Lesson Report for March 13, 2024

Yesterday was my mostly-classical piano lesson. As a reminder, I meet with this teacher for a half-hour once every other week. It really isn't enough -- I mean, it's enough time for me to play something and get feedback, but there really isn't time for a lesson that covers more than one piece. While I've enjoyed the lessons and really like the teacher, I'll have to think about whether to renew the lessons later this spring.

At yesterday's lesson, I'd hoped to spend a few minutes on Chopin and then move on to Maple Leaf Rag for the bulk of the lesson. I played through the Chopin, quite badly I might add. I have so much trouble adjusting to an acoustic piano after doing all of my practicing on a digital. Nothing sounds or feels right.

Anyway, I made it through the piece, and, as usual, he made some observations and gave me some valuable feedback, as well as a few things to think about regarding interpretation.

And that was it. No time for Maple Leaf. Time to go.

At the end of this four-lesson package, I will need to decide whether to (1) stop doing lessons or (2) see about having a one-hour meeting every other week, or possibly even once a month. I'm self-directed enough that monthly could work, but, at the same time, that's a long time to go without a lesson.

And if I'm going to do just once a month, why not make a monthly visit to Asheville and meet with Deborah?

In case anyone is wondering, I don't have the money for weekly one-hour lessons, and I also don't want to spend that much time/effort on classical since I mainly want to focus on blues and stride/ragtime and later jazz. I just want to keep up a few classical pieces as I'm doing all this other stuff.

For now, I'm enjoying the mostly-classical lessons, except for the fact that they're too short. And I'm certainly benefitting from them. So I'll keep on keeping on, and I'll make decisions later.

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Picking Up the Pieces

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