Obviously, although apt 😁 I don't know if you watched the practice session - it's amazing how much I had relapsed with just that lack of practice over the week. Fortunately the skill is regained just as quickly - I'm now two practice sessions on, and it seems to be back under the fingers (mostly).

@@ShanesPianoJourney I haven't, though it may be an interesting watch. You know, this may sound funny coming from me, given my history of going weeks or months between lessons in the past, but I've also more recently felt that shorter periods away have had greater and greater impact. Maybe it's due to the relative increase in complexity of what I'm working on now, the notion that when it happened before I felt I hadn't lost much progress simply because there hadn't been that much to lose. I've definitely become more mindful of it now, where I even start to feel it if there's been 3 or 4 days between lessons and I feel like it causes me to have to spend an entire session just getting back to where I left off previously.

That sounds like my experience. That said, I'm not going to worry about spending time away from practice if life happens to get in the way - A session or two to get back up to speed seems consistent with the "switching cost" of other activities (like programming for instance) I do.

@@ShanesPianoJourney It has served as a something of an added motivator to not skip lessons, or even space them out too much, the classic "practice like mad for two or three days then take 4-5 off" that I used to do. And I of course agree that, when life gets in the way, the sacrifice is worth weighing against all of the outcomes, but personally, I tend to not have has many valid excuses for not attending lessons. Since I know vaguely that you have history with programming, I'm curious how, if ever, that mindset interacts with how you approach your journey. As an example with me, in a video that might not be out yet (actually, I don't think I've even edited it yet), I compare my progress with "Angels" that I've been trying to memorize to learning lines for a play, something I used to do often in many theatrical productions I've taken part in in the past; first it's the words (notes), then it's the blocking (fingering patterns), then it's the emotion (dynamics and timing). Do you find you have any such patterns of thinking with your background?

@@SixofQueens Interesting question. I think the short answer is no. There have been times during a lesson's where some of my questions that challenge Jane have a basis in the kind of logical mind I have, and we both recognize that at the time, but I don't consciously apply any patterns from Computer Science (and there are a lot of them) to my Music. Now that you have bought it to mind, it's also rare that I consciously note a relationship to Physic's either, which is interesting. I spent 6+ years doing degree's in Physic's and there were a highly noticeable number of Physic's students who were also doing Music degree's in some form (that's actually how Jane and I met). When asked about it, they would say that there was a lot of cross over (and I saw that myself at the time). It's not something I noticed in any of the other disciplines I studied, including in the relatively few art's subjects that I took. I'll try and pay a bit more attention and see if I spot any patterns now you have suggested it.

Hi Robin, thanks for the feedback. Yep, Jane is a big fan of recognizing intervals, playing by step or skip etc. given that is what you are looking at as you read the music, as you have figured out. It's early days for me, but with effort I'm sure I'll get to the same point you are where it starts to become second nature.

Yep - I'll certainly think about it differently from this point forward.

It’s interesting to hear you’ve implemented a similar sight-reading approach. Re the analyzing the piece, it's not so much about from a music theory perspective, but rather the application of prior knowledge and learning to the new piece. For example, in todays lesson we review two pieces. The first is "Song of the Pine Tree" which has a tricky 3 note section in the left hand. I've spent a couple of weeks on it, and we spent most of that part of todays lesson on it. The 2nd part of the lesson was on my new piece "Caprice", and when we got to the last bar, Jane asked me if I recognized the notes. I didn't, but it turns out that I should have - they were the same three notes I'd spent weeks developing the muscle memory for, but just in reverse. I think that's the kind of pattern recognition that Jane is trying to develop from the sight reading and scales/arpeggio's practice. Now I know that the left hand is the same but reversed, it will be quicker learning that section of Caprice because I can apply the learning from SOTPT. Re Hand position, yes, I had noted that in my sight reading pieces, the hand position doesn't change, but hadn't realized that was because the pieces were easier. Many of the pieces in Jane's lending library are at the higher levels, so her G8 + students will be moving their hands around a lot as part of their sight reading, but I'm still a beginner, hence 5 finger hand position. It's going to be interesting applying this new insight as I do that part of my practice - I'll now have a different mindset, that's not so much focused on getting the notes right but rather on making links between what I'm seeing and what I've learnt elsewhere on the journey.

