NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS! 
Happy New Year to the whole tonebase Piano community!
As much we may love the piano, it’s not so easy to set goals and stay committed to realizing them over the course of a year… at least, it’s not so easy to do this alone, which is how I often try (and fail) to undertake such goals.
That’s why I’ve created this thread. Here is a place for anyone and everyone in the tonebase community to come up with your individual piano-related New Year’s resolutions and support each other in our efforts to realize them.
PARTICIPATION
- Make a post below to announce your piano-goals for the new year,
- over the coming days, weeks, and months, use the sub-thread of your own post to keep us all updated us on your progress (videos encouraged!)
- and in the meantime, scroll through to read each other’s resolutions and click “reply” to offer advice or words of encouragement.
RULES
- Please try to keep conversations within sub-threads, and only make a single new post to share your resolutions. This will help keep the mega-thread clean so we can navigate more easily and check in on each other.
- Keep in mind that there are people of all ages and ability levels in the tonebase community, so if you’re one of the more advanced ones don’t gloat about it, and if you’re a novice don’t be shy.
- If you don’t want to share your goals, you’re still welcome to comment on other members’ thread.
SEE MORE SEYMOUR
- Watch the inspiring new video from Seymour Bernstein (see below) where he gives new year's advice to pianists from all walks of life. And, if you ever feel discouraged or stuck, this video is always there for you!
MY RESOLUTIONS
- I will go first! I’m supposed to play Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Concerto (henceforth: “Rach 2”) with an orchestra in the fall. I’m usually a terrible procrastinator with learning new music, so my resolutions will try to counteract that:
- I resolve to give a beautiful, original, and confident performance of Rach 2 this coming fall!
- I resolve to have the full piece learned by the summer, with the 1st movement memorized and in my fingers by February 1, the 2nd movement by April 1 (Rach’s birthday), and the 3rd movement by June 1.
- To get there, I resolve to practice the piece a minimum of 30 minutes every weekday, and 2 hours each on Saturday and Sunday.
- Finally, I commit to mindful practice, enjoying playing the piece slowly and carefully (it’s sounds great slow), and always listening.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! LET'S GO! 
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Just saw this today! So my piano challenges for this year will be:
1) Learn Chopin's Ballade #1. This is probably the classical piano piece that changed my life, so I'm going to commit to at least walking through the whole thing.
2) Finish learning Chopin's waltzes (at least not the posthumous ones). So it would be 34.3, 42, and 64.3 left! And of course touching up on the other ones.
3) Finish the other movements of Beethoven sonatas in progress. So that would be Appassionata 2 and 3, and Tempest 1 and 2.
4) Learn 3 more new Beethoven sonatas, one from each "era" (early, middle, and late). As of now I think it would be Op.10.2, Op.78 (For Therese) or Op. 81a (Les adieux), and Op. 101. I'm skeptical that I can finish all movements of all these, especially Op.101, so I'll see how far I go!
5) Finish an "opus"/suite. Probably a likely one would be Chopin's Nocturnes Op.27 (so just #2). Others could be Schubert's Impromptus D899 (#1, #2, and #4 left), Debussy's Suite Bergamesque (#1, #2, and #4) left.
6) Learn 4 more Bach pieces! A big commitment for me this year is to learn Bach properly, so nailing some Inventions/Sinfonias, and some WTC pieces and potentially some sections of the French Overture would be awesome.
7) Learn at least one piece from these composers:
- Haydn
- R. Schumann
- C. Schumann
- Brahms
- Mendelssohn
- Liszt
- Ravel
- Faure
- Prokofiev
8) Learn 3 20th-21st century pieces! At least the immediate ones I am interested in are:
- Barber's Pas de Deux
- Copland's Cat and Mouse
- Viola Kinney's Mother's Sacrifice
I might have bitten more than I can chew... But here we go!
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Khoa Phan Howard What a list! Love it :-) I really like Samuel Barber. Looking forward to your videos!
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I resolve to pick up my daily practice. I'll practice 2 hours a day (weekdays) and 3 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. I will start my practice diary.
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Mariela Good luck with your resolution! I'll look for your practice diary.
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Argerich third movement of the Schumann concerto. Last two minutes always gets me going!
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Today, by chance, I heard Arguerich (again) playing October by Tchaikowsky. I've written it down in my new repertoire wish list. Now, speaking about New year resolutions, I 've done well. I 've had a nice come back to piano practicing and enjoying very much the creative experience of composing!
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It is wonderful to realise we are all part of such a diverse group of pianist's!
As I've mentioned before I feel quite satisfied, by now, second half of 2023, I've developed my practised to a good 2 to 3 hours a day. I've included technical work, recovered personal pleasure in practicing back to front from small passages to whole movements. It's going well. Looking forward the next challenges and classes in Tb.
