Welcome to the tonebase Piano Community!
Hey everyone - this is Dominic from tonebase 
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As the lead of tonebase PIANO it's such a pleasure to welcome you to the tonebase community. We would love to get to know you! Please introduce yourself in a post below with the following format:
- Where are you from and what's your favorite food from there? ;)
- What are you currently working on?
- What are you hoping to get out of this community?
I'll go first:
- I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and you better believe that I love my barbecue! It is hard to pick my favorite food between ribs, brisket, or a beautiful grilled steak, but if I have to decide...nothing beats a juicy, fall-off-the-bone rack of baby back ribs!
- Currently working on some old favorites of mine by Carl Vine (Piano Sonata No.1), Beethoven (Piano Concerto No.4) and Scriabin (Fantasy op.28) but also adding some great repertoire by H. Leslie Adams (Etude in A-flat minor Book 2), Laura Kaminsky (Alluvion), and Clara Schumann (Romanze in A minor Op.21 no.1)!
- I am hoping to getting to know and helping all of you achieve your musical and artistic goals. Let's have some fun and get to work!
Now over to you (after some participation from our tonebase team members!)
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Hi Dominic Cheli , everyone!!!
So happy to be here and excited to learn from this community.
I’m from Mexico City. Needless to say that Mexican food is the best ;) (probably pair with Italian or Argentinian). I love lots of dishes so picking one is hard but… I’ll go with sopes (always have good memories with them, specially with my grandma making them. Un MANJAR!!!
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My journey in music has been very constant. I started playing since I was 4. Stopped playing for 4 years and now, just returning into it. It has always been my passion.
Currently I’m working in the Etude op.10 no.4 of Chopin, Etude op.2, no.4 of Prokofiev, Sonata op.111 Beethoven, Concerto no.2 of Saint Saëns, Prelude et Fugue of Cesar Franck and many more… I’m preparing for piano competitions (which I already participated in 2 this year :D) and just building my name as a piano concertist.
From this community, I want to keep learning and growing my artistic background. I want to learn also from the people participating here, make some friends :) and just have fun!!
I’m so happy to be a part of a community like this one!! Thank you!
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Adriana López Soy venezolana, Adriana. I gave up my piano practice for some years, this is a come back, a very much needed come back. I haven't made plans for performing yet, before that I want to feel in command. And for what I have seen so far in tonebase I think I can get a lot of good advise and tips ,did you see any of Marina's videos on Chopin's etudes?, I saw the first where she promotes the series and is wonderful. Don't miss it! I will also join it.
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Mariela But I have to say, I like the idea of playing Beethoven's last Sonatas, they are so wonderful. Then after the interval, music from our countries. How about that? jajaja
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Mariela Hi Adriana! Como estas? Hope you are doing great!
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Hello, I'm new. I live in Yorkshire, UK. At the moment I subscribe to Pianist Magazine and choose my repertoire from their intermediate section each month. I've signed up to Tonebase because I haven't been able to find an in person tutor, but I would desperately like to make progress from intermediate to advanced! I'm looking forward to watching some lessons on here.
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Amanda Clark Hi Amanda! I lived in Yorkshire (Hebden Bridge) for a few years, now I'm lving in Scotland. Hope you have a great time enjoying classes and different activities and information you can find in tonebase.
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Hello Dominic and TB piano community. I'm new here. I'm from Netherlands origine, but now live in Belgium. Every kind of good food you can find here, so why choose one favorite? Okay, I choose seafood, fresh arrival... Gentse Waterzooi.
I am a long time subscriber of the guitar section. Guitar is my main instrument.
But I do own a piano, a baby grand Petrof, which I purchased in Prague, where I spent 4 years.
I've had piano lessons for a few years, but never really got to a good level. It's hard to practice and get a good technique for my right hand with the long guitar fingernails!
Yet I love the piano sound and so do my companions who say they love to hear the sound resonating through our house. A difference with the soft guitar sounds, also beautiful but so modest...
At the piano I can play small pieces, my sight reading is ok, but I find the coordination of the L an R hand quite difficult compared to the guitar technique.