@@ShanesPianoJourney You're doing a great service on KZbin. I saw a teacher admit that most students who quit piano lessons do it after two years. I'm seven years in and still a beginner. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I'm accepting that as an adult beginner I should keep my expectations low. At this point my happiest time is playing from lead sheets of slow-tempo songs, where I can expect to be able to add a simple chord accompaniment with my left hand. Anyway, after only two months of playing from sheet music it's hard to see my trajectory.

@@lshwadchuck5643 Thanks for that - it's not the intention, but a nice side effect 🙂 You can only do your best, but I don't think you should have low expectations of yourself - Jane has many adult students that have started with no prior experience, and have been with her for 4+ years, and are playing pieces that are similar in difficulty to a school student with similar period of tuition would be playing and are consistent with where they should be having that level of experience etc i.e. playing at G4 or G5 level etc. You mention that it's hard to see your trajectory, and that's understandable in some respects - as you are teaching yourself, you don't have the benefit of "having been there before" and the "pace control" that a teacher provides. You may benefit from finding a different teacher than you had previously - one who can take you to the next level with a tuition path designed specifically for you and can provide the support to help you navigate it.

@@ShanesPianoJourney You might be right. But I got a lot in those years (and spent a lot of money) and I have a good grasp of what I can handle. I figure if things are going better than expected, I'm not trying to do too much. I think it's better to surprise myself with success than disappoint myself with failure. I'm really enjoying working my way through Piano Time 2 in parallel with the lead sheets, which are really what my training best suits and I enjoy plenty. I'm not at all interested in grades or performing for others.

Hi, I initially was going to answer this as "No", but as I thought more about it, I realized that this is a more complicated question to answer than I initially thought. So I've done an "Extra Insight - Sight Reading" video on it. You can see that here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZW4l6yEeZl9Z9E

@SixOfQueens Just to confirm, yep - I do find the initial sessions the slowest, but to be honest, although most sessions are progressions on the last, there are some that are a slide backwards in some respects, as well as progression in others. That's just the way it seems to be for me, and I suspect most people, given there are a lot of non piano related factors which are in play during a practice session for most of us.

Will do - thanks for watching

ye, I'm going with you bro

Hi Victoria, The piece is "Russian Winter" by David Blackwell. My copy of it is on page 24 of a book called "Piano Time Pieces, Book 2" by Pauline Hall, and published by Oxford University Press. Hope that's helpful in finding it - it's a very nice piece. If you want to hear what the end should sound like, check out the other performance of it.

Because I saw Shane starting this piece, I ordered the book from Oxford University Press. I'm working on the pieces from front to back, so I won't get to Russian Winter for some time. I think the compositions and arrangements are all great learning opportunities and many are 'keepers'.

Will do Patricia - thanks for watching!

I know that feeling. I always think I crash at the end like that when I've made it through because the excitement of getting through steals my focus. And you're doing in on camera! I haven't tried that and playing with my son visiting was a bust.

Thanks Robin - Generally I will just go with what works for my fingers, but in the case of Arpeggio's I was a bit concerned about lack of consistency when I was practicing, so figured I'd get an answer.

I had the same problem with the staccato sequences in Intercity Stomp with my fingers catching the corners of the adjacent keys - the problem with big fingers 🙂

Hi Robin - Thanks for your concern, but rest assured I have not got wrist issues. I probably wasn't particularly clear about the selection, so I've done another quick video which will hopefully clarify. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqWxZZl-fbBll80 As for impromptu practicing etc., I use Jane's piano, and she has quite a lot of students, so there are I have to fit my practice around her busy teaching schedule, which actually works reasonably well. It does mean however that practices are reasonably structured, although being at home all day, I do have some flexibility, but just going in for 5m here and there wouldn't really work for me.

