There is an upcoming peace concert in 2 weeks as a fundraising event for a humanitarian organization. A chance for amateur pianists (piano students) to play 1 or more pieces. If I do attend I'd probably include a piece like "What a Wonderful World" that I worked on last year. Haven't decided yet.
What Piece(s) Are You Working on Right Now?
8 days later
Picked one piece I really want to play from Faber Popular Book 1. Still working on dynamics and tempo, but at least I've got one recording that's passable.
Faber did a great job on that arrangement. I sounds very authentic. Your recording does it justice even at the slower tempo.
I tend to get too obsessed with tempo at the cost of a piece not sounding as good as it should.
- Edited
Let's see here ...
I'm working on some tunes for my little garageband in which I sometimes play bass and other times keys.
- learned but still very much practicing an arrangement of "Baby Please Don't Go" loosely based on the Them version, me on "organ" (Roland VR-730)
- polishing my arranged / semi-improvised version of "How Long Blues" by Leroy Carr, me on piano (Roland RD-2000)
- just starting to learn "Karma Police" by Radiohead so that a friend can guest-sing with us, me on piano again
For my own stuff, I'm working on playing and singing a semi-arranged, semi-improvised version of "Worried Life Blues" by Big Maceo Merriweather. Like "How Long Blues" above, it's something I can do on my own or with the group as the spirit moves us. My feeble singing is really sticking out as the weak point right now ...
Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.
Pallas Would love to! It may be a while yet. The "band" is me (bass / keys), the missuz (drums), and our pal Steve who just started playing guitar this year. As such, he's still learning a lot of new chords and it can take a while for us to get up to speed on things -- which is just fine since this is all in fun. I'll be sure to share when it's ready, thanks for asking!
Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.
2 weeks ago played 2 pieces at a piano meetup across town including a Bach chorale and "Sarabande" from French Suite 3.
There is an upcoming piano meetup on the weekend with the theme "peace". I'm working on an arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" for the event in additon to the 2 pieces I'm already playing. Probably a simplified version of Bob Dylan "Blowin' in the Wind" which is a song written for the anti-war movement during the Vietnam war.
Pallas Melody is a lovely piece, very rewarding. Iām sure you will play it beautifully 
Pallas Oh no, I'm NEVER going to get this one! It's over for me!
I know that feeling only too well. My teacher used to tell me in moments like these: āI know you can do it, believe meā, and I believed him and did my bestā¦
Now, since I donāt have a teacher, I tend to give up too quickly. Thatās what happened a few weeks ago when I tried to learn Olafur Arnaldsā āSamanā. But maybe it was really too difficult for me, I donāt know. The constant changes of metre from 4/4 to 6/4 were intimidating and I couldnāt quite figure out the rhythm, which added to the overall difficulty of the piece. But I still love it and will get back to it sometime in the future.
Then I found a new piece, which I really liked, and it turned out that I could play it even in a shorter time than expected. Oh, what a wonderful feeling, what a comfort! It was āPigalleā by Virginio Aiello - well, evidently the piece was a more reasonable choice for my current set of skills 
Now Iām working on:
Patrick Doyle āMy Fatherās Favouriteā from Sense and Sensibility (from the book āJane Austenās Worldā for piano),
"Down by the Salley Gardens" (from the book āIrish Folk Songs Collectionā arranged by June Armstrong),
āWild Horsesā from Martha Mier āKeyboard Kaleidoscope 2ā,
āVan Goghā - another piece by Virginio Aiello,
each of them in a different stage of learning.
I have also fallen in love with the music of another Italian composer, Andrea Vanzo, and would like to learn his āSpringā and āValzer dāInvernoā, but maybe in a yearās time, as both are still too difficult. Or maybe when I have a teacher again.
Pallas please tell me that "Minuet in G" is not an early beginner piece as opposed to what some part of the internet thinks. I've recently gave that version a go instead of the simplified version in my method book. And found myself saying "I will never be able to grok this". My hands are refusing to play together, even after disregarding the trills. I really like how it sounds though. So I'm not going to give up. But the progress is sloooow 
.
hebele please tell me that "Minuet in G" is not an early beginner piece as opposed to what some part of the internet thinks
The internet is stupid (except this forum of course 
). The adjective "early" means that you have just started that level and "late" means you have been at that level for a while and are close to moving to the next level. So, "early beginner" means you just started playing piano. That piece is not something a raw beginner who just started is expected to play.
