Michelle's Diary of a Beginning Pianist
Welcome to my practice diary.
Many, many years ago (approximately 35!) I played Double Bass, so while I am not new to music I am new to piano. I decided to get "serious" about learning to play in October/November of 2022, learning on my own at first.
I'm editing this in December of 2023. It's been an interesting year - I took my first piano lesson in January, which resulted in an injury and what ended up being about 3 months away from the instrument (after I realized I shouldn't be playing at all). I wasn't sure I would be able to play again, so I deleted all videos that I had made previously. In May, my son needed to switch teachers again as the teacher he had started working with in January just did not work out. So I began to consider re-starting my own journey of piano adventures. My son and I both have the same teacher, now, and I am beginning to feel more confident and am thoroughly enjoying learning not only how to play the piano, but lots of other fun musical stuff. We sing solfege, too (I may or may not post videos of this!), which I have found to enrich my personal enjoyment of listening to music - and I've always loved to sing, even if my voice isn't so wonderful.
Comments are welcome - I look forward to seeing everyone in the various challenges and community concerts!
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Working with an injury to the fifth finger, one can come up with some slightly creative fingering which still works (for some pieces). Here is the Mozart K-3, "Allegro" which I have been working on.
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It's been a couple of months since last I posted, and I've continued on my counterpoint journey having now learned all four species and the accompanying rules. I've just now begun working on "mixed value" counterpoint (or fifth species), which incorporates all four species. In this exercise, I've been given a cantus firmus above which I am to write - but as a bit of help I have been given five notes interspersed along the way as guideposts toward which I must find my way and then navigate between.
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One way I like to practice is to record a section, watch it with score and mark where there are little hiccups, then practice those sections and record again. I find that when I do this (which isn't often enough, since it takes a fair bit of time) I tend to improve trouble spots more quickly. Here is an example of this practice, taken from the Khachaturian Andantino/Ivan Sings that I've been learning this past month. Take one was my first time through this section; I spent about 10 minutes working on the little sections after watching the video and then recorded again.
Take one: https://youtu.be/XMRCAcZdVMY
Take two: https://youtu.be/ow6fBwsnfYo