@ShanesPianoJourney I understand. You really don't need a piano to practice everything, in fact it is provent fact especially for adult learners that receiving information thru different sensory types, improves memory retention. Sence I've been working this way, I've noticed a significant improvement in my memory recollection, and that is saying a lot at 71...

@@airpac1873 Hi Robin, did you get cut off in your comment there? I'm not sure what you're trying to say

Depending on how the practice goes, I may find myself similarly wishing for longer fingers! Guess I'll find out at practice tomorrow.

I done this song 7 weeks ago with short stubby fingers, I keep telling myself if a 7 years can reach , I can as a 50 year old. 👍

@@attempting-piano I just watched your performance of it - sounded good. I also read your bio - You may find Jane's Accelerando Piano channel helpful given you don't have a teacher - it's not lessons (although there is one there on a Christopher Norton piece as I recall) but mainly tutorials that she points her own students to as an additional resource to their lessons. www.youtube.com/@AccelerandoPiano

@@attempting-piano I probably wasn't particularly clear about the selection of this piece - I've gone into some more detail in this video I've just posted. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqWxZZl-fbBll80

I'm always open to new ideas, but I do show them to Jane and generally don't act on anything she doesn't think is appropriate for me at whatever point I'm at in my journey. We don't have a program as such - it's a case of regular review against what we want to achieve over each six month period when selecting pieces, scales etc. and then every six months we discuss what areas should be a focus (in terms of areas where I'm weak relative to others and in relation to my overall progression, areas where I'm ready to advance etc.) for the next cycle. You'll see this in action in the next lesson - we have just reset for the next six months today, and selected my next piece - it's targeted at some areas I need to improve, but was just a little to hard technique wise when we selected the piece it's replacing . It was but easier when I tried a hand movement for it today, but it may still be too much of a technical challenge after I've had it a couple of weeks and if that's the case we will review. It's a very flexible approach to piano lessons.

@@ShanesPianoJourney I have found, for myself that if do my technical, ie, scales and such at the very beginning of my practice session, in properly stretches and limbers up the hands and fingers for the rest of the session. It seemed as if you were struggling a bit with the Scale you had chosen, and you ( in my opinion ) made it harder on yourself by going straight to both hands. Whenever I start a NEW scale, especially if it is one I’m unfamiliar with, I also Play first in each hand, usually starting with the Left, and when it is comfortable to play in that hand then I move to the right, and only when it is comfortable in each hand then I make the move to both. I try to get it down in the Left hand, to the point were I can carry on a conversation with someone, or myself, LOL, then I can concentrate more on what the right hand is doing. The C scale everyone knows and it is the easiest to play, so I use the as my initial warm up at every session. I do what is called contra motion, starting at middle C left hand Plays in reverse down the keyboard, and the right goes up the keyboard for as many octaves as you are comfortable with. At my stage it is the full keyboard. When I get back to center the do it again only this time the Left hand is Legato, right hand staggoto. Then back to Center and revers it. Once I I get back to center again, I will quarter notes in the Left hand and 8th notes in the right, once back to center reverse to center, and finally I do one more pass using Dynamics. I can do it now in just about every Key, but C is the easiest and fastest, only takes a couple of minutes to do the whole thing, but when I first started to use that routine it took some time!

@@airpac1873 Yes - all good points. I'm struggling to find a plan for my scales practice, possibly because I'm not keen on them 🙂but is one of the areas that we identified as a focus area for this 6mth cycle. I haven't been taught contra motion yet, so that will wait a bit, but I'll print out your suggestions and try those. Jane's also increased my practice time target with a view to putting more time into the scales. Incidentally the scales you saw me practicing weren't new - I just hadn't played them for a while 🙂and was trying to pick up where I'd left off as it were. Back to basics I think. Thanks for the suggestions and interest.

