Hi Fillyjonk! I think you were like me - just got the piano to help with theory. I've since got hooked! Look forward to hearing how you get on with it.




Course y'are! You'll be like our elder statesman, so to speak




Oooo great - are you bringing it to Dyrham?

Awww, I'm honoured!



I can send some beforehand if you like. But otherwise, fine There's loads of great material at Grade 1 if you look around

lol was hooked within 5 minutes of starting the lesson

I only have 15 minutes atm, I'm going to have to have a think about that.

It is SUCH a novelty to be bale to just put your fingers down and it make (roughly) the same sound each time. Also my teacher explained how you put the two staves together and also how the bass clef works and it was a bit like "oh duh REALLY?".

Thanks Sol I think I've got enough to be going on with though at the moment - I got two new books a couple of weeks ago and I'm awaiting the delivery of another couple



Coming from clarinet, that struck me as well! On the other hand, at least with clarinet you know that the same fingers go on the same notes each time, although I'm now beginning to think that it's quite exciting to be moving around the keyboard

Oh dear, I've just been to Chappells and spent £28!

- Dozen a Day book 3
- Keyboard Anthology (to make an honest woman of me; I have been using a borrowed copy of Les Pifferari; absolutely delighted to see this version has a lower metronome mark!)
- Piano Time classics (for some PLEASANT sight reading)
- Improve your sight reading by Paul Harris
- Right@sight - "a progressive sight reading course"

Bit of a theme going on there with the sight reading - but surely if I sleep with the last two listed above under my pillow, I'll get the hang of it ... (Often wondered what "displacement activity" meant ...)

Fortunately I had somewhere else to go after Chappells so had to tear myself away with my Goldfish card gasping ...

PatC

You got off lightly.. last month I spent an obscene amount there! I really should have stayed away from their online store too... Can't stop myself and the addiction to Henle hardbacks!

Expenditure should be proportional to skill (I should have had a VERY cheap visit). Roll on the day when I could do justice to a Henle edition - I presume they are the pale yellow books with lots of notes inside, very close together ...)

PatC

Not necessarily - You can get Henle Hardbacks which have accessible pieces such as the Beethoven Piano Works which includes some easier pieces and Bagatelles They are the light blue cotton bound ones by the way (the paperback ones being the dark blue). I think you're talking about the Peter's Edition books (I like my Peter's Satie book btw)...

Schumann's Piano Works Band I also includes the Album for the Young

If expenditure were proportional to skill, I should have a diploma by now!

Same here. I seem to have an obsession with buying music. Music is my shoes, I have to sneak it in the house

I have the added problem in that mom gets a 25% discount at the music shop where she teaches.

I love my mom

Lois

Oh wow and I thought I was the only one to sneak music in I take quite a large bag to work with me so hubby can't notice if anything new happens to "fall in" during the day. Sshh, don't tell

The postman's just been with Piano Time Going Places, so now I can learn Bluemerang

Although when I see a new piece of piano music, I've always got to fight the urge to run a mile cos it looks so scary I'm going to always remember Trudging because I never *ever* thought I'd be able to play that, but at my lesson yesterday, I sat down and rattled through it from memory whilst my teacher was getting sorted out which I think surprised him a bit So I've got to keep telling myself that I can do it, and hopefully one day, it will stop looking so scary...

I used to have the very same fears but don't get them so much now... Stuff that used to give me an aneurism just seems silly now I find that the trick is to start very slowly and make sure that you count (with "ands" etc where necessary and HS if there are tricky rhythms).

Of course, you then get a bit braver and start tackling new, more tricky stuff which makes you feel like a beginner again!

Edit: I thought I had a problem with Bluemerang but it's resolved itself!

You should try Dozen a Day. They're good for building up beginners' technique. And another thing, don't be put off by books saying 'Ten EASY Pieces'. When I first started, I felt really done down!

Yes I find that too - they're probably easy for someone on Grade 5 or so!

Try Zbigniew Preisner's "Ten Easy Pieces for Piano" - now there's false advertising if ever I saw it... some are easily Gr8 and maybe Diploma level. *faints*

I bought a new piano book at the week-end (and a new flute book - and a new clariet book..............). It's Pam Wedgwood and called Jazzin About Standards (there's also Easy Jazzin About Standards).

