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! 
-
My upcoming entrance exam for historic performance practice with baroque violin at Musikhochschule München in summer 2023 requires keyboard skills, which I need to build basically from nothing. The piano requirement includes something at the level of difficulty of Bach's first invention in C Major. My goal is to be able to perform that invention in style at some viable tempo from memory on July 1st and to record that performance on YouTube. I commit to posting my planning and a progress report each Sunday in this thread. My preparation will involve work from the Alfred book on scales, chords, arpeggios and cadences, lessons from the course Intro to Bach's Keyboard Music here on tonebase Piano and other materials. I will post a video at least every other week.
-
Anne Great job! Good luck with the prelude. I think that's wonderful you're coming at this from all angles--reinforcing lots of good skills.
-
-
This is great! I usually don't have New Year's resolutions, but I love this idea so here it goes. I know there'll always be pieces and things I need to learn that show up during I year. So I want to make a list of pieces to learn that I think is very doable. These pieces will be:
Ravel: Sonatine
Beethoven: Op 14. No. 1 and 2. Sonatas in E major and G major.
Mozart: K332. Sonata in F-major.
Haydn: Hob. XVI:34 Sonata in E-minor.
Chopin: Op. 27 no. 2. Nocturne in D-flat major
The goal is to learn and bring these pieces to a concert level. Looking forward to it!
-
Sindre Skarelven That's a beautiful list of pieces! Good luck :)
-
Leah Olson Thank you! :)
-
Sindre Skarelven Nice resolution and repertoire! Looking forward to hearing them.
-
Sindre Skarelven Great choices, Sindre! Looking forward to hearing and watching in your videos!
-
Sindre Skarelven Can’t wait to hear all of these!!
-
Sindre Skarelven That is wonderful repertoire for the coming year! Look forward to hearing you play!
-
Vidhya Bashyam Juan Carlos Olite Gail Starr Natalie Peh Thank you so much for the support, and happy new year!
It's quite easy to make a goal and put up a list, but following threw is something else. But now the list is here, and I intend to post videos of this repertoire threw the year.I've reminded myself of thought, that my number one "resolution" is to keep enjoying the music and the prosess of learning. Staying healthy, and taking breaks when needed.
I also look forward to follow and support everyone here at Tonebase, and share the love for music threw this wonderful community!
-
Sindre Skarelven this list looks wonderful. I look forward to hearing your playing throughout the year!
-
Michelle R Thank you, Michelle!
-
Sindre Skarelven great repertoire! Can’t wait to hear you play!
-
Andrea Buckland Thank you, Andrea! Looking forward to a great year on TB!
-
Sindre Skarelven That's a wonderful number one resolution - exactly what I need to hear, thank you!
-
Jenny Great! :)
-
-
My resolution for 2022 was to find a duet partner, and I've managed to find 4 (3 pianists, 1 violist). My resolution is to enjoy our time together and not get in my head about perfection.
I think I'm also going to go with Seymour's advice to spend 10-15 minutes a day playing tunes by ear. Six months is small investment to have that intervallic skill.
-
Leah Olson Yes, I also liked that advice. Thank you for reminding me.
-
Leah Olson Yes, I liked the advice to play tunes by ear as well. II've done it before, but never with the left index finger - that really changes things up!!
-
Leah Olson I'm going to amend my list. I started learning the piano as an adult about six years ago, and developed terrible performance anxiety, in part because of some negative experiences with my first teacher. I now have a wonderful teacher, but when we started working together I dreaded lessons and found it painful to play in front of another person. My teacher suggested making recordings of myself, but as soon as I hit the button my phone, a loud voice would start shouting at me in my head to the point that it was difficult to follow the music in front of me. I decided to tackle this problem two years ago, and found the book "Feeling Great" by Dr. David Burns tremendously helpful. In addition to some great cognitive techniques for perfectionism, I've been engaging in gradual exposure therapy. Joining Tonebase and posting videos in my practice diary has been part of the process.
I now enjoy my lessons and can make a recording for a friend without having a panic attack, but I still find myself avoiding posting videos of "finished" pieces. I tend to fixate on all the things I would like to improve, rather than celebrate what I've achieved.
My piano resolution for this year is to post videos of pieces I've finished, without any apologies or excuses, and to list two things I like about my interpretation.
Below is the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata that I learned earlier this fall. I was stuck at home with COVID for New Year's and decided to take a couple days to revisit it. I'm happy that I'm getting better at voicing. I felt I committed to my interpretation and maintained that focus through the piece. Thanks for watching!
-
Leah Olson lovely playing!
-
Michelle R Thank you! Came across this elegant sonatina (in G major!) and thought you might like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWMNeZ2tIFA
-
Leah Olson Thank you, Leah! I do like the sonatina - there's so much beautiful music out there, and so much is in G major!!
-
Leah Olson I enjoyed listening to it, Leah. I'm looking forward to more of your playing!
-
Leah Olson Beautiful playing, Leah! You created the right type of atmosphere for this piece with your touch and pedaling. Looking forward to more!
-
Sindre Skarelven Thank you!
-