@@ShanesPianoJourney No problem. Although I do have a lifetime membership to Pianote, and have access to a lot of instructors, I’ve never really had the availability of a real live one. Sitting next to me as you are so lucky to have, so my first couple of years was just a mismatch of trying out different things, in a rather unorganized mess! Along came Cassi Faulk, the Classic Piano instructor at Pianote, with a video called Hand Independence Boot Camp. That was the first time I was introduced to any kind of a structured Practice Routine. I liked it enough to adapt it as my daily, lifelong practice routine. It is super easy to change, and adapt new stuff to, and I can make it as long or as short as I want depending on any given availability of time. The routine I explained to you earlier was just one of those steps. You can already play a scale up and back down the keyboard with both hands together, with correct fingering, so all you are doing is starting that process in the middle of the keyboard with the correct starting fingers of each hand on the Root Note and moving in opposite directions, one octave at a time and then returning to the root were you started. Yes it does take a bit to get used to but you get the hang of it fairly quickly. I was taught to always challenge your brain, and that is what I try to do for at least a part of my daily practice were I try something new or a different way to do the same thing. There are lots of ways to spice up and practice scales so they are not Boring and mundane! If you are ever interested in a demo of my routine, I’ll be more than happy to make a video…. Robin

Hi Robin - Nice to have a name to associate with the handle :-) I've run your comments past Jane who had positive things to say about them - she thinks your scales practice is quite broad and covers a lot of the things she recommends to her students. She hasn't taught me contra motion yet as there are a few other things she wants to teach me before that that help provide the foundation, but it will be coming. Challenging the brain is one reason I'm learning piano, so I understand where you are coming from. I don't want you to go to any major effort, but if you did happen to have a camera on you at some point when you are practicing, I would be keen to take a look and see what I can take an integrate into my own routine. Jane doesn't have a view on when in a practice session scales should be done, but does agree that it may be good to adopt your approach of doing them first - I've kind of been having my dessert before my vegies :-) And she's expecting me to increase my practice time to have more scale practice, so I'll be able to integrate some other variations as well now that the time allocation is effectively doubled.

Thanks Luigi - I'm pleased with how I'm progressing. The Piano is a Bernstein Upright - we bought it about 30 years ago when Jane was just starting out in her Teaching Practice. It's not digital, but it is a good quality instrument and performs well.

@@ShanesPianoJourney It has a very nice sound. I plan to buy an acoustic piano too. 👍

Thanks for that - I had been wondering how to integrate arpeggios into my routine, so perhaps a "scale of the week" approach which seems to be what you do could help with that. I'll ponder it. Cheers.

@@ShanesPianoJourney Don't know what your instructor has in mind for you you should always be doing something that strengthens your hand and finger independence. so a couple of things you can do is 1st... Play Just a 3 note triad in the left hand ie... Root, 3rd, 5th. In the right hand play the arpeggio first as a single octave, then work on transitioning to 2 octaves, etc... It takes a bit of time to get it smooth, but it will come... and Remember, what ever you do for one hand, follow through and do it for the other hand. So you just revers what your doing in each hand. Gotta start your arpeggio a little lower on the Keyboard (or Right hand a little higher so the two hands don't clash. So the second thing is to Change the left hand Triad to now play the Root, 5th, and Octave... so you are stretching that hand out a little more, just a smooth back and forth pattern, the right hand now will only do a single octave full arpeggio, but the goal here is going to be coordination and independence, and believe me, it takes time to get this working well. So start out trying to match up the 3 note pattern in the Left hand with the 4 note pattern in the right, once you can do that, then you will work on making just one rotation of the right hand arpeggio when you strike the Root note in the Left hand. So the third and final part of this is going to be hitting each note of the right hand arpeggio twice for each single note of the Left hand. So basically the last two exorcises are 1/4 notes in Left hand, 1/8 notes in Right hand, then it's 1/4 notes in Left hand and 1/16 notes in Right hand... Once again, this is going to take some time!!! Plus, this gets even harder when you swap hands and do it in the non-dominate hand!!!

