Welcome to Pianowire

The webmaster on Sydney Harbour.

This is the online piano notebook of Rick Parker, a 46 year old intermediate player. This site will be here to chronicle my progress as well as create links and information I find interesting in my piano learning experience. On 1, September 2003 I began my adventure as a "piano player", having never so much as played a real note on one for my entire life. As of this writing it is 11, August 2004.

Although I never really touched a piano before this time I was not a stranger to music. In the fourth grade I was in the school symphony as a baritone player. I gave this up in short order as I became bored with playing the bass clef only and grew even more tired of lugging such a large instrument back and forth on my walk to and from school. A few years later I picked up the harmonica--a much easier instrument to carry about! Not much came of this except for a way to begin to learn tunes by ear and a stint with a garage/blues band in Ohio years later.

In my early 20s I picked up the guitar and became a folk junkie. I still have the guitar, but I never bothered to go past playing chords just to accompany my singing. Speaking of which, I've been singing in a choir at an Episcopal/Anglican church for the last eight years or so, and up until my new obsession with the piano I played the Great Highland Bagpipes. This probably due to some cataclysm of my obsession with folk music and my heritage--along with much beer! Contrary to what people may think the bagpipe is a very difficult instrument and you do have to read music to play it.

So, fortunately I did have a modicum of reading ability and musicality prior to my endeavor, but no instrument in my past has called me higher than the piano, and none so far has been more rewarding to play.

So...here's the chronology so far:

September 2003:

The lucky piano sold to me by some fly-by-night dealer.

Finally, I breakdown and purchase an old, used piano. This after great deliberation on the fate of my piping career. I would have to quit playing with my band in order to square away the time to learn this new instrument. My real job sucks most of my time up anyway, but real jobs are boring, so we won't talk about that here!

The piano is a Kimball Whitney that appears to be around 70 years old. It's in tune at least, but makes gobs of other noises while you play. My current dream is to remedy this as soon as fiscally possible!

Well anyway, it's a real piano and what do I know? I didn't pay that much for it, so I can live with it for now.

So, I spent the days waiting for delivery trying to determine what kind of tuition I would have. Typical of most adult learners, time for me was a real factor. This led me to look into various types of self-teaching programs. After days and hours searching the internet and local booksellers I came to a conclusion. First, I have no interest in the so called easy "learn piano in 3 hours" methods. My interest in the piano is primarily classical music, and I don't like "short-cut" mentality when it comes to creative endeavors (I am a well paid creative person professionally). Neither was I interested in playing nursery rhyme drivel such as Hot Cross Buns and the like. My desire was to find entry level music written by masters for the use of learning, or at least easy scores in their original form.

Here is where I came across Carl Humphries', Piano Handbook. An awesome tutorial for the serious learner complete with an enclosed CD. It is not a book for the light learner, or someone who is looking for crutches like colored sticky-dots to put on their keys. It doesn't promise, "Play piano in a flash!" But if you are a beginner who wants to start out right, I venture there is no greater book out there. Can you tell I like this book?

Well, it was time to start. I left my active role in my pipe band and started my new obsession the night the piano arrived. In brief, this is how my progress went for the next few months:

By October I was finally playing some of the two handed exercises--little tunes with names like Morning Song and The Lonely Beetle. My goal was to get to Greensleeves in short order if I could.

By November I not only had Greensleeves down, but had also added Purcell's Minuet in A minor, Air in D minor, and Bach's Minuet in G. Things were looking pretty good. Granted I still did not have a real human teacher, and I know with certainty there can be no replacement for one, but given my circumstances it seemed pretty progressive. I am fortunate enough however to have as a choir director, George Mann, who is a concert pianist and retired university professor. My admiration for his talent is at level equal to any other performer's for whom I would have paid much money to see in concert at anytime in my past. On occasions George has given me pointers regarding fingering, tempo, legato, etc. But each time I seek advise from George I feel embarrassed. I feel cheap taking advantage of his gift even though he always cheerfully gives advice. I feel something like a schoolboy running bathroom limericks past Robert Frost for criticism! George has given me the name of a good local instructor and I really do plan on calling her one day.

By Christmastime I had begun to add Für Elise to my repertoire, but would still have a ways to go before getting the touch down and not clobbering the keys. Also, my wife had asked me to learn Silent Night, so I went to work on that.

January came with my increasing desire to swim in the deep end. I had been learning a handful of short tunes and playing various scales HT (hands together). For some reason I'm most fond of the D major scale--don't ask me. Anyway, I wanted to find longer more finished pieces which weren't out of my reach. I started playing with Edward MacDowell's To a Wild Rose and actually started getting it down. This emboldened me to dive deeper, so I took a shot at Eric Satie's Trois Gymnopédie, Number 1. I spent a good bit of time memorizing this piece and even began to get the left hand leaps down, but I eventually decided to leave it for the time being. To play it right required much better dynamics than I was able to deliver at that time. I will return though, someday!

The other reason I left Gymnopédie behind was my concurrent pursuit of the first movement of Beethoven's 14th Sonata in C sharp minor, the "Moonlight". This became an obsession over the next three months. During those months I added a few more tunes such as the second movement of Muzio Clementi's Sonatina Op. 36 No. 3, an odd tune called Gnome Dance, Haydn's Allegretto in G, Bach's Musette from Anna Magdalena's Notebook and a small minuet Mozart wrote when he was a child.