It's brilliant, normally in a collection there would maybe be 2 or 3 pieces I want to have a go at - in this book I want to play them all

I'd highly recommend it

Lois

Actually, I'm on Grade 5 and I still do pieces that are labelled EASY!

I did Grade 5 a very long time ago, and the only thing I find "easy" about so called "easy" pieces is how "easy" it is to make a complete hash of them

I feel really put down by books that are '10 Easy Pieces for Children' or whatever, and I still find them hard.

Try "10 easy pieces for piano" by Zbigniew Preisner (my favourite Polish composer aside from Chopin) - all of them are Grade 8+ and even post-diploma.

i can play (in some cases, reasonably long) extracts from many of them but it'll be a decade before I can play any one piece to a decent standard...

"easy" in Polish is different to "easy" in English, it seems.

It will probably keep coming back.

Like it !

I took Purcell's Minuet off the Grade 1 list to my lesson yesterday, and yep, it's every bit as hard as I thought it was when I tried to do it at home. This can't be G1 standard, surely.... Has anyone else tried it?

One of my pupils did it but I think she must be about the only one in the universe (I exagerate of course but I haven't heard of any one else).

And, yes, it was blinkin' tricky (she took 5 months to learn it, as opposed to 3 weeks to get Song of Erin and about 2 months to master the African Dance) but I thought it was a very good experience - I wanted to push her and make her put in some extra effort.

But, in short, I agree - it's a lot harder than the others, especially the proper version with held left hand notes and ornaments.

Glad it's not just me then! I don't mind spending time on learning it, but possibly it won't be one to make it on to my shortlist!

I wouldn't worry too much - you'll get that "magic moment" where something clicks and it makes sense

I can't believe how tricky some of ths stuff I'm battling through is at the moment but I'm so determined to get there I've been doing 4 hours practice a night...

I am playing Grade 6 pieces at the moment, and most of them are "for children" or "for the young pianist". One of the problems of being an adult learner, I think! I wish they'd been called something else, though. It makes me feel as though I'm not getting anywhere!

So how's everybody getting on?

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and re-visit arpeggios I assumed I would like them on piano as I do like them on clarinet, but... hmmm... I've started playing them again but my hand position looks very bad - a bit like a cat when its hackles are up. I've put them to one side again until I can ask my teacher about it.

Is everybody having lessons during the summer? I'm very lucky because my teacher doesn't stick to school holidays so I can continue having lessons

Well, my lack of scale and arpeggio practice is now being tackled in the pieces I'm trying to learn! Apparently I need to tackle stuff that requires more "agility" so now have 2 pieces on the go that require just that...

Many roads lead to Rome, as Mad Tom says.

We three girls are having lessons through the holidays when teacher gets back.
We have just started on Hanon and love it.

My hands feel like they're on fire after too much of that!

I got "Easy Gershwin for Piano" thinking it would be as easy as "Easy Gershwin for Clarinet" but it isn't! Has anyone else got it (Kevin Mayhew's book) - I was looking at Embraceable You and I don't even recognise the rhythm I know the words (which aren't printed in the score), both for the intro and the chorus, and I thought the melody line would fit the words but I'm not getting it at the moment

Anyway I'm a long way off playing any of the pieces!

I love it when I get a new book Skylark, but I have to admit sometimes I buy one and get upset when I feel I can't play anything. However, I bought some stuff back in July and put it away in disgust and have now found I am managing to play them - it all just takes time and lots of fun getting there. Enjoy I am sure that you will master one of the pieces in no time.

Beware of anything with "easy" in the title - it rarely is, especially if you are a beginner! If you want to try some easier jazzy pieces try Mike Cornick's "Start Pianojazz" Mike's Pianojazz series build up jazz playing skills, including improvisation, and give plenty of guidance along with the pieces.

Thanks for that recommendation, Suepea. I'm going to York tomorrow so it will be a good excuse to call into Banks to see if they've got it. Banks is associated with musicroom so they probably will have it in stock

Eldatom - yes, I find that I can play some pieces more easily now that I couldn't do before. I'm still very much only-just-Grade-1 standard though!

How are fellow beginners getting on?

