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.

In case of interest to everyone, this month’s edition of Pianist magazine is aimed at adults returning to piano after playing in their youth. Free on the Libby app if you have a library card.
I’d be interested to know how you all tackle a new piece and how many pieces you have on the go at a time. I tend to be impatient to hear it all come together so work on the whole piece from an early stage but it’s taking me ages to perfect things. I think I might be better taking it a line at a time and getting that line perfect before moving on?

I usually have several pieces on the go.
On the music stand at the moment

Chopin nocturne 72 - learnt and now in the polishing up phase
3 pieces from Nikki Iles Christmas book at various stages
Similarly some Clementi
A couple of Bach pieces I'm just tinkering with for a baroque course in may
The grade 6 book that came before Christmas
Some Satie
I like to mix things up, I get bored if I just do the same piece over and over. Plus there's a variety of styles to mix it up.

I do a mix of backwards abd bus stop practice

Ooh exciting piano evening chez moi... started learning my C choice (a jolly, swashbuckling tune called The Buccaneer) and, with the exception of one tricky bar I've got page 1 of 3 under my belt. Absolutely love it !

But it's so hard to choose between that and this, I know I'll end up learning both

On my stand are:

Chopin A Major Polonaise.
Chopin Minute Waltz.
East Coast Blues by Iles (a pp reminded me of this one which I found in Jazz on a Summer's Day).

As for practising, I listen as long as it takes to internalise the tune, then have a bash. I play it 10 times then put it to one side. I have another bash later until it's respectable, then polish up as 'ecessary.

@DaphneDeloresMoorhead what is bus stop practice? And what do you mean by backward practise- do you mean starting at the end?!

@FleetingMind I can never find that magazine in a newsagents. But this issue sounds like it might be worth looking out for

I'm trying to get the nocturne in C sharp minor to a playable level ready for the February course. I've only got 6 weeks and it's definitely not there yet- I'm wondering whether it's best to get two thirds of it pretty good, or all of it less good?

Would love to get some different pieces on the go, including the jazz recommended to me the other day, but just don't have the time with the nocturne!

Bus stop practice is where you take, say, 1 bar or line at at time and just practice that over and over again, rejecting the temptation to carry on.

Backwards is where you start learning from the end bar and add 1 at a time from the end of the piece to the beginning. It means that when you play the whole thing you get more and more confident. I reckon @LilaGrace this would help with your Chopin, it really helped with the nocturne I'm working on

Happy New Year Pianistas!!!!

I keep writing replies but then getting distracted and not finishing them and posting. So thought I’d stop and just say hello and wish everyone a happy, healthy and musical 2022!!!

I have been doing a makeover of my study/piano room, all new furniture that matches the piano, it’s now all lovely and peaceful in there, just need one more piece of furniture that was out of stock but it’s the one that is going to house my sheet music. I’m thinking of organising it in categories in nearly labelled magazine files - anthologies by era/theme and then composers A-Z, and one for scale/study books. Combining 2 current obsessions, piano and organising!!! It’s the dream!!!

Hope everyone has a lovely New Years evening & weekend.

I'll post a piccy of my own room tomorrow, it's so pretty. But it's a cake decorating room 😂

Mine is a tiny box room, sewing, art and piano room. I might swap the two rooms over and have the box room as a spare bedroom and the current spare room as the “ creative room”

Changed my mind! Nothing will fit properly!
Put Christmas away today, off for a windy beach walk with 2 little grandchildren then home to try playing from one of my Christmas presents, Nutcracker ballet ( all of it! Looks tricky)
Happy new piano playing year everyone

I’ve recently joined the WI ( old ladies club as my 6 year granddaughter dubbed it!) and it’s a bit.... dull
I’ve volunteered in advance of next Christmas meeting to play sing along carols with knittynanny as there is a piano in our meeting hall.

Happy New Year all!

Thanks for the practice tips Daphne, that’s helpful.

Some of your piano rooms sound lovely, post pics! I’m away so can’t share mine yet - it’s a work in progress - recently repainted in a calming F&B green and added lovely built in cupboards / shelves - now needs some plants and pictures for the walls.