Thanks for that - I do need to find some way to remember to do both hands - I'm ok for the scales, but do tend to miss balancing the arpeggio's more often than not. Probably a case of not being particularly interested in scales, even though Jane is slowly convincing me that they are important :-)

@@ShanesPianoJourney They are, in so many ways! The trick with scales is to find ways to make them "Musical" and "Challenging" Of course, it is great to have a Professional Instructor right in the family! I'm pretty much self (KZbin) taught. and on about my 7th year in. At 72 I just enjoy the process and the end results as they come... Nice intro and a great video log!

Next week will be the 18 month mark, so I'm still a beginner, but I'm sure I'll get to 7 years like yourself. Thanks for the support. I'm 55 and pretty much following your approach of enjoying the process - got to learn to walk before you can run :-) If you haven't checked out Jane's YT channel with her piano tutorials, you may want to visit www.youtube.com/@AccelerandoPiano - could be some things there that you haven't seen elsewhere in your self directed journey.

You’re welcome Kim 😊 Thanks for watching!

You're very welcome - thanks for taking an interest. Hopefully this will be useful.

Thanks Amanda

You are so welcome - thanks for watching

Hi Victoria, The two 'boxes' are how I randomly pick a scale to practice in each session (I plan to practice at least one each session, but sometimes find more interesting things to do :-). The way it works is as follows: 1) I start with all the scales I have learnt in one container (the pink one at the moment), and when I need to pick one randomly I open that container and take one without looking. 2) Once I note down what it is, I put it into the other container (in this rotation it's the green one). 3) Once all the scales from the pink container have been practiced, it will be empty, and the green container will be full. In the next session, the process switches, and the green container is where the scales I pick randomly come from, and they go into the pink container, and the process goes cycles again. The goal is to make sure that I don't just practice the same scales in the same order each time, and it's flexible enough that when I learn a new scale, it just gets added into whichever container is the "take from" one at that point in time. I hope that explains that well enough.

Thanks for your interest and comment Victoria. I'm from New Zealand, so that's the Kiwi accent you are hearing :-) Sorry it's a bit challenging - I'm trying to improve my enunciation and reduce the mumbling, but I don't practice any of what I say, so it's a case of deciding what to say while I'm thinking of it, and that "stream of conscious" is also probably not helping. I'll try and do better so you don't have to guess 🙂

You're welcome - I'm pleased you found it helpful.

Thanks - I'm pretty pleased with them as well, and really like the Russian Winter piece.

Thanks and welcome

I'm pleased you enjoyed it.

Thanks David

Sorry, but I don't really understand your comment (translated as "I'll be back in 2025") - did you intend it for this video?

Thanks for the encouragement.

Thanks - one of my all time favorite games - Still waiting on HL3 🙂

Thanks - glad you found it useful

Thanks - I will do. Congrats on your new piano - an investment in many hours of enjoyment and pleasure.

You're welcome - to be honest, I've been a bit lax on that front, and I saw your query which reminded me. I'll try to remember to do it a bit more regularly. Re sight reading, that sounds pretty good. Jane has a library for her students to borrow sight reading material from, so they are playing pieces rather than just a couple of lines, but SRF sounds like it's more customizable. At the moment, I'm not up to sight reading a piece, so I use the random selection from the book I displayed today.

Hi, I can't recall Jane saying something about taking on a piece three times, so not sure on the context of that comment. Good to know you are making progress and enjoying the process. I've just done my review for last week, and included a list of the books I'm currently using if you are interested.

