Mentor Meeting: Week into April

   So I'm actually writing this today [Tuesday, April 05, 2011], which is about a week later than the date of this mentor meeting, and I have to say, I honestly can't remember much of the content. I know this was the first mentor meeting in a very long time (I missed the one last week) and so I think all that happened was that I updated Ms. Lord on all the things...? I hope I don't forget to include anything here, but basically, I informed Ms. Lord that I have been having some issues and I have informed her that I have stopped my lessons with Mrs. Miller. I think another major part of this mentor meeting was indicating that I have also not progressed much in the last week(s).

Just a note...

  SO... a lot has been going on in my life lately. Aside from just the regular loads of  homework and projects and online courses and such, I've also been having some issues, some relating to family, that have been interfering with my entire life. There have been some really sudden changes this past week that might seem like they came out of nowhere. First, although I had originally planned to try to work towards an ending in my piano lessons, last Monday, I realized that I had to start Track, which is everyday after school until 6pm. Mrs. Miller has no other times available for me and I can't miss Track practice once every week, so I talked to Mrs. Miller and we came to the agreement that I would be stopping classes for now. I still have two other classes that I've paid for that I could come in and take in the future when we both have time (something could be worked out). Mrs. Miller is allowing me to keep the piano books that I've been using because I could always return them to her through my sister Julianna. Another thing is the Saturday morning class. I was originally hoping to make it to the class and to play the Black Swan and Hamster Chase, but I started Track on Wednesday, and practice is every day of the week except Sundays. This means that I have to be there for practice on Saturday mornings as well, and the time, unfortunately, overlaps the hours of the Saturday class. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to figure everything out, but as of now, everything seems to be in a mess. I really hope everything will work out. I don't think I've progressed very much this past week, and I've been sorta skimping on the piano practice because I've been going straight to Cornell to do my homework everyday after Track practice (I don't have a ride home until about 10pm). This makes it so that I have trouble getting in all my practice time. Ahhhh everything's crazyyy.

Mentor Meeting on Pi Day

  It hasn't been a long time since the last mentor meeting so there wasn't too much to discuss during this one. I came in during 6th period because I had a test 7th. So first of all, regarding the Saturday class, I haven't really decided anything. I kept saying that I don't know, and that maybe I'll go, but only for the reason that I'm expected/hoped to be there. I have said "I don't know" so many times during this project that it's annoying even me. Ms. Lord says that I really shouldn't be doing that. I shouldn't be unsure, but rather, I should figure out my own path, because no one's going to be there to set the guidelines for me. Honestly, I don't know  Scratch that, I do know, I just dondhsdjkghsklgs I think I'm going to need to like, set a rule for myself where I can't say "I don't know".
   During this mentor meeting, I also told Ms. Lord of my plans to end my lessons with Mrs. Miller due to the fact that I want to take on the challenge of working with myself and keeping myself on track. However, what would be my plan to keep myself learning? How would I be enforcing learning?

Before My Mentor Meeting

   Mentor meeting today 7th period! I've kind of been contemplating whether or not I should continue taking piano lessons from Mrs. Miller because to learn fingerings, it can basically be taught in one lesson... but Mrs. Miller's also teaching me about keys and such so... I don't know...
  This is just a little note to myself for things I want to bring up and talk about today with Ms. Lord:

• Future plans... Am I going in the wrong direction? A new direction?
• Do I have to have recitals?
• Am I going at the right pace?
• Should I start learning pieces on my own?
• Should I continue piano lessons with Mrs. Miller?
• Should I tell Mrs. Miller about my blog?

Lesson & A List of Recommended Pieces

FOR:  Friday, February 25th, 2011

   I forgot to practice today, but I did make up for it on Saturday... just saying.

   Something else I forgot was the fact that Mrs. Miller said I could pick out a piece to learn now! Anything, anything at all! Should I try Fantasie Impromptu? I mean just listen to it, it's crazy beautiful... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8

...but also crazy impossible? I mean some of the really hard pieces that I've already learned how to play (by ear/memorizing fingerings) are Beethoven's Fur Elise, Brahms' Hungarian Dance, and Mozart's Turkish March. But those were by memorization, which is by far, much easier than reading sheet music.

Here's something I found on Google that I thought might be useful in the future...
a list of recommended classical pieces!

  Andd... also I kind of made a list for modern songs even though in one of the other posts, I said I wouldn't make one. I only have one title on my list right now, and that's Owl City's Fireflies. 

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amm7Do0ySkU

   The piano version is really really pretty sounding. If two days, I'll probably just pick something off this list instead of going with the first song I hear on the radio (most likely this song?). 

Day Dreaming && When the Saints Go Marching In

FOR: Monday, February 21st, 2011

   Today was my third lesson!

