Jim's journey begins... :)

Thanks all for the encouragement and particularly for Hellene's advice. For the piano, I just picked the one that sounds good with a reasonable price at the piano shop. These 61-key keyboards are really not that bad for starting out.

BTW, one quick question:

When would it be a good time to start learning how to read the notes in horizontal format?

My attempt at Halleluyah chorus.

Jim, it is very good. It ha to be a little faster, though
But your phrasing, staccato and rhythm are perfect!
All the correct fingers too!
Did you use my teaching videos?

Thanks Hellene. When trying a new song, this is what I do usually:

1) watch the teaching video once
2) open gentle piano, play with right hand only several times, without paying much attention to choice of fingers, try to find out whether I feel good with the choice of fingers, then pay particular attention to those parts which I don't find my choice is good smooth
3) watch the teaching video again, but this time paying close attention to which fingers you used
4) open gentle piano again and play with right hand, following your choice of fingers (even if I find my own choice is good enough, I will practise with your choice)
5) repeat the process for the left hand
6) play the piece with both hands, this time notice if I have any problem with any part
7) practise the difficult parts alone (maybe fingers jumping several keys, or getting the timing right, etc...)
play the piece normally (to get a feel of it)
9) play the piece slowly with metronome (try to perfect the rhythm)
10) play the piece normally again (try to perfect it)

Repeat any of the above parts until I find that I am at least 60-70% good (my own assessment) before I start to record the video.

Occasionally, I will practise the piece at the same time as your teaching video (slow version with metronome) plays. That is what I did with Halleluyah in order to perfect the rhythm.

BTW, so far I only used presentation 1 in gentle piano.

Perfect approach .

My latest attempt at Buree. This was harder than I thought...