Pallas The local community college had this piece as part of a Piano III class. The teacher also taught it in his Piano II class that I took years ago. My guess is that it was either too difficult for some of the Piano II class students or he was teaching it again to add more layers to the onion.
As far as the internet and piece levels go, I recently watched a YouTube video where a concert pianist was recommending pieces for intermediate pianists. They sounded pretty advanced to me and when I looked them up on the Piano Street syllabus they were grade 10!
Baroque music seems to take up a lot more bandwidth for me than other eras. I generally have to learn in much smaller chunks. I've had good luck with just adding a new note each time I repeat a passage. I also discovered a close to painless way of adding "onion layers" of articulation or dynamics. When I do "X times perfect" repetitions I work on adding in whatever I can manage at a time with each repetition.
- Edited
The last piece my teacher got her students at RCM level 3 to play was "The Elegant Toreador" by Seymour Bernstein. A modern Spanish-sounding piece like you're in a bull fighting rink.
In the middle are 2 notes (1 for LH and 1 for RH) with a wavy line "gliss.". The teacher did a demo in class how we'd use the finger nail on 1 hand and glide across the white keys. Be careful not to cause your finger to bleed.
- Edited
iternabe Picked one piece I really want to play from Faber Popular Book 1. Still working on dynamics and tempo, but at least I've got one recording that's passable.
Finally at tempo now. Having a hard time keeping left hand quieter. And getting that arpeggiated chord at the end come out even is still hit or miss.
The last piece was a simplified version of the Bob Dylan song "Blowin' in the Wind". It's for an upcoming piano meetup event tomorrow.
thepianoplayer416 Be careful not to cause your finger to bleed.
I was taught not to use tips of fingers/finger nails but to use the back of fingers. I find it most comfortable if I use three fingers to sweep up and down but also possible with one or two. This technique will not cause bleeding or be painful.
@WieWaldi If the faster one sounds less musical, it's entirely on me.
The tempo marking on the sheet is "Moderately fast". Faber's own demo is at 148 bpm. My faster version is about 135 bpm, and slow version is about 100 bpm.
- Edited
iternabe In the fast one, you seemed to be focused in being fast. In the slow one, you seemed more relaxed. The Faber demo on Youtube sounds too rushed to my liking, too. Not from a playing perspective, I just had the feeling this music needs to be played slower.
So I tapped the original soundtrack: ~108 bpm
Edit: in your last videos, you played really beautiful. You developed a very good sense for musicality. Don't let this be destroyed by the impression you need to play faster just because someone else did.
Another finding: The original soundtrack has a quite relaxed melody line, but the string-section (bass-line) sounds very busy. It is almost as if the strings are playing double tempo than the left hand of the Faber piano arrangement. Or they used a delay effect in the production studio. Maybe this busy mood of the strings made the Faber-Youtube pianist go up so fast.
WieWaldi Another finding: The original soundtrack has a quile slow melody line, but the string-section sound (bass-line) sounds very busy. It is almost as if the strings are playing double tempo than the left hand of the Faber piano arrangement. Or they used a delay effect in the production studio. Maybe this busy mood of the strings made the Faber-Youtube pianist go up so fast.
The original sound track is probably in 3/4 time signature, and the accompaniment plays 3 notes per 1 note in the main melody. That's why it gives the impression of faster moving sensation while not rushing the melody. Faber's arrangement for level 1 simplified the left hand to 2 notes per 1 note in the melody. Played at the original tempo for the main melody, the mood feels too slow.
WieWaldi Edit: in your last videos, you played really beautiful. You developed a very good sense for musicality. Don't let this be destroyed by the impression you need to play faster just because someone else did.
I am curious what contributed to my version at faster tempo less musical. Is it just the speed itself, or is it something else I did differently?
iternabe It is hard to tell. Let me try, you are generally hitting all keys harder, a bit of hammering. I feel the melody should be soft, but you had a tack of staccato in it. In the slow version I had a feeling of a bit of rubato as well. In the fast one, you did beat-beat-beat, except for the end. Your ending was very good, loved the smooth slowing down and getting softer.