Showing posts with label Piano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piano. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2020

Piano progress

Can't say I'm too happy with my current progress, but I'm doing better than I thought I would. It would be so much better to get actual proper lessons from a human, but it'll be a long time before we can afford that.

By my math, so far I've done 20 sessions across 50 days, though that includes 14 odd days that I was away for work. Making slow progress though still can't play a full song (Twinkle twinkle little star doesn't count).

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Piano, day six

No, I'm not going to be doing "day X" for years! However, unlike drums and bass guitar I'm happy to report that (so far) I have managed to practice every day (for less than a week, yay me, give me a medal...)

So far, learnt basic C major scales (both hands, but not at the same time), very minimal music theory, how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and almost all of Mary Had A Little Lamb. TTLS isn't too hard, that's a nice simple one. MHALL is kinda tricky because I've found several different versions for the last part and none of them sound right. They feel like they either have a note missing or a note extra.

I found a tutorial on how to play Fur Elise, but it's teaching me a sequence of keys to push. Memorising a series of keystrokes is one thing, but I'd rather develop reading music and playing the notes rather than repeating a known pattern.

Hopefully that will come in time, but I like that bit of music so being able to play that will be a nice feather in my cap. I'll be away with work at times during the year, that'll be a bit frustrating but can't be helped.

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Piano progress

I'm pretty sure I'd be doing better if I had a teacher, but can't afford lessons, so here we are.

Only a few days into it, so far I'm working on basic scales and working out where to put my fingers. Also, so far I've managed to practice every day since I started so that's good.

At the moment, my repertoire consists of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I've started trying to play Mary Had A Little Lamb but that's proving a bit tricky.

In exercise news, fitness is down on what it used to be, but that isn't suprising. Arm curls are down to 10kg, but bench press is at 20kg + bar (which I think is 20kg on its own, but not 100% sure).

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Piano, day one

I've been very frustrated for months due to not being creative. I've tried writing, drawing, bass guitar and a few other minor projects. None have really filled me with passion or had me excited to get stuck into them. For example, each time I try and write something, I just stare at a blank screen for a while or type out something very trite and unreadable, then go do something else. Very meh.

There are lots of things I'd like to try out to try and improve being creative... but my budget is $0 and isn't likely to change anytime soon.

So today I've tried to start teaching myself piano, just from watching YT videos. Am I going to be able to play beautiful music? No. Or at least not yet, it's going to take a while. And lots of practice. That's going to be the key, focussed practice. Not easy when I'm often away for weeks at a time, but it's got to be a better use of my time than staring at my phone.