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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Beethoven Sonatina G Major mvmnt I, week three progress. It is now in a listenable condition! Hopefully ready to move on to mvmnt II in a week or so!!
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Michelle R what a delightful sonatina! Nice work!
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Michelle R You are making such speedy progress! And I can tell you are learning strong technique already.
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Sindre Skarelven Gail Starr Thanks so much for listening and commenting. This little sonatina has been fun to learn. I'm lookng forward to learning the second movement!
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Continued work on the Beethoven Sonatina. I will be starting the 2nd movement this week!
On the first movement, I'm maintaining slower-than-performance-tempo-practice to gain some much needed continuity and confidence. This recording is with the metronome at 76bpm (ultimate tempo goal 100-110 to the quarter note). I started using the pedal in the coda at the request of my teacher - not so sure I like it after having played the rest of the movement without pedal. I'll have to play around with it to become accustomed to this new sound and then decide whether or not I like it.
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Latest update on movement 1. Closer to performance tempo, playing with the repeat. Feeling more confident.
Second movement is under way. Hoping to have a video available in about another week.-
Michelle R Delightful playing of the Beethoven Sonatina. It's coming along!
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Marc M Thank so much, Marc. I’m hopeful it will be decent enough to play for the June Community Concert!
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Life threw me some curve balls, so my dedicated efforts on the 2nd movement of the Sonatina were a little delayed! Here I am at almost a week and a half of consistent, focused work. I just completed memorizing today, so they are still spots with “slow” memory in this recording. Still a lot of work to do, but also a lot accomplished. This is such a fun piece! I’m hopeful both movements will be ready for the June Community Concert.
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Michelle R Great job playing and memorizing too!
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Vidhya Bashyam Thanks so much for listening, Vidhya!
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Here’s the little Etude I’ve been working on. It is pretty much complete. The goal has been facility and ease - speed being a nice by-product.
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Michelle R Really charming! I love your tempo and technique. You are going to have to rename your practice diary soon
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Vidhya Bashyam Thanks, Vidhya! This etude features something I'm not too bad at: scales!
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And the most recent update to the Beethoven Sonatina in G, second movement. I think it’s almost ready for Saturday’s community concert next week.
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Michelle R You are certainly ready for the concert! Nice playing!
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you! I'm going to try playing and recording both movements early next week. For this movement, I still need to be a little more confident near the end. I know it, but I need to believe I know it!
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Michelle R Well said. I have the same issue when I play live- “I know it, but need to believe I know it.” Will think about this line to be confident for my piano lesson tomorrow
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Here’s the final update on the Beethoven 2nd movement. It’s far from perfect, but improved since the previous update. I’m hoping to post both movements together next, before the end of the week.
My teacher made me laugh this week when he said I could be the poster-child for diligent practice of scales and arpeggios! So, we are on to another Etude, so I can learn more new things.
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And here, at long last, is the Sonatina with both movements. I didn’t play repeats in the second movement…but I did tell myself that if I could play this in under 5 minutes I would strongly consider playing both movements in the Community Concert. So…… (we’ll see!!)