   For the past week, I've been working on this one repertoire piece called "Day Dreaming" by Dolly E. Kessner. I've been having such trouble with it because it's a very... awkward(?) piece. There are seven beats per measure, unlike your standard/average four beats per measure. And especially since the number of beats are odd instead of even, it is very difficult (or at least for me) to keep up with the rhythm of the piece while exercising all other areas (volume, tempo, notes, etc.) This was one of the major pieces I worked on during my lesson with Mrs. Miller today. Since my metronome doesn't have seven beat per measure, she suggested that if I still had trouble, it's best to put the metronome on one beat per measure and just count. My trouble was that I wanted to make the number of beats even, and I kept leaving an extra rest at the end of each measure. When I finally got the beats right during my lesson today, I got the notes wrong... however, after my lesson, I came home and practiced this piece for half an hour more and now I think I've got it down (:

   One of the other songs I worked on during my lesson today was "When the Saints Go Marching In" [page 61 of the Progressive Class Piano book]. This is a version edited by Elmer Heerema [author of Progressive Class Piano]. When I had first started learning piano, years earlier, I had learned a different version of this song, so I kept getting the notes wrong because my hands remember the piece differently. Mrs. Miller says that this is how one learns to memorize a piece, because you practice it enough that your fingers remember how to move, your muscle remember how to react. And since this was one of my favorite easy songs to play back then, I kept making mistakes in attacking the piece. Of course, with enough time, the piece came out perfect!

   Something interesting I began to look up was the history of this song, "When the Saints Go Marching In". Although this might not be the best source from which to reference, I looked this song up on Google, and found it on Wikipedia. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Saints_Go_Marching_In

   Wikipedia gives a rather good overall background on this song. This was traditionally meant for accompaniment to a funeral march, a "jazz funeral" to be specific. I was looking for an original version of this song, and according to Wikipedia, the original was copyrighted by Oliver Virgil Stamps. I kinda got bored after that and stopped reading the rest...

"So as you read..."

"...try to read ahead - see the entire measure (or phrase) at a glance - not one note at a time."

   Second lesson today! I was a bit unprepared for it because the first part of the day was kind of rough for me as I had two tests in my two most challenging classes (ap physics c and calculus bc). But anyways, I sight-read some of the pieces I had practiced during the past week for Mrs. Miller, and somehow, all of them turned out horrible, or at least it seemed to have from my perspective... I mean maybe I was just nervous, or maybe that's just how it's supposed to turn out, but I was HORRIBLE. It seemed as if I had never played the pieces before and I was struggling so much to get each of the notes right. I had to keep restarting and I forgot the rhythm and when to play piano or when to play forte. It was actually quite embarrassing, I felt like a turtle on its back. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Miller was disappointed, but... I don't know...
   I got a lot of new suggestions/tips though, like if I'm making mistakes, I'm going too fast, or if I'm having trouble with playing with my hands together, try just the left hand part first.
   A key thing I was told was that I speed up WAY TOO MUCH, and that makes it difficult because I'll get the notes wrong just from being hasty.
   Anyways, this time, instead of just half a page of comments for the day that she recorded in my progress book, I got a whole page. That's probably bad... more work this week I guess, but I definitely need it.

An Update On Practicing

   I was really hoping this wouldn't happen as early as it did, but I guess it couldn't be helped. I knew I was going to run into this problem...
   I was REALLY good with practicing on the first two days. Right after I got home from school on the first three days, I practiced for half an hour each time. From the log book Mrs. Miller gave me, I did all the reading sections from pages 15 to 31. But somehow on Thursday, I just decided it was okay to practice at a different time, to practice after dinner or something. Or something... well that something became not practicing at all. Even worse, I didn't practice on Friday either. I guess I didn't realize that the fact I had to work right after school, and didn't plan ahead.
    The good thing is that on Saturday, I "made-up" all my missing practicing by practicing for two hours straight. Only, that's actually bad because I wasn't supposed to do that, I wasn't supposed to cram practicing all into one block of time. It's only the beginning and I've already broken sequence. But what else can I do about it? I mean, at least now I'll be prepared for next week because I'll be bringing my books to school and practicing on the pianos in the practice rooms during 7th in the Performing Arts Center. Hopefully nothing like this happens again...

Two Week Plan

    My plan for the next two weeks is to launch off on learning how to read sheet music, which means I'm basically going to be going through a book [the one I'm using is called Progressive Class Piano, a book specifically directed at older beginners] and practicing the pieces specific to learning how to read music. It's kind of difficult to explain exactly what that means, but I'm basically just playing simple pieces with notes that are easy to recognize and then increasing the difficulty of the notes (?)
    I'm probably going to spend a whole month on just reading sheet music because I definitely need the practice. I guess I didn't mention in my last post that I would be taking lessons with Mary Ann Miller. She also teaches my little sister, so I kinda get to hang around her house a lot. Anyways, my lessons are every Monday at 5:30PM, so that'll be happening every week. In addition, I'll be practice for at least half an hour every single day [this is actually going to be monitored by my mom... boooo haha]. I actually haven't asked my mentor who'll help check up on me yet [YIKES], so I should probably get on that.  So Ms. Lord agreed to be my mentor, and we will be meeting every Monday as well, during 7th period. 

   As for research right now, I'll probably start reading my sources on music therapy. At the same time, I'll be starting to listen to music every night as I fall asleep :D

-last edit 02.13.11