Practice question

[Frank]

This is my first post on this forum. I am a 56 yr. old beginner at piano. I played clarinet for about 3 years 40 years ago. I am really enjoying the piano more than I thought I would when I decided to start taking lessons.
I have been at it for 7 months and feel that my progress has been pretty good. The notes and timing came back within a short time (bass clef is a different story). I am very happy with my teacher and his method. We are working with the Alfred series, I finished book ! in about 4 months. Am now working on book 2 and cord studies that my teacher has developed over the years, dominate 7 ths, cord inversions etc. Also working on 3 songs"The Entertainer", "Stardust" & "Guantanamara".
I practice every morning for about 1 hour and then in the evening another 1 1/2- 2 hrs. weekends even more. "The Entertainer" is to a point that I could almost play it for other than family members (but not going to do it anytime soon).

OK, enough background, here's the question really two questions:

1. Am playing "The Entertainer" almost at the proper tempo 110, without mistakes (well, most of the time). I believe proper tempo is about 132. However, last week my teacher put me on the metronome at 80. What a pain!!! This is the first time that I have ever used a metronome. I can see the value when I go back and play the piece without it, big difference. Is this standard procedure when working on a new piece and do most teachers stress SLOW practice? It is very hard to be deciplined enough to carry this through a full practice session.

2. With 3 songs and 1 cord exercise to work on I seem to get board playing the same things over & over. I am thinking about deviding up my practice time into a couple or maybe even three segments. One or two segments just working on weekly assignments and then the balance of the time to just play whatever I want. Does this sound reasonable?

Would appreciate any feedback

Frank

[NetherMagic]

Frank, first of all it's very admirable to see that people are still willing to take music even at your age.  Now onto your questions:

1) The thing with the metronome is often used for beginners, since as you probably noticed after playing again after using the metronome, your hands are a lot more synchronized than before.  However, when you refer to "standard," there are many different methods of practice people use.  I believe that when you get to a higher level of piano playing you should have enough experience to be self-concious about your own rhythms and eveness, although it would do no harm to use your metronome once in a while, I mean you didn't spend those 50 bucks for nothing, eh?    Concerning slow practice, it is one of the painful things why many young children quit the piano, is due to boredom.  Perhaps with easy pieces slow practice doesn't make much important, but Frank if you listen to some more advance pieces (perhaps you could download Chopin's polonaise on kazaa or winmx, etc.) the rhythm and beat are all very fast and many, many notes and chords run at the same time.  So if slow practice wasn't used normally, it would be almost impossible for normal people to get better at the piece.  As some other user here used as a quote from some famous pianist, "Practice 50% slower 75% of the time."  

2) Your timing schedule sounds fairly reasonable to me.  Just keep in mind, you're learning how to play piano because of your enjoyment for this wonderful instrument (i hope that's the picture), so just try to make things more enjoyable for yourself as long as you're keeping up with what your teacher wants.

[Frank]

NetherMagic,

Thanks for the reply. Your assumption that I am learning for enjoyment is correct. However I'm not conceding that my age will keep me from someday playing well enough for other people to enjoy also (of course not professionally).   So far the best part of playing is morning practice. What a way to start the day, end the session with something pretty, even though there may be a clinker or two at this point it's pretty to me.

Frank