It's Been Awhile

Sorry that it's been a little while, I have been crazy busy.

In any event, I have still been progressing through the book. I found it really tricky to do different rhythms on both hands so I wound up skipping the songs where I had to do that. I was able to manage to work on the songs where I am moving my hands across the keyboard. I was challenged by remembering exactly where my hands had to go but was able to figure it out.

Also, moving my fingers underneath when doing scales was something new to work on, but luckily in my sight reading class I was taught how to do that so it wasn't so bad. I am going to try and work on preparing my finger ahead of time to move so I do it quicker. Moving triads were also something new that I actually kind of liked.

Now I am going to move onto blues music, which I started a little, but want to work more on that because it seems fun.

Week 5

I am progressing well through the book. An update on last week, I feel that my pinky and ring fingers are strengthening and that I am able to play for longer periods of time. I am using the method shown in class for strengthening the fingers. 

Reading both clefs simultaneously is also becoming easier. I had difficulty initially reading both at the same time and I became use to the numbers representing the notes, however, with the finger numbers switching keys, it makes my old approach incorrect and now I am truly learning the notes. I am to page 95 in the book (Lullaby). 

I have been learning what a melodic third is and how to hit an octave with the same hand. 

On a side note, I will try to contact you but I won't be at tomorrow night's class. I will attempt to email you. See you next week

hooray post!

finally found my book again. It was being used as a coaster (not by me), so i sat down with it. I got to around page 58 i think. Finding difficulty controlling both hands, but thats nothing new. I'm through the E scale now, i think that makes six i can do... C G F D A E. Anyway, happy playing to all!

Week 4 work

I am going to be doing this in two parts, the first today, and the next later this week. 

I am finding the transition to using both hands with finger positions changing to be a bit more difficult (song: Blow the Man Down!), but it is coming along. I first practiced one hand, then the second. The moving up the keyboard is become slightly more fluent

I have been improving on the strength in my pinky and ring fingers. 

Woo!

Wow, I missed a lot of posts! Well, here we go.

I hope that what you've been writing about has been at least mostly solved. Let's talk today about what your goals are and what issues you've been having, since I somehow missed checking your blog!

Week 3

So I am slowly but steadily plugging through the book. It is definitely getting much more challenging now so I think I won't be going through as much in the future. I have no trouble with the new rhythms because I know how to read music.

I am finding it hard to switch hand positions because I am still not too strong on reading between clefs. That definitely will be my goal for the week- to try and be more confident with that. With treble clef, it is not a matter of not knowing the notes, but knowing which ones correspond to which fingers, and obviously the same but more severely for my left hand. The middle C position isn't too bad.

The Hanon aerobics are really tricky at first! I think I understand the first one pretty well, but the second one is really hard to do both hands at the same time. Once I got to the aerobic sixths, I was very scared, so that is where I stopped for now. Next week will definitely be challenging and slow.

I'm not having so much trouble anymore skipping fingers in my scales. C-G-F are solid. D is coming along. I think I'm going to try moving to A soon. The book is starting to challenge me a bit- reading fast between clefs has never come easy, and I'm starting to have to do it now. That's my main focus for the week- reading effectively when i switch between staffs.

First Week Feb

This is a bit late:(

This past week i've been working a lot on the transition of fingers for the different chords. 

I have been trying to work on finger strength, which is taking a bit more time than I expected. I am having difficulty moving the ring finger separate of the pinky. I will keep working on this.

I am also reading the notes out loud to make it easier to read the music during songs. This is instead of looking at the numbers that tell you which finger to use. 

First Post

First post, because I am a terrible student.

Still working on C,D,F, and G scales. I have a tendency to skip my pointer finger on my right hand while ascending, and my pointer finger on my left hand descending. It mostly happens when I have to roll my thumb under to finish the last half of the scale.

I -> IV -> V -> I is coming along. Still just plugging through the book.

Week 2

This week I moved on to working on the G position. This wasn't too difficult, except checking to make sure my right hand wouldn't get one note lower than it was supposed to. Then I tried playing some sharps which I found pretty difficult. I am not sure which finger I should really be using to play the sharps.

The other thing I was struggling with was the D7 chord for the right hand. I wasn't having too much trouble with it on the left hand, but for some reason on the right it was more awkward. I wasn't sure if it would be better to move my hand up towards the black keys like Professor DeNitto showed us last week.

Finally, I definitely still need to practice reading in bass clef, but I made sure to go over a page where I could write the notes in and I think I am getting the hang of it, but it is still pretty rough.