Jim's journey begins... :)

jimjim, you have excellent fingers for piano. Long, strong and capable of developing piano technique in no time!
Other teachers and I are looking forward to seeing your further progress and participate in your learning journey!

hellene wrote: jimjim, you have excellent fingers for piano. Long, strong and capable of developing piano technique in no time!
Other teachers and I are looking forward to seeing your further progress and participate in your learning journey!

Hellene, you made me blush but I really appreciate your feedback and suggestions. I've never thought about negotiating with her to give me some free time (15 minutes!!). Now, if this succeeds, I will have a lot more time to do more things! Playing the card game is such a nice idea, and so is using the headphones. Thanks again!

Practising the introductory songs while waiting for the software to arrive...

Hot Cross Buns


French Song


Ode to Joy


Jingle Bells


A New Year's Tree

Hey, Jim!
Are you getting ready for level 1 ? It looks like you're following the Soft Mozart Academy for Semester 1 .

Andrea

Before your software arrives, here is what you can do:

- try playing pieces with metronome (rhythm, on some keyboards). If you look in teaching videos, you have videos both with and without metronome for each song. Look at the number on the display of the digital piano in that record. Then adjust your keyboard to it. If it's too fast, then decrease it till you feel comfortable playing it and then increase it gradually.

- download the list of songs found in Soft Mozart software and ordered by level of difficulty .

Memorizing songs and playing by ear is just part of the learning process. That's why I advise you that until you receive the software to play the songs in the Introductory songs album, with and without metronome and skip those albums designed for sight-reading and ear training (please see the pdf above) to get the best out of software and have a natural progress. You will find more info in the User Manual you'll get.

The Soft Mozart Academy has each year guidelines to follow to get to a level, just like classes in a school. You can follow them or not. It's an opportunity to progress guided by the experience of a teacher (Hellene) who thinks of how best to learn gradually and also receive aknowledgement for your learning (certificates and gifts) after May online recital. Each year is split in two semesters and the summer holidays have guidelines for ear training and chords practice. In the message above you find links to the Academy and you'll be able to see how was last year's recital

Reviewing Hellene's book, finger exercises and songs you've just played are part of the credits for graduating first level. For the rest you also need the software. By the way, I think I didn't mention that: it's aways good to keep track of your scores when using the software. When you start using it, make sure you note down at least the best score for that day. After a while you shall see you've gone pretty far from where you started.

Andrea

JimJim, I agree with my colleagues: great job on playing exercises. Way to go!
I have a question: why do you play stretches in 2 octaves?

You learned all the Introductory pieces and play them with no stickers or guides! Great job!

I can't wait, when you'll get the software. I think, you are ready for challenges!