I hope I can find here some guidance on how to develop this coordination and and gain some ease in playing chord progressions and improvisation. Also get to know and learn some more advanced (for now still intermediate) pieces.
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Hi everyone!!
This is Oscar,
- I'm from Spain and I'm 47, and after a few weeks I decided to introduce myself. Better late than ever... well, my favourite food from Spain is not paella (ok, I like paella too...a lot
), but my favourite one is the Spanish Tortilla (a simple omelette with potatoes, eggs and onion). - I'm currently working on Beethoven's Pathetique 3rd Movement, wich I think it's just a little bit over my level. Perfect for a challenge to me. I find it really fun to study. I haven't study on conservatory but I've been 'hitting' the keys several years (that's how I call my performance
), but always for fun and enjoy music, nothing serious. I also have knowledge of Music Theory. I'm re-learning Mozart's KV545 Sonate (I Movement) and Bach's two-voices invention N13 in Am too. - What am I hoping to get from this community? Well, that's easy. I like to learn a lot from other people, and I think I'm in the right place. Of course I'll share what I think I can share to help...(if that's possible)
Thanks everyone
Cheers
Oscar
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oscar6868 Welcome, Oscar! I love Spanish tortillas, also. Tuve la suerte de pasar 5 días en Madrid el año pasado. ¡Ahora quiero volver! (Tengo primos en Chile, pero siempre usamos el inglés juntos.)
- I'm from Spain and I'm 47, and after a few weeks I decided to introduce myself. Better late than ever... well, my favourite food from Spain is not paella (ok, I like paella too...a lot
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Hello, my name is Linda. Favorite local foods? Sorry, I don't have any. I crave Mexican and Indian foods. I've been enjoying Tonebase for over a year. I have watched a number of great workshops, lessons and videos, but have been weak at getting back to the piano. Both my husband and I have been dealing with health issues, and he's nearly an invalid now. We also see a lot of our young grandchildren, the younger one is 1 1/2 years old. So it's seldom that I get to the piano. I'm also getting on in years, have been away from the piano for a long time and am now thinking about what I want and need most. There is a lot to offer on Tonebase. I've decided to get my technique up as best I can. There's a lot to offer; scales, chords, arpeggios and to get all of them in great shape. (I never did arpeggios.) I am intrigued with Marc-Andre Hamelin also. The second thing I want to work on, for starters, I am using the pointers I have learned in some of the lessons I have already taken on Tonebase, which are helping me achieve a nice flow in my scales and more even dynamics. in sightreading, which I am doing a lot of (along with scales, chords and some arpeggios when I do get to the piano). I am sightreading out of several church hymnals and it's going very well. I can anticipate the time when I will need to move on to something more challenging. The last objective I have is to improve my memory. I have been intermittently memorizing simple 2 liners and now have moved to 4 liners with lots of repetition. But need to spend more time on it -- which means not going weeks - months without touching the piano. Things are looking up for me, at least, and hopefully, I'll be able to get to the piano more after June 2023. After I can establish a good practice routine and get these going more satisfactorily, I intend to select something more serious to work on. I love Bach and Mozart and Chopin, so likely it will be something by one of them, but Schumann will probably be up or consideration as well. What I hope I can share is probably encouragement and enthusiasm for people who are learning and getting back to it, as I am. I am appreciative of others and their efforts. Also enjoy listening to others music and ideas.
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Linda Clover Hi Linda, nice to meet you in tonebase. I'm pretty sure you will find in tonebase all the support you need to stablish your practice and learn more. Thank you for your words, I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. My country is a very musical place! I also stopped my daily practice at some point and here I am also looking for recovering my focus in my piano practice. Then, music had not abandoned me completely while I was doing "other things", and one day I began clear musical ideas that I was able to write on stave sheets. So this happen, then came another interval and at the time of the pandemic, a new composing period began. I think this time it is for good and I really hope so. Thank you Linda, I'm positive the moment to play or share some of my pieces will happen sometime.
