course to learn "Before You Accuse Me". I think that's around the level where I am now... it's such a nice and gentle piece.

                                        WieWaldi ... someone can easily also learn some classical music from the classical era, despite spending a lot of time in blues lessons.

                                        Yes! I honestly think it's good to get a solid basis and this includes a bit of classical music for sure. Hebele did this with the lovely Minuet in G and I cheated with something I already learned in the past 🙂 But seriously though, once I wrap up Alfred 3, I will definitely continue on a classical path as well, ok, I don't want to become a concert pianist, but my end goal is to become an intermediate* player and stay there forever. There, I finally said it out loud 😃

                                        )* Intermediate on a "classical" scale, not our bloody to eternal beginner blues/boogie levels 🤠

                                            WieWaldi My other takeaway - my frustrating takeaway is that I am only 7 months ahead of you. I mean 7 WieWaldi-months, this translates into about 2 Sophia-months, two short Sophia months while Sophia is still learning Beethoven and Chopin along the way.

                                            It's true! Sophia lives in a different time dimension to the rest of us bloody beginners! She began Alfred's book 1 a couple of months after me, then zoomed through book 2 and has nearly finished book 3! All this while tackling the blues course! It's enough to give normal folk an inferiority complex! Don't worry WieWie, I share your pain and will not let Sophia forget that her MUSICAL GENES (which I rarely mention) are doing the heavy lifting for her!

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

                                                Sophia You made my day 😂😂😂😂😂

                                                  Nightowl Sophia lives in a different time dimension to the rest of us bloody beginners!

                                                  Us bloody beginners? Us? Hey!!! How do you dare and promote me down. I am a total beginnerTM. And I am moving forward, not backward. This means, I will go on and become a mediocre beginner one day. And I won't stop there. No, I have set my goals very high. I want to become something better, like an exceptional mediocre beginner.

                                                      Sophia I will definitely continue on a classical path as well, ok, I don't want to become a concert pianist, but my end goal is to become an intermediate* player and stay there forever. There, I finally said it out loud 😃

                                                      I am on that boat too. After beginner stuff, I'd like to think there is much more to keep it exciting. I am not very interested on advanced pieces and I will never get there anyway. But I do want to gather enough skills so I can noodle on the keys, play fun stuff in classical/blues/jazz/pop etc. I wouldn't mind if they have to be "intermediate" arrangements.

                                                          Right! Being an exceptional mediocre beginner in blues means intermediate in classical terms. I read somewhere that this is a level that's attainable for 100% of mankind... assuming we are all human, that means we can totally do it!

                                                            Sophia That's brilliant, but also quite disturbing! 😱

                                                            WieWaldi My sincere apologies WieWie, it was never my intention to demote you. You are the BBK (Bavarian Blues King) and there is nothing mediocre in the way you play. 🙂

                                                            hebele Same here, I think intermediate level is a nice place for hobbyists to be. I don't want to spoil my hobby by trying to attain skills that are probably out of reach anyway.

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

                                                                    Sophia The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion, I'll never ever become an intermediate pianist. Face it: I still stuck at total beginnerTM, and I invent more and more beginner levels. I invent them faster than I progress. Meaning I will be stuck in beginner levels for the entire eternity. Even the eternal beginner level is unattainable for me. 😭

                                                                    Nightowl there is nothing mediocre in the way you play. 🙂

                                                                    This! 👆You are darn right. I am not just mediocre... pah! I am exceptional mediocre! *proud*