My exciting news is I’ve booked Finchcocks for October (lower intermediate). Thanks for the recommendation - I hadn’t heard of it before this forum.

Yes, those practise tips are really helpful @DaphneDeloresMoorhead . Just been giving them a try!
@FleetingMind you just be on the course with David? That will be brilliant- he's so inspirational.
Would love to see everyone's piano rooms. I'll try and post mine here....

@LilaGrace - lovely piano space, I love your colour coded books!
Yes, course with David Hall. I’m feeling a bit guilty about the extravagance as I feel like I’m back at square 1 with piano but hoping it will motivate me to progress this year in preparation!

@FleetingMind it will definitely inspire you to keep going! I think the lower intermediate is aimed at grades 2-4 so there's plenty of scope for variety of levels. And you've got 9 months to get there! What are you working on at the moment?
My "music room" is currently shared with the kids instruments and the TV- but we're hoping to move soon (under offer and have found somewhere)- if that goes through I'll have my own space for my piano- exciting! 🤞🏻
I booked my grade 5 theory yesterday, so I have 28 days from then to take the exam. I'm similarly hoping the deadline will spur me on to getting it done- hopefully in the next week or 2.

For those that have already been to Finchcocks, what did you do with your prepared piece(s) when you got there? Was there a performance bit or were they used in a workshop or just 1-on-1

I’m going on a general intermediate weekend rather than a themed one.

Here is my box room aka piano/art/sewing room. The sewing machine swaps places with the art stuff as and when!

Happy new year everyone! For some reason this thread dropped off my watchlist so I have a lot to catch up on. Appropriately enough, today I have been learning "Happy new year". No Nikki Iles for me this year as I've lost my book and can't bring myself to buy another one when I know it is here somewhere!

@knittingnanny2 Lovely! Did you do the patchwork too?

Welcome back @Serenissima21!!!

Lovely peaceful room @Knittingnanny2. I like the basket for music. If I did that it would also have a cat/dog in there as well though 🙄

Yes I did make the patchwork cover, with some pieces of yellow left over from making a Moses basket lining for grandchild number 1 which was 12 years ago plus other bits and pieces. It was for the grandchildren to lie on when they were here as babies. Mainly so they didn’t vomit on my cream carpet!!! Of course the cat preferred it.
The cat prefers to sleep on the sewing/art chair as she likes to make light surfaces dark with cat hairs.
I’ve got a new scale/exercise routine! A throw back to my infant teaching days. I’ve got a pot of lolly sticks, each with a letter of the octave on it eg c major, F# minor etc and I’m going to take a few out everyday randomly to practise similar, contrary and arpeggios plus some which say Hanon 1-5 etc, scales in thirds, chromatic etc. When the pot in empty I’ll start again. Similar to when I used to write children’s names on to choose who took the register, was first in the line for dinner, choose the book at storytime etc. My husband thinks I’m bonkers!
The Pianist article about adult returners confirmed what I suspected. That we might have to lowered our expectations if we had previously reached a highish level. In my case be happy with grade 6 and not worry if I don’t get back to grade7/8. Especially as I’m only playing for my own pleasure not to take exams.
I wish I had room for a lovely arm chair as well though, very envious of your lovely room.

@LemonViolet

For those that have already been to Finchcocks, what did you do with your prepared piece(s) when you got there? Was there a performance bit or were they used in a workshop or just 1-on-1

I’m going on a general intermediate weekend rather than a themed one.

It depends what course you are on. There are varying programmes which all have different masterclasses. On David Hall's intermediate you will get a practice masterclass, he sent us off to work on a newer piece of music we hadn't done much work on to try the techniques. Then other masterclasses, your 1 to 1. Plus we had a guest informal recital - you could play, or not, as you chose. I took a few books with me and had a mixture of stuff I was working on, stuff I was happy to perform and a new book I'd just bought. I'd say for David's class take 3 pieces to get the most out of it

Here's my piano