By March I had the Moonlight Sonata completely memorized, but it would take many more months to develop any kind of touch to do the piece justice. I decided then to take a shot at another longer piece. This time I picked up Mozart's Sonata in C major K.545. Again I may have bitten off more than I could digest! After two more months I managed to memorize the first half of the first movement, but my fingers just weren't quick enough to play it well. I'm still wrestling with this tune as of this writing. It was time for me to seek out things more appropriate for my level again.

This summer I bought Burgmüller's 25 Etudes Op. 100. I really like Ballade from this collection, so I hit it pretty hard. I also bought the complete collection of Bach's two and three part inventions, and an introductory collection of tunes from Chopin. I refuse to bother learning anything simplified so I search for easy pieces written in the hand of the actual composer. I thus began working on Chopin's Waltz in A minor, posthumous. I've learned Chopin's pieces require a serious understanding of legato pedaling and I'm reliving some of the things I encountered trying to play Gymnopédie No. 1.

By now my unquenchable desire to read anything I could find about piano playing or piano players had reached it's zenith. This lead me to subscribing to Piano Today magazine. I really like the magazine as it is mostly filled with music scores you can play. The only problem is there are only four issues a year. It also is a cross section of genres, primarily classical, jazz and modern pop. I'm only passively interested in Jazz and have no interest in pop at this time, so I still want more.

Probably one of the most edifying discoveries I have made is the piano forum at www.pianoforum.net. It's a very well done sight with a healthy number of contributors who really know what their talking about. So far I've only lurked around there, but I've picked up some good pointers.

Anyway, back to the piano progress report. this brings us up to now, mid-August 2004. I've continued working on the Chopin piece with much frustration and have been polishing the Burgmüller piece. I still play through the Mozart sonata each time I sit down, and it's still terrible when I do. I play the Moonlight movement every night and it's getting much better, and I've recently added Bach's Prelude in C from WTC (Well Tempered Clavier). I've also started Bach's Two Part Invention No. 8 in F major. I'm still doing it hands separate for now, but once again the desire to play a longer piece has set in. I have now begun working on the adagio cantabile part of Beethoven's Sonata No. 8 in C minor, "Pathétique". I'm up to measure 20 where the turn on D flat occurs. This tune was daunting at first, but now I'm convinced I can get it down.

What I am beginning to feel now is a new sense of frustration. Although I can read music well enough, my sight reading speed is inefficient, therefore I chose to memorize everything I play. My memorization skills are fine (all bagpipe music is played from memory), but I'm sure I can progress faster if I improve my sight reading skills. My need for a teacher is becoming ever prevalent. (Note: I do not play by ear, I play by memory--there is a difference. I insist on note accuracy.)

My current efforts to correct this will now be based on this book which I discovered while browsing the Piano Forum--Super Sight-Reading Secrets by Howard Richmann. The drills in this book look like they're going to be dreadful, but they seem to make sense. I am able to sight-read music for the bagpipe, but that's only one stave in the same key and your hands never move. Hopefully that's good for something!

My desire to have more things to read, usually while in bed each night, has led me to some other works as well. On a lighter note I have just finished reading Noah Adams' book, Piano Lessons. It's a one year chronicle of the host of NPR's attempt to learn the piano at an older age. Needless to say I found much of myself in this book. It's a very good read for adult learners, but I think his journey would have been made easier if he had found Carl Humphries' book! A warning to folks who would buy this for lessons advice--it not that kind of book. He makes mostly mistakes and buys a Steinway on impulse! If you don't like reading about people with more money than sense maybe you should avoid it. I liked it well enough though. It's a warm story about a busy person who has access to many famous pianists because of his job and falls in love with the piano. If anything it's a story about what not to do when pursuing a learning program, at least not until he begins to attend a workshop and seek short lessons from various players of reputation. He ends up writing the forward from his little room in the MacDowell Colony in New England. Lucky dog, lucky RICH dog.

Another great magazine I found is International Piano. Alas, it only comes out every other month, but it's more like the reading I am after. It's also very expensive. I have yet to find a PIANO magazine that comes out monthly. Keyboard magazine does, but it's not really a piano magazine. Perhaps I should start a magazine of my own..humm? Anyway, I would be happy if International Piano came out with 12 issues a year. It fills my needs as an enthusiast and keeps me out of trouble.

Finally the book I am reading as of this writing is Josef Hofmann's Piano Playing with Piano Questions Answered. It was written at the turn of the century, but I'm hoping much of its advice is timeless. I have no idea what the modern piano community thinks of this book. I just found it in the store while poking around for something to read. I suppose I will find out after sharing more with other players. It's very 19th century in its approach, but when you have no teacher it can't hurt.

Well, this ends the introduction to my web journal. From here on out I will be adding updates when occasion permits. It is my intention to have a teacher by the time I make the next entry. Until then I have a link to my repertoire and current projects, and links to interesting sites on the web. I will add more of these as I find them. If you've read this far I promise I won't tell anyone! I don't think I could read this much of someone else's drivel, so good on you mate! You can access the journal on the link below.

Cheers,
Rick