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Mariela Hello Mariela. It is a pleasure to meet you on Tonebase. I am excited about joining the community here and am very happy to be a part of it. It is so exciting to see so many people who are coming back to their chosen instruments or branching out to new ones after having taken breaks for a variety of reasons. It is so encouraging to see how many people are finding such pleasure and accomplishing so much as they continue to move forward in their studies. I had no idea all of this was happening around me and that I could be a part o this as well. I like to make music and express it, either by playing the piano and capturing the "essence" of the music as best I can or by singing although although I am not a singer. We call it "singing in the shower. I am in awe that you have musical ideas in your brain and can transfer them to the stave sheets. I've never been inspired that way and think it's wonderful that you have. I would love to hear your music if and when you become ready. I look forward to following you and your progress. Thank you for writing and sharing.
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Linda Clover Thank you Linda for your lovely words! I hope sometime soon I will share some of my pieces. Welcome to the community.
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Linda Clover Hi Linda! You know what is the best part of all this experience we are having? To know through our feelings, commitments and decissions that there is really no time or age to do new things or to make a come back to something we love...
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That's right Mariela, that's the miracle of it! Every day, we have a new opportunity to just try something new. We don't have to commit forever, maybe give it 10 or 15 minutes if that's all have at the moment. Later, we can do more if we can and go from there. It's amazing how many results and how much joy I find at the piano by doing it in small blocks of time. Hope you are having happy times at the piano too.
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Linda Clover We're so happy you are here on Tonebase. The platform and the new friends you will make are a wonderful respite from family concerns and health worries. Try to do just 5 minutes a day (if you have access to a piano). And, if you don't have a piano, just do mental practice for a few moments. It really makes a difference and you'll WANT to do a bit more every day as you see progress!
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Gail Starr Indeed. That's exactly why I'm doing this and it really works. I actually use the "5 minute rule" a lot in other activities, but had not used it with piano. I need to find a trigger -- my piano is out of sight of the room I am in all day. Will give it a good think. Thank you!!!
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Thank you, Mariela, I look forward to hearing from you.
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Linda Clover Have a great practice experience and share it here! Today I had other things to do and didn't touch the piano keyboard...but, I will be back tomorrow
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Hi Mariela, Looking forward to hearing from you. Today, a success for me is that I have gotten to the piano for 4 days in a row and actually met most of my goals each day which include scales, chords, arpeggios and sight reading. On the scales, I am working to make perfect crescendos and diminuendos and to play perfectly even. I've begun with very slow 1 and 2 octaves, listening carefully as I increase the speed at which I drop into each key. The one "non-starter" is memory practice. I was working on it many months ago. I have only worked on it one day. Actually I remember most of it from my previous work, but it's a very simple 1 page piece. But I was pleased to learn that. But know I must do it every day to reach my needs/goal. The sight reading is "coming along" and I am feeling more comfortable with it. I am working on things in addition to hymns as the rhythms aren't challenging enough.
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Linda Clover hi Linda! I'm also TRYING to start memorizing a bit...and it makes me VERY nervous. Tiny bits every day (or tiny "delicious marshmallows", as my friend Juan Carlos Olite says).
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Gail Starr Thank you for that, Gail! I'd love to hear how you are coming along with your memory work. "Tiny "delicious marshmallows," will help me remember to practice memory every time I practice. I also have a 5x7 notebook on the piano with the short plan I have (it needs some modest goals and timelines I just realized), and your post brings that to mind. I haven't practiced for a bit due to circumstances beyond my control, but am ready to start again.
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Gail Starr When memorizing, just remember: you learned to speak long before you could read. I find that singing, silently or otherwise, is of enormous help -- songs are one of the most natural paths to memorization, as many elementary school teachers know. If you know a song, you can probably figure it out on the piano, so make your music a song. Bach did.
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Linda Clover I actually put an alarm on my phone to practice just a tiny bit before or after I eat! Even if I'm not at the piano, it gives me (at least) 5 minutes 3 times a day to review a piece.
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Philip U. Oh, I love this idea!
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Gail Starr
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