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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My perpetual goal is to improve. Improve my skills and add to my repertoire [ I prefer everything memorized]. I have never made resolutions in the past so I look at this as part of my daily life. I plan to release another cd of my Christmas arrangements and an 11th cd of my personal compositions. I also plan to utilize the information shared through tonebase as much as possible. Happy new Year Everyone:)
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rada neal Wow, this is wonderful Rada, I really look forward to hearing how you get on with your compositions and recordings over the year!
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rada neal That's fantastic! Can I find your CDs somewhere? Do you have them on Spotify?
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Leah Olson Thank -you for asking Leah, yes on spotify and pandora...neo-classical piano. rada neal :)
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Jenny thank-you Jenny.....please share if you write music as well:)
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rada neal Just looked you up and listened to a few. Beautiful! "Song of Thanksgiving" from Transcendence is a perfect piece for today, the last day of the year. Thank you :-)
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Leah Olson thank-you Leah, Happy New Year!
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You have read my mind Ben! I just love New Years Resolutions (at school, I was always the keen one who had sharpened her pencils and bought a shiny new exercise book at the beginning of each term). These are my initial resolutions for 2023:
1) To play with more expression: I will use easy pieces, scales and arps to practice this and will measure my progress by recording myself regularly.
2) To work through my sight reading books, starting with books 2 and 3. My goal is to be able to sight read faster, aiming at 80bpm
3) To be more methodical and purposeful when learning new pieces, aiming to learn pieces more quickly. I will use a checklist to help focus my practice.
4) To play without tension. I will remind myself to breath, have an awareness of any tension creeping in as I play and continue with daily yoga and meditation.
5) To play faster generally. I will use current repertoire, scales, arps and technical exercises to help me do this.
That's it for starters.
I'm really looking forward to hearing everyone else's resolutions!
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Jenny I also love resolutions. Those sound great!
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Jenny Happy New Year! Can you share your checklist? Also which sight reading books you use?
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ALICE Hi Alice, Happy New Year! I'm happy to share my checklist if it might help. I wrote it down after watching the TB live workshop "Learning music quickly and safely" with Irene Kim (20/12/22) - really helpful if you haven't watched it yet. Anyway, this is what I now do to keep focused when learning a new piece:
- Listen to various recordings
- Analysis of score
- Identify fingering and chunk in to sections
- Rough play through, to identify most tricky bits
- (Focus on tricky bits first)
- LH up to tempo and beyond
- RH up to tempo and beyond
- HT ½ tempo
- HT ¾ tempo
- HT at tempo and beyond if poss
- Focus on dynamics and expression
- Record playing
- Memorise
- Repeat some steps as needed.
The sight reading books i'm using are called "Improve your sight-reading!" By Paul Harris (Faber Music).
I'm also using a music journal called "Agenda Musica" by Richard Payne. There are some progress charts at the back of the book where i'll be checking off each step as I work through learning new pieces.
Let me know if you find any of this helpful - you'll probably have to tweak it a bit for your own learning method.
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Jenny Super helpful! We have similar goals. Let's connect to keep sight reading on track!
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ALICE Yes, that would be lovely!
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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.
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Anne You have a great motivation. Can't wait to see your videos!
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Planning Week 1 (20230101)
My schedule is to work on my piano skills for 5 hours a week, divided as follows:
- 5 session of 20 minutes each from the Alfred book on scales, chords, arpeggios and cadences (AScales)
- 5 sessions of 20 minutes each working from the piano method Piano for All that also targets listening skills, awareness of harmony and improvisation (P4A)
- 5 sessions of 20 minutes each working on a piece.
My first piece, which I will record next Sunday, is Bach Minuet in G major, BWV Anh 114 (BachMinG); I am also continuing work on the Bach Preludio in C major BWV 846 (BachPrelC).
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Anne This sounds great Anne. I love how you are being so purposeful about your practice!
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Anne This is a great schedule! You inspire me!