I'm such a coward over sightreading - I take one look at it and panic/freeze. My teacher has started giving me Grade 2 tests in my lesson I don't feel ready for them, I really don't. So since my last lesson I've been going back through the Grade 1 sightreading book (Paul Harris's), and tapping all the two-handed rhythms and doing all the tests, and I must admit I've found it easier than when I last did them in the summer. So I've got a bit more confidence now to start looking at the Grade 2 book and hopefully eventually it won't be as scary in the lesson. My teacher insists on using an old sightreading test book when the tests were longer, even if they weren't necessarily harder, on the basis that when I come to do the actual exam, it will seem a doddle...

There seems to be ever such a big leap though between G1 sightreading and G2 sightreading - what do others think...?

Hum well I feel like I'm still definitely in this category - I'd not touched the piano all week until last night (massive motivational slump which even brought up thoughts of giving up - silly) and I've gone backwards with most stuff. Weird thing is one of my pieces has got better... hrm.

I'm not in the right frame of mind to do loads of practice right now so I'll just keep picking away at things and wait for you lot to overtake me

I know it means a lot to you Sol, but right now your instinct/subconscious - whatever it is - is telling you to focus on other things in your life and let piano take its place lower down your list of priorities. When the time is right it will come back up again, without having to force it. If you make piano your priority, other aspects of your life will suffer instead - your instinct/subconscious is trying not to let that happen so heed what it's telling you and stop feeling guilty about it! You're doing the right thing in focussing on other priorities at the moment. You have a lifetime ahead of you to learn the piano, but it's true that you're only young once (I'm older than you so I know this for a fact ) and other opportunities will only come your way once.

Don't mean to preach, sorry but you seem to be under such a lot of pressure

In the meantime, you're very welcome in here, it's nice here

It's ok Life is busy and I have a lot on. My teacher understands. I was going over the grade 1,2 and 3 books last night for a bit of semi-sight-reading practice - don't think that will do much harm!

I like it here too, thanks for the warm welcome.

Sol I need you to stop completely for a year or so so I can overtake you please

Sightreading, I find, is ok as long as it is maintained. If I take a break from it its like I take a step back. I need to keep sightreading every day to keep it up to where it should be (still not there yet though lol). Taking a week break seems to make it so much harder! Mind you with daily practice I do see a marked improvement and it seems less a challenge!

I'm getting over a heavy cold, which has really affected my woodwind playing quite badly so I've been playing my poor neglected piano this week! I passed grade two last December but then felt that I'd reached a plateau and gave up lessons in the summer. I had intended to find another teacher (I felt that a change of approach was needed) but then ended up joining a wind band and my clarinet and now sax have taken over for a while!

I've been revisiting some of my exam pieces and playing through Fur Elise and the like. I also have some so-called 'easy' piano books and agree with what has already been said! I have some of the Chester Music Gold series - Beethoven, Debussy and Gershwin. Most of these are way beyond me. I can play through the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique but that's about it.

My teacher didn't work from tutor books and gave me a lot of his own exercises to work on but I've used the Carol Barratt book at home and am now looking for some pieces of about grade 1 - 2 standard to play. I hope to start lessons again after Christmas but I'm just looking for some new pieces to get my fingers moving again and to get me back into the habit of reading piano music from two clefs again!

I've never used Hanon but am certainly interested. I have small hands and often found the chords (mainly jazz) which my previous teacher gave me to practise quite difficult. Suggestions for anything which would give my hands a bit of a work out would be appreciated!

Sol - from reading your posts, it sounds like you have made an enormous amount of progress in a very short time. If you need to just coast for a while, do it and just enjoy your playing! I think you will be waiting a long time for any of us to overtake you!

About sight-reading - of course it's useful to try the exam-type sightreading examples or structured books (eg. the Paul Harris series, Piano Time sight reading, the ABRMS Joining the dots, John Kember's Piano sight reading) if you intend to do exams; because I think sometimes they seem to make them weird on purpose so you don't know if you played the right note or not - which has its advantages I suppose.

But for light relief and actual enjoyment you can sight read "nice" things of about the right level of difficulty, which they say is about 2 grades below your current grade. Books I have found good for this are:

Classics to moderns / More classics to moderns
Keyboard anthology (ABRSM)
Romantic pieces for piano (ABRSM)
Piano Time Classics / Opera / Carols.

Maybe try to fit in a bit of both each day?

Btw I really enjoyed the Carol Barratt books.