@lshwadchuck5643 Odd - I'm seeing something from you re Jane pointing you to a place to buy the book with Russian Winter, but I'm also seeing that you have ordered something. Not sure what's going on there. Jane usually points her students to a place called Piano Traders here in New Zealand, but that's probably not much help if you are elsewhere. The book is Piano Time Pieces Book 2, Pauline Hall, Oxford University Press, and it's very popular, so you should be able to get it at most piano music stores, and possibly even directly from Oxford University Press if they have an online store.

@@ShanesPianoJourney Yes, I have ordered it from OUP, only way I could get it in Canada.

@@lshwadchuck5643 I'm sure you will find it a good book - Jane has a few of Pauline's books and I expect I'll be getting more pieces from this one in due course.

Thanks Luigi - I was pretty happy with it.

It's always good when you can learn something new, and I think with piano, you will never run out of opportunities, even if it is just learning a new piece or applying a different interpretation to one you already have learnt. Keep it up.

Hi Amanda, thank you for your lovely comment. I can assure you Jane is that nice with all her students 🙂

Thanks - I can't see me learning it all anytime soon, so it may even be decades 🙂

Thanks

Thanks Luigi! I typically practice 4-5 times per week (30 minute sessions), and I usually have one 30 minute lesson per week (Jane doesn't teach during school holidays, so there are only about 38 lessons a year). Given you have asked about "time", perhaps you can help me with something - I've been wondering whether statistical info like this is interesting to people, and considered adding it to the start of my performance videos. For example, I'm retiring Arabesque this week, and like all the other performances it's not going to be polished, because that's not why I'm learning the piece. I've had it for 14 weeks, practiced it 59 times, for a total of 7h56m of practice. So, about 8m per practice session. Do you think that kind of detail is useful to viewers?

hi Shane, yes, it's interesting just to understand How many hours it takes more or less to be able to play a song reasonably well. But it could also be useful to encourage other people not to give up at the first difficulty they encounter when playing the piano, and also to dispel the myth that in adulthood it is no longer possible to play the piano. Which is absolutely wrong and not true. I'm currently doing exercises for hand independence And I think it's the fundamental thing and I do study sessions more or less like yours but for an hour each. I'm working on a song called Gnossienne n.3 by Eric Satie. A bit difficult because the left hand has to do a lot of jumps. But I'll try. I hope one day to be able to upload it to KZbin but I'm not very expert on this platform. bye until next time.

Thanks Luigi. I've just posted a vid that goes into detail on how I practice, so that may also be of interest.

Thanks for that

You're welcome. Another channel that I'm sure will be helpful is the one that Jane (my wife and teacher) has: www.youtube.com/@AccelerandoPiano/videos And there's a good video there for the sock fetish :-) kzbin.info/www/bejne/imrOhmWJZZWZqcUsi=g_BsY4rVA2ip_ZcQ

Forgot to mention - the socks are by a company called "Happy Socks" if you want to check them out for yourself, and Jane (and I) have quite a selection.😀

You're welcome. Another channel that I'm sure will be helpful is the one that Jane (my wife and teacher) has: www.youtube.com/@AccelerandoPiano/videos The tutorials are mainly technical, but there is one tutorial that covers a complete lesson on learning how to play a piece called Struttin' that may be of interest (I started learning it in Week 28 if you want to see my lesson on it). Incidentally, the sound quality gets better in later weeks, so hopefully that will make the lessons more useful also.

Yep -It's lesson 45. I guess you must be more talented than you think.

Thanks Luigi

You are so welcome!

Thanks - had a few setbacks on that piece, but got there in the end.

Thanks for the advice - I appreciate your interest. If I've been exposed to triads, I don't remember it :-) but I'll pass this on to Jane and see can point me to some material etc. Cheers.

@@ShanesPianoJourney No problem, and I understand both teaching methods - to introduce this system early or not introducing it to keep things simple and focusing on the score solely. Just a disclaimer because the intention isn't to step on your teacher's toes 😂

@@wolfpsx6210 Jane wouldn't be offended, so don't need to worry about that. If she hasn't taught me those at this point there will be a reason and if she has, she will remind me, so all's good 🙂