Clearly, I'm reading that wrong...

Feb 10, 2007 at 6:26 PM
11 comments

Ok -- so folks that have trolled around here know that last year I started learning to play the piano. I've really enjoyed it and last fall I took a piano class that certainly had its highs and lows. So, this spring I'm signed up for the next level up (Piano II, M115B), and I've been sort of freaking out about something that caught my eye the other day in the course description that I didn't notice when I signed up...

Rather Blank

This course is a continuation of Music 115A, with an emphasis on moderately difficult techniques in developing repertoire, keyboard techniques, sight-reading, transposition, harmonization, (!!)creative composition(!!), improvisation, ensemble playing, and modulation techniques. This course is appropriate for music majors whose theoretical and practical keyboard skills are deficient as well as for non-music majors.

<emphasis added> Seriously?!?!?! I'm barely past All-Cows-Eat-Grass and Every-Good-Boy-Does-Fine calibre in reading music. Oh good lord... Monday's upcoming class now seems just a bit more daunting...

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Scary, huh?? I've been banging around on a guitar for a few years and wish I had the nerve to take some actual lessons. Go for it. It's probably going to be difficult but, if you're really into the piano, well worth it in the end.

Oh, wow. You have to write your own stuff?? That would freak me out. Aww, Every Good Boy Does Fine...I miss those days.

Whenever you get a little further along, get the music for Christofori's Dream. That is my favorite piece ever...

SteveP: I think the classes really force me to try things that I would be intimidated to on my own... I can certainly say that its accelerated my progress.

Jen: So I looked up Cristofori's Dream, I'd never heard of it before -- what an awesome piece -- very haunting. I found a great rendition of it (well, at least i thought it was great) on YouTube. Wow--- is that something to aspire to!

Man. I wish I played it like that. :) The octaves always bother me because my hands are a little too small (or I don't play enough, probably both). Thanks for linking that! I feel like practicing now.

Haha, reading this made me giggle. I'll write music for you if you'll do any future science work I might have to do. ;-P

I always learned "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" And I swear, I'm relatively skinny still!
The good news is it's "creative composition", so if your composition sucks you can just pull out the ol' creative license card.
"My piece doesn't suck, you bafoons just aren't cultured enough to understand its subtleties"

Joie, that's a DEAL!!! I'll send you NMR spectra of your favorite compounds and you can write me a minuet. :D

Though if the title is "Ode to Joie", I will record it from my digital piano, and post it on vox! (I'm not sure if that's an enticement or a threat!! :p )

when i'm reading through a piece of music for the first time (i've somehow grown the very useful skill of being able to sight-read choral music), i always have to sing to myself this song to figure out what the starting note is for any note on the staff below an A (from 13 years of playing 1st flute parts that hardly ever went that low) . . .

"e-g-b-d-f! are the names of the lines of the treble clef.
f-a-c-e! the spaces are easy"

have you posted any mp3's of your playing? i'd love to hear. i've got a keyboard, but i've never really been able to figure out how to play correctly. i just poke at the chords and listen for pretty things.

Steve Betz replied to erin*carly’s comment:
Feb 11, 2007
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"have you posted any mp3's of your playing?" --- hahahahhahahahah.... now, THAT'S crazy talk!!

Actually, right before Christmas (after my class was over actually) I did figger out how to export from the piano to my computer and I surprised The Beloved with a CD of some of the things I had learned that year. It is sort of funny to see and hear yourself come up in an iTunes shuffle! ;)

erin*carly replied to Steve Betz’s comment:
Feb 12, 2007
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seriously! i've got my recordings on my iTunes as well, and i'm usually caught by surprise by this one song that starts with a drum beat. i'll be listening along and hear it and think, wow, this sounds fun. then it starts into the guitar and words and i'm like ROCK ON, it's me. :)

you're better than me though, i haven't figured out how to get the piano to talk to the iMac yet. i've got a cord, but really, too much work to set it up. instead, i just turn the volume of the piano up really loud. my neighbors love it. (did i mention how i can't even get through 'the idiot's guide to piano?')