It’s been a busy few weeks at the Unfocused Family compound, with a new taekwondo instructor, a trip to the emergency room, travel, surprises, and all kinds of chaos. I don’t have time to discuss any of it right now, but I will soon. Right now, I’m really excited about our new (to us) piano, a rebuilt 1971 Mason & Hamlin upright that was delivered yesterday. I took piano lessons from age 8 through 10, so it’s been 30 years since I played anything more complicated than the first few notes of the Star Wars theme. My mother said at the time that if I quit I’d regret it when I was older, and she was right, although my lessons were really, really dull. My piano teacher was kind of a young hipster, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he taught.
For now, I’m just screwing around with it. I’ve ordered some fake books off of Amazon, and I found a simplified version of Beethoven’s Für Elise on pianonanny.com, which I’ve started practicing. I’d like to get good enough to play it on Halloween as creepy incidental music, so I’m going to practice it every day for a month. Here’s a recording from my Flip video recorder of me playing it — slowly, badly — tonight. It’s a little long because I play so slowly, but I’ll keep at it and post more recordings as I get better, sort of like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
The Unfocused Life 
Bravo! I look forward to future iterations. I never could hack through things slowly. I always chose the faster with lots of mistakes method of learning, much to my violin teacher’s chagrin.
Heh. I’m not playing slowly because I’m patient. I’m playing slowly because I don’t know the notes, can barely read music, and my fingers don’t know where to go.
Heh. I can’t see your face, but I can see your mind working as you try to figure out which keys to hit. :)
I don’t know how to play at all, so your are doing great in my eyes!
Are you going to buy the piano lessons on GarageBand?
I hadn’t heard about those, Mike – I still have the old version of GarageBand. I might have to upgrade for them, though, they look good.
Piano Day 2? Was there a Day 1? I missed day 1. It was so nice and shiny. Oh well….
Glad you’re enjoying yourself.
:D
I didn’t have the presence of mind to video my attempts on Day 1, luckily for you.
Another “piano lessons” option. Alfred’s puts out a teach yourself “all-in-one” course for adults. It includes lessons, theory, and technique exercises in one book using tunes you probably know. It also has an optional cd for additional help. They use it to teach piano at the public high school near-by and I have been trying on and off to master it for about a year now using the series.
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