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Reporting on Week 1 and setting my intentions for Week 2
In Week 1, I worked from the Udemy course Piano for All for 105 minutes. The first chapter is on "rhythm piano", and it gives some valuable context to the theory (chord progressions) that I am learning. I enjoyed experiencing the "fifties progression" and the circle of fifth progression.
For further 105 minutes, I worked on Bach / Petzold Minuet in G. Eventually, I recorded it at https://youtu.be/BqDbPy5Pv1Q. Here are a few surprises that i notice, apart from some hesitations with the music itself: (1) My neck / head wants to get involved with pressing the keys. (2) My left hand is sounding weaker than my right hand; that is what I get for playing melody (or Violin 2) all my life. (3) I sometimes leave keys pressed down, another violin-imposed habit.
In my estimation, I have gotten to the 80% level with this piece, so I want to move on to other low-hanging fruits without further polishing the Minuet. I have another course from the same guy who does the Piano for All course, on Bach Preludio in C major BWV 846, so I will continue to work on that one, with a recording at the end of Week 3 (two weeks from now).
I did not open the Alfred Scales etc book in Week 1, although I learned how to play a V--I cadence using 6/4 and 6 inversions for the chords V and I respectively from the Piano for All book.
In Week 2, I intend to continue with the schedule I set at the beginning of Week1, namely to work on my piano skills for 5 hours a week, divided as follows:
- 5 session of 20 minutes each from the Alfred book on scales, chords, arpeggios and cadences (AScales)
- 5 sessions of 20 minutes each working from the piano method Piano for All that also targets listening skills, awareness of harmony and improvisation (P4A)
- 5 sessions of 20 minutes each working on Bach Preludio in C major BWV 846 (BachPrelC).
I'll need to get my motivation up for the scale work.
I am open to your ideas and to constructive criticism.
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Anne It seems you are off to a great start! You've covered a lot of ground this week. Thank you for your recording. You've made a lot of headway in the time you've been working on it. I love those Bach minuets, and never tire of their lovely melodies. Keep up the good work! I look forward to hearing you continue to progress. Enjoy!!!
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Reporting on Week 2 and setting my intentions for Week 3 (starting January 15th)
In Week 2, I did not fill my quota on scales and piano method; I only did 20 minutes in each of these categories (20% of my goal time). I did, however, do some work on the piano while learning chord progressions as part of ear training.
I worked on pieces for 130 minutes including on Bach Preludio in C major BWV 846 (BachPrelC), reviewing and memorising the first two sections and studying the middle section. I also looked at the piece from a theory perspective, which was fun (and important, I guess) but also slowed me down considerably.
In Week 3, I intend to do significantly more work from the scales book and from the Piano for All method. I had intended to finish the Bach and record. I will give myself one more week for that, though. Since I have committed to record something every other week, it will probably be something from the Piano for All method.
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Anne I think you're doing a wonderful job by setting clear goals for each week and then recording your progress on them. I'm impressed by the progress you made on the minuet in a short period of time with, as you said, little background in the keyboard. I remember the first several months of learning the piano--how my brain wanted to freeze as I tried to read two different lines and allow my hands to work independently. Great job!
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Leah Olson Thank you so much for the encouragement. Yes, a brain wanting to freeze is an apt description. I enjoy the challenge, though.
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Reporting on Weeks 3 and 4 and planning for Week 5, starting 20230129
This check-in is for two weeks. I was busy with some challenging work and gave priority to violin and ear training. I also find the Bach Preludio a bit overwhelming, mostly because of its length, so I looked for something similar but simpler and came up with Beethoven Für Elise.
I am trying out chord progressions that I study in theory or in ear training on the piano, memorising fingerings. I am counting that as Scales etc work.
Again, I have done much less work on scales or with the piano method than planned. I was below the intended amount of practice with pieces, too. I eventually learned Für Elise by memory, though, and recorded it at https://youtu.be/iXDLtMI6Zh4.
In Week 5, I intend to learn the last two parts of the Bach Preludio in C next week. I also want to learn more chord progressions, integrating theory, ear training and piano.
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