Serenading the Soul: My Piano Voyage

Last couple of weeks have been interesting. Soon after finishing Bagatelle, I also completed Melody in G by Ludvig Schytte. Instead of doing a song a week, I was able to wrap it up in 2 - 3 days. So we decided to move on to "Over the rainbow" which has been one of my favorite sweet song. But the bigger thing is when playing you can make play it as advanced as you like. What do I mean by that? Okay so now instead of hitting just the C-major chord if the sheet tells you to everytime. You shift it to it's first inversion the next beat and the second inversion after which leads to lot of hand jumping. And I don't know my chords by heart which makes it incredibly difficult and overwhelming. That's just the left hand. Earlier the melody in the right hand would usually be a single note but that has changed. I can still do the single note but a better way to play it is - playing the octave of the note. An even better way to play, is by filling the octave with chord sounds...

Since my last class around 2.5 weeks back my progress has been really slow by like about a week. The plan was that 2 songs would take at most 2 weeks to to get right. But I was away for a week for my driving class so couldn't practice and then forgot (kind of) what I had practiced the weekend before. Bagatelle took more than a week to practice - Thanks Anton! - which I underestimated. The good news is I finally do have it down.  Today, I have been recording for like 2 hours and I always mess up something small. Its barely noticeable but I'm always in the pursuit of perfection. The last sentence brought back my manager's thought "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good", yeah but I'm gonna. I keep the recording on and when I go back to see I play it well and then I spot the exact moment my mind goes "Oh that's going really well better not mess this last section up" and lo and behold, I end up forgetting the very next note. Hmm, I can laugh abou...

After the third class, where I played Morning Song to my instructor and he was fairly impressed. He taught me A, F, G chords. He asked to sight read and play Lightly Row which is a children's rhyme and I sucked at it. It left me quite disappointed. Morning Song was a success because of playing it as a 10 finger co-ordination and treating both hands as a system than independently instead when asked to sight read and keep a melodic(?) accompaniment; yeah I was pretty terrible at it. Playing with just L.H. or just R.H. is way easier than playing both together that really brings up a much discussed topic is there even a thing as independent hands or is it always just coordination. Well I firmly believe hands can and do move independently except it just takes some (a lot) practice. Through the week until the fourth class, I did practice Lightly row but more importantly did more hand drills to move them independently and I am convinced with enough practice I can achieve it. It starts out...

The last week started off with my second class with my instructor. I had made good progress week 1, some problems with sticking to the beat but overall I'd say I was ready. I had nailed down some basic finger trills and could read sheet music fairly okay-ish. He was happy with my progress and commended me on my hard work. Individually I was good with both hands but playing together in rhythm was (still is) a bit of challenge. Start of the lesson we jumped straight into Morning Song by Anton Diabelli.  I hadn't heard of it before but it's pretty sweet and soothing; really cheerful to hear. Easy song but oh so hard for a novice to play while reading sheet music (oof!). He likes to challenge me. I kinda like it though I did suck at it. There were some Hanon exercises to practice. Next was intro to chords, inversion; still have to brush up this segment. The week was busy with work but I've found some nice time during the weekend and should have the song nailed down today. O...

 Alright time for the first weekly update. After the first 2 days it became apparent that I wouldn't be able to learn the piano myself by just following through with online courses. So I got myself a private tutor and lucked out with a fantastic one. He is an old guy who has been playing the piano since his childhood, composing music, playing with the church choir for the last 18 years and is incredibly knowledgable.  During our first session, he asked how serious I was to learn the piano, and I told him - very - exactly how I'm not just interested in learning the instrument but everything along with it - the musicality, proper technique. Then I learnt to read sheet music and played the piano a bit. I am really good at the theory but was really horrible at playing but my friend who plays the guitar has told me, it is natural for an absolute beginner. Honestly, I even have a hard time playing measures to the beat and my 1..2..3..4 are  not uniform specially when you reach ...

Day 0: Anticipation and starting off without the piano My piano was supposed to be delivered on Sunday. I was actually so excited that even though I had gone to sleep at around 2 a.m., I actually set up an alarm for early morning to be awake when it is delivered. I literally saw the FedEx truck arrive through my window but my package didn't come. They updated the status in the evening that the shipment was delayed. I've never hated FedEx as much. Anyway, I was still so excited that I actually started learning without the piano. This is the  course  that I am following and it seems pretty good. I covered "Hot crossed buns" without a piano haha. At some point soon, I'm thinking of actually getting a piano teacher. I've heard the progress is much faster that way, plus they focus on musicality, ear training and much more which I really want to focus on.  Day 1: Piano actually arrived and its great! Its finally here! It got here in the morning. I actually had to wa...