Monday, August 25, 2008

On The Move.....

Well, I'm in the final stages of packing, I got a nice job offer in Madison, Wisconsin that I accepted, so I'll be headed out of Arizona in approximately 27 hours and counting....the major reason why I finally started teaching myself the piano was because I was unemployed and had access to one, so it just made sense. Now, three months later, I'll be leaving Arizona and a good friend of mine....the Yamaha Clavinova CVP-75 that I have spent countless hours at....well not countless, maybe liiiiiike...140....or 150 hours?? either way, suffice it to say, me 'n Mr. Clav 75 have gotten to know eachother pretty well over the past few months.....

I couldn't be more happy with this first step in my Piano journey, ummm, scratch that, would definitely be happier if my right wrist never started hurting! But nevertheless, I'm playing songs that I'm proud of, songs I didn't think I would learn for many years to come....It feels good to know that I can sit down at a piano and play a couple pretty nice songs from memory.......it feels even better to know that, say a year from now, I'll be playing at a much higher level.

So as I get ready for my move, I say goodbye to the piano, and will be taking a little break as I locate, then settle, into my future residence. I have plans to purchase a pretty nice little digital piano myself (in the $800, or so, range).....and will continue my journey. I'm hoping I get the new instrument in September, but due to financial constraints, I may be waiting until mid-October.....Either way, surprise surprise, I won't be posting much in the coming weeks.

As for now, sleep is beckoning, as well as the surplus of packing I have saved for tomorrow haha.....

Hope this finds you well.

Zak

Thursday, July 31, 2008

One Last One....

well updates have not been as regular as originally anticipated but that's ok, still here........I actually haven't been playing as much lately since my right wrist has been giving me problems. Hurt it this winter while snowboarding and with the consistent 2 - 3 hrs/day, it reinjured itself....oh and I missed last satuday, so my daily streak ended at a little over 10 weeks consecutive, not too shabby.....but yeah, hopefully august will prove to be a better updating month, shouldn't be too hard, if I write once a week in august I'll beat my current record of 3 entries/month hahaa.......

hope that as you're reading this you're doing well.....

zak

Friday, July 11, 2008

just barely made it....

well i'm now fifty something days into my streak of playing everyday, and just narrowly escaped the demise of this streak. I left tuesday morning headed to madison, wi for job interview purposes. I made sure and played a quick song before I left with every intention of keeping the streak alive.....after some serious travelling, I returned home weds. night at about 1145, and after taking out my contacts and gettin my bags indoors, I sat down at the piano at 11:53pm, phew, just made it.......

progress still coming along nicely, just learned O Sole Mio! and a quick version of Jericho.......recordings coming soon, really, they are....

zak

Sunday, July 6, 2008

finally got it right!

sooo...it's been a while since I last wrote. Still been practicing every day, tho some more than others. Still moving through my Alfred's book (just finished little brown jug [not the best song ever] and started Chiapanecas), but that's not the big deal here.....

the big deal is I started learning a song two weeks ago called Arctic Night by Gilbert DeBenedetti.....I really liked the way it sounded and thought I had a shot at it, and finally after two weeks of daily practice, I just played it correctly without making any mistakes for the first time.....played it at the right tempo with the right dynamics, played it just as I wanted to.....I had to learn this song, from the beginning, measure by measure, note by note, and each tiny piece was at the limits of my skill level.....but I made it.....

the funny thing is: I finally played it correctly after I took the sheet music off of the piano, and just played it from memory....I could just focus on hearing the right sounds internally, rather than focusing any energy on reading off the sheet.......

side note: I had put the whole recording thing on hold because I wanted to get this song down before I started recording, but I have the 50ft. RCA cable now, should be up 'n running shortly........the only point of contention with that is I'm flying out to Wisconsin this week for a job interview.....

i'll keep you posted.

zak

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Still Pressin' Those Keys.....

Still goin strong every day, haven't missed one yet. Just finished my 2nd practice session of the day and got to thinking........I don't write in this thing enough. Even if it is essentially me talking to myself with a couple others overhearing, I gotta keep track of my progress, that's kinda the point.

Moving thru my Alfred's book pretty quickly. In the past week I've come across at least 4 blues songs and I'm loving 'em. Thinkin I may pick up a blues lesson book here in the next month or so.

Biggest issue I'm having right now is strain in my right wrist. Fell on it real hard this winter while snowboarding and it still hasn't fully healed. Trying to be careful with it, stretching it, rolling it, praying for it, etc. haha.....

Ok, bed time, job interview tomorrow......then after it's off to Best Buy to see if they have the cheap audio cables I'm looking for (Radio Shack didn't)....I just gotta remind myself to keep updating even if I can't find those cables!

Zak

Thursday, June 12, 2008

One Month!

Well today marks one month into my piano journey! I've been probably averaging somewhere around 2 hrs daily and haven't yet missed a day. I've been moving thru my book: Alfred's Adult All-In-One Course pretty quickly and I'm very happy with my pace.

Today, as an experiment, without looking at or practicing them, I played a set from memory. Just had a piece of paper with the song titles and played the following continuously and in this order:

When the Saints Go Marching In (2 versions)
We Three Kings
Standing In the Need of Prayer
Alpine Melody
Alouette
Tumbalalaika
Lavender's Blue
Micael Row the Boat Ashore
Blow the Man Down
Lone Star Waltz
Cafe Vienna
Rock It Away
Cockles and Mussels....

The set lasted about 12 minutes and there were of course a few errors, but not many, it went pretty smoothly. I'm pretty proud that only a month into it and I had that many songs that I could pull from memory without practicing them, and with only a short gap before starting. Afterwards I played Lullaby and Chasing the Blues Away from memory, but I didn't have them in my set because I didn't think I had them memorized haha.....

So all in all I'm very happy with today. I'm only a month into it and making good progress. It will be very interesting to see where I'm at next year at this time.

As an aside: I've done some more research and I'm thinking I can get a decent recording setup for much cheaper so I'll be looking into that further.

Zak

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

First Lesson....

Well, I had my first lesson today.......she was mightily impressed that I've never had a lesson and am completely self taught. It was definitely a good feeling to know that I'm making solid progress. We started on multiple songs and lemme just say that Brahms' Lullaby gets your fingers movin all over the place!

I'm hoping to get the necessary cables to start recording this week.....only problem is the digital piano is stationary and about 50 feet from my computer soooo.....we'll see how it goes haha.......

ok back to practice.....

Zak

Saturday, May 31, 2008

First Entry....

Hi all!

After dreaming of playing the piano since childhood, I decided it was finally time to start on May 12th, 2008.

Ever since I was a child I've seen some very clear pictures of my future....one of the most prominent has always been owning a nice house with a beautiful grand piano situated in a big, open, airy, acoustically gratifying room.....the feeling of relaxation is almost tangible when I envision sitting at that piano and playing the melodies and harmonies as they come to me........what I recently realized is I'm probably looking at 10+ years to get to the point of comfortability with the piano that I'm imagining.....and since I would like to manifest this vision in my mid-thirties.....I'd better get started now!

I decided to start this ejournal of my accounts and experiences learning the piano to share with family & friends.....but also, and very importantly, to allow myself to look back and observe my progress. This will be fun and very enjoyable on days when all is well.....but on the low days it should help keep me motivated to see how far I've come.......

My updates will most likely be concerning new pieces or techniques that I've learned.....or maybe even a difficult passage that I have struggled with and overcome.....and once I get the proper equipment, audio recordings of my progress.......

.....essentially, as the title suggests, I created this page to chronicle my pursuit of learning the piano which has been a lifelong dream........

Zak