Skip to main content

Piano Lessons Begin This Week


I am trying a couple of things related to the piano. One is semi-regular piano lessons with a local teacher. The other is online jazz piano/theory lessons with a jazz pianist and teacher.

Yesterday evening was the first of my lessons with the local teacher. I mainly want someone to oversee my progress as I learn the classical/romantic/baroque/etc. pieces I want to learn, starting with Chopin's Nocturne in F minor (Op. 55, No. 1).

Trouble in Paradise ... Already

From the moment I played my first note at yesterday's lesson, I knew something was wrong. The piano felt wrong. The sound was wrong--almost out of tune. Everything was wrong. But I went through the lesson and cringed my way through the nocturne I've been working on. There was no evenness, and often there would be no sound at all, even though I was pressing down on the keys.

I made it through, and after that, I asked if I could play some of the other pianos at the piano store. Sure, they said. So I went to a Steinway, and then to another Steinway, and then to a Young Chang grand that I'd fallen in love with a few months ago.

Same thing. Unresponsive keys, slightly out-of-tune sound.

And I realized something terrible: Working on a digital has wrecked my "feel" for a real piano. Even though the keys on my digital are weighted, they don't have near the resistance of an acoustic piano, so I've become accustomed to using a certain amount of pressure to effect certain ranges of sound.

I had planned to blog about my lesson today, but all I can think about is how foreign the real piano felt to me, after just a couple of months of playing on a digital. I'm sure I will get the feel back ... someday. But I'm not going to be able to afford a real piano for a couple of years at least.

I think the digital will still be great for learning jazz theory and harmonies, and for learning to improvise. But it's going to be a challenge for learning Chopin, Schubert, Mozart, Bach, and Liszt. I may have to find a back-up piano, maybe at a local church, that I can practice on from time to time.

About Yesterday's Lesson

It was mostly an introduction and a discussion of goals (which I'm still trying to figure out). I will continue working on the Chopin, and the teacher would like me to pick another piece, one that I can learn quickly and have under my belt in just a few weeks. I told him I'd love to brush up on either The Entertainer or Maple Leaf Rag -- not easy pieces, but I've learned them both in the past, and my main issue for now is that they're just very sloppy. I'd also like to work on Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy," one of those pieces I've always wanted to learn but have never even tried. I have a feeling it's not as easy as it sounds. I guess I'll find out, if that's the piece I decide to do next.

And that's about it. Tomorrow night is my lesson with the jazz pianist!


Labels:

Comments

old lady said…
Yikes!
2:04 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rethinking Bare Necessities

Today's breakthrough moment (there are actually two of them) focuses on "Bare Necessities." As you'll remember, I discovered Jonny May's arrangement back in early March and immediately decided to learn it. I printed out the music, started the course, and proceeded to learn the stride section, posting a few videos of my progress. Ha. I bet those videos make it look like I was making progress. I guess I was ... but not really. And I realized something this weekend that I hadn't before: Because I was thinking of "Bare Necessities" as a "fun" piece, I wasn't practicing it seriously or diligently. I wasn't treating it as something I wanted to master. This mindset might work with an easier piece, but this arrangement isn't easy. The result: despite a little progress at the outset, I wasn't moving forward. I was stalled. Breakthrough #1 The first breakthrough was realizing that if I truly want to learn this piece and play it well,
Post a Comment
Read more

March Goals Recap/Looking Ahead to April

It's April 1, and time to revisit the goals I set for last month. I practiced a total of 50.45 hours in March, averaging 1.62 hours (or just over an hour and a half) per day. Realistically, I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day on weekdays, and I usually get at least one longer practice (or multiple shorter practices) in on one or both days of the weekend to bring the average up. CLASSICAL GOALS Chopin, F Minor Nocturne March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready. I have about 90% of the piece by memory, but I still have some work to do before it's performance-ready. The only two sections that I don't quite have are "The Agitation" and the "stretto" section with the seventh chords. I'll work on both this week and will have them both memorized before the weekend. April Goal: Finish memorizing, and polish, polish, polish! My focus now is really on phrasing and dynamics. I have the notes down, even in the difficult passages. Fro
Post a Comment
Read more

Maple Leaf Rag Breakthrough

Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin? At the Beginning I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around. Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a
Post a Comment
Read more