Does anyone fancy a piano chat thread?

[LemonViolet]

I’m awaiting delivery of a new piano, squeee!!! I haven’t played regularly for 20 years. I got to grade 6 as a teen, failed grade 7, carried on tinkering for a bit but have not really lived anywhere with a piano since age 18 so am well out of practice.

Whilst I hope/plan to put a baby grand in our front room, once it is done up - which may be some time - at the weekend I just realised, what am I waiting for, I want a digital anyways for playing at less sociable hours, so went ahead and ordered myself a nice Kawai digital and it arrives on Friday!!!

There’s a music chat thread on the extracurricular board but that’s more parents discussing their offsprings’ exploits, I have seen on the music board it’s quite pianissimo but there clearly are other grown up women around here playing/learning/relearning piano for our own pleasure, entertainment, therapy etc! So thought I’d post to see if anyone else is interested in hanging out on a piano thread to chat about our piano journeys, successes and failures, pieces we like, what we’re practicing etc?

It could be called the piano bar or the pianist beaker, seeing as this is MN

If there is one I’ve just failed to find, please point me in that direction.

Oh wow that looks amazing!!!

Making enquiries now

Hello again, thanks to all for the various recommendations. I have made notes! I think I'm going to start on the Heller Study in E minor having listened to it - so beautiful! I love a melancholy minor piano piece, right up my street.

Happy playing all.

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead I'm at the Chopin retreat in February, the Florian Mittrea one in June, another Chopin one in august and a general mixed ability retreat in November. Plus I'm there in 4 weeks for the grade 5 theory one too- very excited!

@Chicchicchicchiclana the Heller study in E minor reminds me of moonlight sonata.....

I can't seem to find the tariff page for Finchcocks meaning it's probably waaaaaay beyond my means...

@absolutelynotfabulous it's generally £650 for a 2 night stay

Thanks @LilaGrace. I think I'll stick to plonking away at home. .

[quote LilaGrace]@DaphneDeloresMoorhead I'm at the Chopin retreat in February, the Florian Mittrea one in June, another Chopin one in august and a general mixed ability retreat in November. Plus I'm there in 4 weeks for the grade 5 theory one too- very excited![/quote]
Oh I'm so jealous, I really wanted to go on the Chopin one in August but couldn't get the time off. Warren is so, so lovely, i'm gutted he's only doing a couple of courses this year - and I can't do ANY of them 😭. Which rooms have you booked ?
Have you been before ? The family are absolutely lovely and the food is wonderful, really good quality free flowing wine. It's just paradise.

Make sure you have pancakes for breakfast....

X

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead I booked Kilndown for 3 of the 4 next year, and the Old Dairy for the other as Kilndown wasn't available. I'm booked into a different room this October as there were limited options available. Which room did you stay in?
I'm so excited to be on the Chopin weekends. I think they'll be a make or break in terms of my playing!

I am very interested in Finchcocks! I’m thinking one of the intermediate weekends in June or September next year. How prompt are they are replying to enquiries? I submitted an online form yesterday but not sure if it went through properly, so emailed today.

Had a lovely play this morning, and then went though and tidied/organised my music (Indicidual composers alphabetically, anthologies by era/grade level, and studies/scales) and after all that organising got to thinking I’d like to organise my practice a bit more too. I’m thinking of putting up a little schedule on the wall above piano of which pieces are in active repertoire, which pieces I’m working on, relevant studies/scales etc. It’s too easy to sit down and play whichever piece has given me an ear worm (the Bach invention in A minor atm!!!) and then just flick through music, play stuff I like, but never actually really work on anything properly so real improvement is slow.

@LemonViolet I seem to have automatically fallen into a schedule as well over the last few weeks! One of my lovely stepdaughters bought me a music case last week for my birthday so I’ve had a sort out and graded all my stuff. Got my current stuff in the case and the rest in a big wicker basket
My schedule is
All of the major and harmonic scales 4 octaves
All major arpeggios
Hanon , adding a new one every few days
A few contrary motion from the grade 7 lists
Then I do some practise on say the Mozart sonata, a grade 7 piece etc
Then finish off with something a bit easier. Another stepdaughter bought me some musicals scores so I’m enjoying those as well
I do say thank you lemon violet frequently for spurring me on to buy a piano!