PatC

Hi PatC

I've got the Romantic Pieces book, and I'm currently learning one or two pieces from it. I think it's an excellent book

It would be easy to spend all my practice time just doing sightreading and/or scales I've just been making sure I've got all the correct slips of paper for my G2 scales and there are 39 scales/arps etc to practise for the G2 exam, counting Hands Separate as individual scales. It's a good job I like scales, and I sympathise with anyone who doesn't. I'm taking the view that if I learn all the scales etc, eventually it will become easier to learn the pieces...

Skylark - what I did when preparing for Grade 3 was to play all my scales through each day in random order, pulling a card from a pack so I didn't get too hung up on what order I did them in. But I had a 3 day rota as follows:

Day 1: each scale LH alone then HT
Day 2: each scale RH alone then HT
Day 3: HT first, then LH only

My rationale for Day 3 was that my LH was weaker (according to my teacher) and needed more practice.

It didn't take very long, and I did quite well on my scales in the exam and felt confident, which was a help at the start of the exam.

Now I don't have an exam on the horizon but I would like to keep them up, plus (very slowly!) adding more. So I don't do the random no. pack at the moment, but try various strategies as regards the order I do them in, eg:

- C major, C minor; D maj, D minor etc

- Major & minor with no sharps or flats, then major & minor with one sharp, then M & m with 2 sharps etc.

I am finding this quite thought-provoking as I had got into the habit of just automatically remembering where my fingers went when I started on a given note, without thinking about the actual notes I was playing. I think this is helping my sight-reading.

Haven't got a "system" for arpeggios yet though!

Enjoy!

PatC

I do a similar thing - I've got lots of slips of paper (LH, RH, similar, contrary, chromatic LH/RH, arpeggios LH/RH, broken chords LH/RH) which I work through randomly - but the categories are different. My envelopes are:

Secure - I can play them smoothly, securely and confidently every time; the ones in this envelope just get an occasional outing to make sure they haven't slipped.

Semi-secure - they're nearly there; I can play them smoothly and generally securely but maybe not quite every time and not confidently enough. I could probably move them up to "secure" if I wanted to fool myself, but I don't.

Insecure - speaks for itself!

Back-burner - scales that I haven't seriously addressed yet.

I've also got envelopes for the redundant G1 scales which I play occasionally to make sure I don't forget them, and also G3 scales. Before exams were on the horizon, I learnt many of the scales up to G3 just for fun I've put them to one side now but once I get all the G2 scales in the "secure" envelope, I'll probably revisit the G3 scales again.

The slight spanner in the works is that I've recently started learning to play all the scales blind. So although I might be smooth, secure and confident when I watch my fingers, I'm rather less so when I play them blind. I'm not bad with HS scales and contrary motion; similar motion I feel is achievable at some point; but playing arps and broken chords blind seems beyond my reach at the moment. I can see the benefit of doing it though so I'll keep persevering.

I probably should play the scales etc on a rota. I'm working on the basis that the quicker I learn them, the sooner I'll feel the benefit in my playing and the sooner they'll all be in the "secure" envelope and I'll just have to play them occasionally to maintain them.

This system might be completely wrong though




I used to do this when I first started learning scales, which is how I came to learn some of the scales up to G3 when I was still G0. I'm finding now that whereas I used to have to think about which fingers to "put under" or put on the black keys, mostly I'm now doing it automatically. I'm also finding similar motion loads easier than I did even 6 months ago when I thought I'd never get the hang of it.

Fun innit

I have a list of all of the scales and arps up to grade 3 and I play through them all 3 times a couple of times a week to make sure I don't get sloppy with them. I also play them with my eyes closed to feel the shape of them. Arps are rather more difficult with eyes closed, but again if you can maintain the shape then they should get easier.

I really must use those Paul Harris books.. last night I decided to use the piece after the one I'm studying in the book as sight reading practice. Next thing, I was thinking "oooo! Gorgeous! Must learn this!"

Just got the sheet for the grade 4 piece by Kabalevsky, one of the waltzes. I love it lol, gonna have a go even though I'm a grade behind!

Go for it, aesir22! I've done this occasionally with a piece I badly want to learn and it's surprising what you can do when you really want to


My teacher thinks I'm really odd I'm the only student he's got who likes (a) scales, (b) performing, and (c ) the metronome. Any one of those would be odd on its own, but all three together...