Achievement of the Day or Week
This was from last week (old news!). I've been working on Maria Szymanowska's Nocturne in Bb for a couple of months. It's in one of my books and I've wanted to play it for awhile but was very intimidated by the jumps on the last page (the most dramatic bit is pictured below). It's actually gone pretty well since I started putting some time into it. Last week I was able to reach my goal tempo, although (1) that's not solid yet, and (2) at best, it's probably about 50% of the tempo you'll see on YouTube performances. 
I'm used to that though! It's still a big confidence boost to be able to play something that I assumed was totally out of reach.
Just in the last week, I started working on a « fun summer piece » , it is Johny May’s version of Despacito. It is actually much easier to play than it looks, the notes (harmonies) are actually quite easy while the challenge rests more with the rhythm and velocity. It is almost completely under my fingers now save for the last 10% of the song. I can already play large segments on « autopilot » mode now, and just need to polish it further.
While not the style of music I usually play, I am enjoying some aspects of its latin jazz riffs which were unknown to me. Just thought i would post on this fun thread!
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Knocked out a new piece to reasonable standard after working on it for a week (bearing in mind I do not practice for hours each day). To be fair, it is short and leans heavily on skills built previously, but sometimes it is good to take on something just because it sounds interesting and is an easy win in a week with lots of non-piano work needing my attention.
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Wonderful! Best wishes on a long and fruitful collaboration with your new teacher!
That's great news Pallas! I'm happy for you 
They say you only know a scale once you can play it hands together in contrary motion. Well, it's been 11 days since I learned F# minor scale in parallel motion, and now I can finally play it in contrary motion at half of my target tempo. This one is just so tricky!
In the mean time, I am really glad that I finished Section 1 of Faber Adult Piano Adventures Classics Book 1. There are 12 pieces in this section named "Beginning Classics: Easy arrangements with simply harmonies". I really enjoyed them.
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It's possible that a lot of people know it already - with scales, such as parallel motion, and contrary motion etc, and including arpegg type scales etc in parallel and contrary - and in harmony style. Two hands that is. People practising those exercises can/will get extra benefits when it comes to creating music .... as it is the strategic mixing and choosing of various patterns - parallel, contrary etc plus introducing counterpoint etc, that can lead to very interesting and nice music. Sure - scales are indeed heard in many pieces of music. And when the parallel and contrary etc methods are applied in particular ways for some sorts of music making -- it can lead to extremely nice results.
Pallas It's the F# minor harmonic scale. Unlike the previous scales I've practiced where distance between notes are more even, this one has a couple of spots where the lateral distance stretches and contracts (D-F-F#, and D-C#-B). So, instead of wrist moving laterally at steady speed, mine kind of need to do a little stop-n-go around those spots. Then, when doing contrary motion, it become even more tricky because the stop-n-go points of both wrists do not happen at the same time. Also, because one of the stop-n-go point is right at the end of the octave, I find going from one-octave run to two-octaves run a big hurdle.
At least that's my experience. Maybe there are better solutions? I am all ears.
iternabe At least that's my experience. Maybe there are better solutions? I am all ears.
It's a great achievement and I can relate to your feeling of that scale being tricky, but from a technique point of view the movement should still be as smooth as possible rather than "stop and go". The elbows and forearms have to glide smoothly parallel to the keyboard while the wrists and fingers mostly navigate the keys. This is true of any scale although this one and the closely related sharp minors (g# and c#) are quite tricky.
Hi Pallas, how great that you found a teacher who seems to be a very good match for you!
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... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
I just finished Piano Adventures Level 4 (equivalent to RCM grade 2/3) and started on PA Level 5.
Between that and working on a bunch of RCM 3 repertoire pieces and etudes, I feel like I've learned a lot this year. I can't say exactly what I've learned, other than working on PA technique exercises with some impossibly fast tempos and pieces with an expanding range of key signatures. I've just noticed lately that that pieces are getting easier to learn.
You guys are much more creative than I am. I seem to have an odd mental block when it comes to making up names for anything.
