First half of my final

November 20

Yesterday I was practicing my left and right hand together for the first couple of measures of my piece. I am able to perform the measures well at a slow pace, so hopefully next time I practice I will be able to play faster. My next task is to play the back page of my piece together next. My piece is very repetitive in the hand motion so I hope that once I get a couple of measures down I will be able to play the whole piece. Good luck to everyone and have a nice break!

11/20

Today I worked again on the legend of zelda 25th anniversary piece. I worked on timing of the intro and better hand movement. It is coming along nicely.

11/17/2015

Today from 6:30 until class I continued to work on Fur Elise.  I then found out in class that I play much better by myself than I do in front of other people.  Because of this, I got great feedback to slow it down and I found out that it really helped me to be more accurate.  I still am not sure if this is going to be my final piece, however, I am slowly inching towards it.

video

This is a video of my midterm piece that I taped a while ago.

11/17

I've gotten behind on posting, but the last few weeks I've been working on a new piece "Jackson Street Blues." I think I have most of the first page down, but I still need a lot of work on the second page. A lot of the second page is repeating what is on the first page so I don't think I will have too much trouble with it.

So of course I have done a terrible job of keeping up with this each week. I decided that I will post two videos and hopefully you will see the improvement (and humor) in my playing. I am doing pretty well with the left hand, its all a matter of timing and placement. But please enjoy these two videos of my progress, they were taken a week from each other.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByzBMd8QEhxUMG8wZlZldk93TVBHcXVKQ1o5RTMzdFJHVmNz/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByzBMd8QEhxURVp5czZ0SW11UEh3cHhQR2RSdkdHYzhOeHlN/view?usp=sharing

I finally decided on my final piece. I will be playing it tomorrow night, however only the right hand so far. I have some of it together with the left hand but i think i need some more time to work separately. I can't wait to hear what everyone will be playing for the final.

Good morning!

Our final is fast approaching! Here are some important dates and information:

Tuesday, November 17- last "real" lesson. Please be prepared to play the majority of your piece. Come with any questions you have. Please give me the name/composer of your piece.

Tuesday, November 24- no class- night classes are cancelled because of Thanksgiving. (Happy Thanksgiving! Bring your music home and play for Aunt Sally and Grandpa Joe.)

Tuesday, December 1- 8:00pm- practice final. We will either be in the piano lab or in Fusco Hall. If we can't be in Fusco, please be sure that you have practiced on a real (not electric) piano before the final.

Tuesday, December 8 (This is a change from the syllabus) at 7:30pm- Piano Recital in Fusco Hall. Concert dress is business casual. If you have a conflict with this time, please let me know ASAP. Many professors will let you out for a bit to play in your recital.

Please email me with any questions, comments, or concerns. Please also remember to get caught up on the blog! Post your insights, comments, and videos ASAP! Everything is due by Tuesday, December 8th at 7:30pm.

See you all tomorrow,

Laura

Update- 11/15

Hey guys! I haven't been able to post in a while but for the past two weeks I have been trying to incorporating the left hand of my piece. So far I have been able to play two measures with the left and right hand. My piece has the same repetitive hand movements so once I get a couple of measures down I should be able to play the whole thing. Hope you are all doing well with your pieces!

11/14 Video

 

This week I tried a more classical piece.  I am probably going to use this piece for my final and I hope to learn the rest of it before then.  Since it is a relatively short piece I believe I will be able to do this.  A difficulty I had when learning the first part of this piece was when I had to read the sheet music.  Usually I just grab a video tutorial, but since I need sheet music and I have been reading the book I was able to find this online for free.  Specifically, I had an issue reading the dotted notes as well as the beam notes.

11/6

This week I practiced the opening to gravity falls.  When reviewing the sheet music, I had no issue playing the parts I remember hearing by ear, yet when it came the parts I did not remember, the sheet music became more difficult to read. Overall, I believe that I can play this piece, but it definitely needs more development.

11/5

Today I worked on a small part of my four hand piece with mike shea to work on our timing. It is going well. The section starts slow and progressively speeds up to match the tempo of the rest of the piece.

11/4/15

Today, I began messing around with a few different pieces trying to finalize which one I was going to focus on for my final piece.  I was not able to decide which one I was going to focus on, however, it was nice to try my hand at a few different pieces that I was not accustomed to.