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Piano lessons

Posted on July 18th, 2011 by Sacha Chua

J- and I have signed up for half-hour piano lessons on Thursdays. The lessons are well-priced and the studio is a short walk from the house. She’s been teaching herself lots of music – Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata, Still Alive. No substitute for lessons, though, and it would be good for her to develop her technique and get better at playing both hands smoothly.

Music is like math or programming or language: a game of practising seemingly disjointed pieces that slowly come together into fluency. She practises on her own, running through the melodies of computer games and classical music. She’s starting to get those experiences of flow, I think. Sometimes I take a break to help her through a difficult chord or play a sequence for her, and then she’s off again.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why people encourage kids to get into music – those early experiences of being good at something, being able to turn imagination into experience. 

Me, I wouldn’t mind brushing up on lessons and getting better at playing. I sometimes help J- with the tougher parts of music, and I do enjoy being able to play some of my favourites. Looking forward to sharing stories!

More posts about: life // 3 Comments »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22356
  • http://charuzu.wordpress.com Charles

    Good on you! I signed up for piano lessons nearly 12 months ago and have a 30 minute lesson each week during school term. I have learnt so much about technique for practicing and performing, as well as practice strategies. There is only so much you can teach yourself and it is good to have lessons.

    When you say “Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata” – I assume you are referring to easy-play versions and not the original, complete compositions in their original keys!

    I will be interested to read future updates on your progress.

    Charles

  • http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

    Charles: She plays the original arrangement of Fur Elise, but not the full thing yet, although she’s working on the bridging parts. She plays a simplified version of Moonlight Sonata. =) So good to hear classical music from the piano!

  • http://davideellis.com/ Dave E

    One of the things I have learned most recently about music is NOT to be tied to what’s written on that piece of paper in front of you.
    I used to live in the middle east and one thing I joked about while there was that the road was a sort of ‘general guide’ as to the direction you might like to go in. Basically people just went where ever they liked. Need to make a turn but no exit, just cut across the median.
    Music is a bit like that, those dots should be a ‘guide’. For example, take a piece and play it in a different key.
    Throw the music away, listen to piece and try to play it.

    In your other article on pots on software, you talked about practice. Well, it’s all practice and it does not have to be all formal playing. In fact, half the fun is actually ‘having fun’ with it. For example I do a ‘pop’ version of Fur Elise! Still working on it but the only way to do something new is to, well, do something new.

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