I am a beginner. But I am too rush for higher grade.. Because the pieces that teacher is given to me is too easy to me. She practice just a small portion of it, i could remember all along. I really wanted to practice damn well and fast. I knew she is telling me not to do that. But through only three months in this piano course, I always hoped for teacher to grade me. In the first two weeks of the piano course, I have completed book one. She thought that it is too easy to me so she immediately give me book three from another book. I did not tell her that it is also easy for me. I often have no problem in memorising the pieces. But for the note reading, i felt that it is very difficult to handle it at the very beginning. But often, I played scale from hanon use right hand then left hand then both hand. But it also too easy to me. So i added a lot of scales together to continue it all along. I don't know why i practice faster and faster using both hand. I know that an average beginner use half and hour everyday. I use four to six hours everyday to practice my fingering. The main disadvantage is that I have very big difficult reading the note and did not know if the music is correct??

-- hui hui (jianbrother@yahoo.com), June 11, 2003

Answers

Hi, Do you feel confident enough in your teacher to discuss your concerns with her? She is probably thrilled with your dedication and quick progress, but may not be aware of the difficulty you are having with note reading, since you are so well-prepared at your lessons. Note reading is a skill that needs to be practiced like any other. I suggest you spend an hour of your 4 hours daily practice time just playing through new music. It should be very easy-to-play music at first so you can concentrate on reading. Perhaps your teacher has a lending library and you can borrow music books from her each week. If you were my student, I'd have you read through every level of every method book I own, then every intermediate collection I have containing Anna Magdalena pieces, various Sonatinas, Burgmuller, Kabalevsky etc., and any music I can think of that contains a lot of patterns, such as Vandall, Yeager etc. (I've got about 16 feet of bookshelf space covered with music!) I'd have you sightread at your lesson so I could help you learn to read ahead, count out loud, recognize intervals and patterns etc. Since you practice Hanon, I'd have you transpose it into different keys, and also find some easier pieces in a, e or d minor and have you write them out and play them in c# minor (the key of Moonlight and Fantasy Impromptu) just for practice in that key. You're probably already working on this, but you should also be able to play scales, chords, chord progressions, and arpeggios in every key, and you could complete a course in written theory (such as Snell/Ashleigh's Fundamentals of Piano Theory, Levels 1 - 10). Please ask your teacher for guidance with all this--I'm sure she will be happy to help you!

-- anon (noname_poster@yahoo.com), June 17, 2003.