I’m retired with only one day a week childcare required though so obviously I have more time
The piano weekends sound fab, it’s reminded me of a singing week I went to the summer of 1979 after my first year of teaching and had been dumped by my boyfriend of 4 years! It was at Hurstpierpoint in a beautiful school and we learned “ the Rio Grande” by Lambert. It has the most amazing piano and percussion section in the middle. There was a lot of time to use their pianos and I learned some lovely duets with some of the other people. I’m watching out for a John Ritter workshop as I would love to have a day singing with him. I missed one locally a few years ago and don’t think he is doing many in the UK this year.

John Rutter obviously

I filled in the Finchcocks form yesterday and had a reply overnight, together with a course brochure for '22.

Sadly beyond my means at the moment but good to know about.

Love Rutter, especially at Christmas.

Yes, I always have “ shepherds pipe carol” as one of votes on the classic fm Christmas top 100
Another memory of my infant teaching career, that carol was too hard for them but I always sneaked it in to every nativity and can still hear them singing “ on the way to Bethlehem” chorus bit over and over again as they trotted with their camels around the hall!

I’m having to split my schedule into 2 separate sessions though as my old shoulders and eyes are feeling the strain
Husband is still enjoying learning and says I’m a good teacher
Then we laugh and do the Haribo advert “ but you ARE a teacher ( police)!!!!

I do not have the patience for scales!!! Scale practice seems to awaken slightly traumatic childhood memories. I have no plans to do any exams that require them either.

I do like studies as long as they have a little bit of musicality to them (ie….not Hanon!), so feel like that’s the “good for me” box ticked when I work on those . I have some graded books that have various studies from different composers in, and each is titled with what it works on, so can pick from those to suit what I want to develop each week maybe.

@LemonViolet they're pretty good at replying- not sure how they're staffed over the weekends but I'm sure you'll get a reply on Monday if not before.

I've also got into a bit of a routine when practising- I do various scales and arpeggios first- my teacher is giving me a test of all the grade 4 and 5 scales this week so am trying to get those up to a reasonable standard. Then play the pieces which are currently the fast Kabalevsky piece (grade 4), the Chopin waltz (grade5/6) and the Liszt piece (grade 7/8 and way above my skill level!). I spend thought 45 mins to an hour a day but feel I should be spending much more!

I'd love to meet up with some of you at Finchcocks.... @LemonViolet let me know if you book anything!

Which graded books are you using for the exercises?

Is anyone else hoping to be ready for ABRSM grade 5 before the end of 2022? And if so, which pieces? I’ve set myself a G5 goal twice before but it’s not happened - not enough practice, partly down to 2 grandchildren arriving within 15 months, partly to a lack of self discipline.

I was heartened to see that the scales load in the current syllabus is considerably lighter than before. They will still need a lot of work though.

Pieces I’ve chosen are A, La Chevaleresque, because it’s jolly, alternative B piece Schumann’s Von Fremden Landern und Menschen, because I love it and have worked on it before - not nearly enough though.

And alternative C piece Catherine Rollin’s Love Theme, which IMO is lovely.

@Knittingnanny, that user name would suit me, too - I’ve done stacks of knitting since the beginning of the first lockdown - it’s become somewhat addictive! I need to divert a lot of that time back to the piano.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER haha! Sadly I wouldn’t be able to use your name though as my late mother was “ difficult”, had OCD and was incredibly self-centred and racist. My dad was a saint for sticking with her for 65 years, I always told him he deserved a medal for long service. My dad would be so delighted I was playing seriously again as he loved listening to me practising when I was a child.
“Bemorelikedad” could be a good name for me!
We are having tea in a flask and reading the paper at the seafront and it’s too wet to walk so listening to classic fm. Why is Chopin so tricky?!