Lee - adult - 6 month update

Manda - I completely know the feeling! It is hard to keep up the momentum! What helped me was that Hellene set me 3 pieces and suggested that I try to learn them by August. Would it help you to choose 2 or 3 pieces and then set a date of maybe 2 months to work on them? I didn't get them all done in time but without a deadline it could take me forever to get anywhere!!
And just 5 minutes more regularly is worth more than a long session once a week so I'm going to try to work on this too.

Hellene - thanks for posting the link to the music on the curriculum. Is this music recorded by your team or is it from the Gentle Piano game? I listened to the Clown - it sounds quite similar to pressing "S" on the keyboard. It is quite fast and a bit scary to me! I would love to be able to watch a range of interpretations of the piece, iincluding 'polishing' and ideally also to be able to see the fingering on a video! Like Andrea, I don't think I would necessarily recognise the differences at first, but maybe with time I could learn. As a beginner it would help to have some guidance as to the level that the piece is being played at so I can understand whether I should be trying to copy the way that particular pianist is playing.

I just searched for The Clown on Youtube and listened to several different renditions, I guess i was able to hear that some seemed faster and more polished. There were varying levels of staccato! I'm still not entirely sure what im aiming for.

But a huge thanks Hellene - it is great to hear what you are planning for the site!! I'm very excited.

Hi Lee,

I would be happy to help you to POLISH your pieces. I think you have reached the moment when you need a life teacher to pass you the piano tricks and to correct your posture and hands position. Also i think you need to upgrade your keyboard to touch sensitive or even better to 88 weighted keys or even to real piano.

Then you will be able to work on dynamics and articulation.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Oleg

Oleg wrote: Hi Lee,

I would be happy to help you to POLISH your pieces. I think you have reached the moment when you need a life teacher to pass you the piano tricks and to correct your posture and hands position. Also i think you need to upgrade your keyboard to touch sensitive or even better to 88 weighted keys or even to real piano.

Then you will be able to work on dynamics and articulation.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Oleg

Hi Oleg

Thanks for your comments.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'm in a position (financially or timewise) to manage one to one lessons, which is why I find this forum such an amazingly valuable help to my piano learning.

I will see what I can do about the keyboard. It's an issue of space (as I need to keep the smaller keyboard for when my young children start learning) and money again, but I might be able to use an old electic piano with semi weighted keys if I can get it to work with the the Soft Mozart software. Or perhaps I could just use this once I've memorised the pieces to reduce the technological issues! My mum has an upright piano that I try to play when I visit (about every 1-2 weeks), but there's definitely no room for one at our house!!

I might be able to squeeze in occasional lessons (maybe one a month at the most) when the kids are in bed or at weekends, so I'll have a think about that and speak to my husband about the finances

In the meantime, I wonder if you are able to provide any input / suggestions about posture, hand position and polishing on the forum? This will be very useful, not just for me, but for everyone visiting the forum and learning piano with Soft Mozart

Thank you!!