If you had piano lessons today... :)

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

How did they go? Learn anything new?



Just curious... please share!
I had a great lesson today and it made a big difference...

[nanabush]

Decided what I'm playing for my jury (woohoo!).

Also realized I have to memorize a LOAD of stuff in the next few weeks haha!

Associated some images/moods in sections of Bach's English Suite in G minor... that helped a lot with touch and tone.  I usually blast through the pieces at a mezzo forte, with semi-ok articulation.  My teacher uses extremely vivid descriptions, and I'll get this lightbulb that turns on and suddenly I have an awesome idea for the voicing or articulation!

Found out a better fingering for Jardins sous la Pluie (the large arpeggio in the left and right hand both heading towards the middle of the piano, near the end).

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Decided what I'm playing for my jury (woohoo!).

Out of curiosity, what are you playing

Also realized I have to memorize a LOAD of stuff in the next few weeks haha!

Me too, except my performances aren't that big of a deal. I mean there's no requirement to memorize my pieces, it's just that my teacher insists!!

Associated some images/moods in sections of Bach's English Suite in G minor... that helped a lot with touch and tone.  I usually blast through the pieces at a mezzo forte, with semi-ok articulation.  My teacher uses extremely vivid descriptions, and I'll get this lightbulb that turns on and suddenly I have an awesome idea for the voicing or articulation!

Found out a better fingering for Jardins sous la Pluie (the large arpeggio in the left and right hand both heading towards the middle of the piano, near the end).

That sounds great!

I realized when I made this post, I never talked about my own lesson! oh well, maybe next week. I keep a practise journal anyway, and I write everything down that I learn after each lesson so that I don't forget! (:

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Ok, so I had piano lessons yesterday. It was another great lesson.

We actually worked on my nocturne! It's been a while! I finally figured out how to play the octaves in my nocturne more comfortably. It wasn't anything my teacher told me, it just happened during lessons when I realized "wow this is much more effortless than it was before". I don't really know what changed, it was a subconscious discovery... but something DID change. And it wasn't the size of my hands because unfortunately, an octave is still all I can reach.
My nocturne sounded less disastrous than it previously did during lessons, and I played the first 3 pages without stopping :O That's a pretty big deal for me, I mean if I were younger, my teacher would probably give me a sticker for that 

Also my teacher gave me a new fingering suggestion for a tricky part in my fugue. That one fingering change made that section of the fugue 100% smoother. It's magically how one finger makes such a difference. My teacher also got me to imagine the different voices being different instruments and we played with the digital piano a bit. Oh and each voice now has its own colour and taste (since I imagine the fugue as a super fancy cake in the making).

[nataliethepianist]

I learned that I can't play a measure from the easiest Beethoven movement, but then when it comes to the harder pieces: nada (as in my teacher doesn't say much). Although it could be because the tempo is faster and you don't catch as many mistakes...

Overall it was fine. Except when my teacher got mad at me for not being able to play something really easy. I have certainly had better lessons.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I learned that I can't play a measure from the easiest Beethoven movement, but then when it comes to the harder pieces: nada (as in my teacher doesn't say much). Although it could be because the tempo is faster and you don't catch as many mistakes...

Overall it was fine. Except when my teacher got mad at me for not being able to play something really easy. I have certainly had better lessons.

Well sometimes I find supposedly easy pieces realllly difficult. Partly because there's usually not that many notes so mistakes are really apparent, like you said, but also, the expectation for how well you play it is a lot higher! So I don't think I can say that any piece I play is really "easy".

[littletune]

Well today I had my piano lesson (even though we have holidays) and it was cool, but at first I didn't think it would be that great. Because I forgot sheet music for all my exam pieces at home!!    And I mean I know all of them already (well except one) without looking at the sheet music, but I have to have sheet music if my teacher wants to write something on it and besides she doesn't even know I memorized almost all of the pieces already and she wants me to look at it. So I was like: umm... oh nooo... I forgot the sheet music. And my teacher was like: which ones did you forget? and I was like: umm all of it!      But then fortunately I had that book with Sonatinas and the one with Etudes with me anyway and my teacher had the one with Bach's pieces so we were doing the Sonatina and Etude and Menuet.  And when I played the Sonatina (cause I haven't been playing it for awhile at my lessons cause we were doing other pieces) she was like: wow that was really nice!  So I was happy about that.  But she said I should play the second movement faster and the first one maybe just a little bit slower. But I'm a little confused about that, because the first movement is Moderato... and the second one is Andantino...  so shouldn't andantino be slower than moderato?  well... maybe it's because of the different time signatures  but I'm confused about that too because I think my music theory teacher said that 6/8 time signature is slower  I don't know... I'm not sure... but well it was great anyway!    And the doggy was there too! 

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

 
Sounds like a nice lesson. You know what's worse? Taking your sister's music by accident to piano lessons. My sister didn't have her music because I took it by accident, and I didn't have mine ! Good thing my teacher practically has a library of piano books in her house.

As for me, I just had lessons , and I actually played through the entire first movement of my sonata from memory! For me that's a big accomplishment, because I always panic and forget the notes during piano lessons. I was worried about my sonata a lot, but if I can play the first movement by heart in lessons... there's hope
Oh and I just realized that I've been neglecting my nocturne so so badly. Haven't touched it since April 14... two weeks ago :O And I don't even want to talk about my studies... which studies am I learning again??    

[pianisten1989]

I had a lesson yesterday (but if I'd have lesson today, my teacher would most probably throw me out the window. Damn I'm so not in shape right now) and I learned that I play Liszt/paganini etude 6 too fast when I play in front of people, and 1st movement of Waldstein too slow... That's actually very good to know.