Any pianists on here???

[2cats]

.

Perhaps less time on this board would help!!

Perhaps spouse is watching football and asylum suddenly becomes a necessity.

[Zauberfloete]

...piano teachers, tuners, general enthusiasts, learners, ex-learners????

well???

Hello, 2Cats. I've been playing for about 18 months but had to stop having lessons after a year because of work pressures. I still play, though, but my repertoire is somewhat limited. I can play the Mozart Fantasia in D Minor and the last movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" (the latter not very well, it has to be said) and I play from memory because I'm not talented enough to look at the music and my hands at the same time. It really beats me how people can do that!

[BBMmk2]

That's the tuba formerly known as the Orange/T-Mobile flat tuba?????

As in Tuba. EEb Bass Tuba is part of the Tuba group of low brass instruments.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I do play the piano, but have not yet mastered Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody - my only barrier to performing the Complete Sparky's Magic Piano - something I had hoped to perform last year.

My problem is that I play and teach several instruments, but none quite as well as I would like.

[Dave2002]

Re thread title - I could hardly call myself a pianist, which for me is a great shame. I'd love to be able to sit down and play well at sight, and then perhaps I could work with others - singers, violinists etc. I've not actually played even badly for years - life gets in the way. When I was struggling to play I attempted quite a lot of Mikrokosmos - fairly OK up to about book 4, but gets both more interesting and more erratic afterwards. Things I've tried include more Bartok - Rumanian Dances, Debussy Preludes Des pas sur la neige and the horrendous thing which I believe starts book 2 - I made a very vague approximation of that one. Chopin Preludes - some of those are OK, though I got depressed having struggled with the very first one to discover that pianists such as Arrau and Cortot dash it off in about a minute! Then there's Mozart and Haydn. I almost got to play the Mozart F major sonata with the very fast final movement. Fun to play - up to a point - but anyone listening near by might have been horrified.

I also had brief sorties into keyboard (electronic) territory. The piano isn't really my instrument though, and I possibly do rather better on a flute, and perhaps equally badly (as piano) or worse on clarinet. Occasionally I tinker with recorders.

I keep threatening to spend more time on music when/if I retire, but it's not looking too good so far.

[Dave2002]

and I play from memory because I'm not talented enough to look at the music and my hands at the same time. It really beats me how people can do that!

Try playing without looking at your hands or keyboard. It is possible. It'll slow you down at first, but later you might find it easier.

[rauschwerk]

...I play from memory because I'm not talented enough to look at the music and my hands at the same time. It really beats me how people can do that!

I find it really hard to get some pupils to play without looking down all the time, and even harder to wean them off the habit once it's entrenched. Most are amazed when I observe them and tell them how often they glance at the keyboard. One girl was so unwilling to believe that it was possible to play with one's eyes mostly on the dots that I took her to her laptop and showed her a video of George Shearing. She worked out without prompting that he was blind. I have been known to make pupils play with a tea towel covering their hands.

[MrGongGong]

I find it really hard to get some pupils to play without looking down all the time, and even harder to wean them off the habit once it's entrenched. Most are amazed when I observe them and tell them how often they glance at the keyboard. One girl was so unwilling to believe that it was possible to play with one's eyes mostly on the dots that I took her to her laptop and showed her a video of George Shearing. She worked out without prompting that he was blind. I have been known to make pupils play with a tea towel covering their hands.

I'd show them the Mrs Mills documentary from BBC4
extraordinary accuracy in the left hand

I was recommended it by a good friend who is a very well known Organist (and it wasn't Mr Trotter though i'm sure he is a fan )

[Pianorak]

I have been known to make pupils play with a tea towel covering their hands.

That brings back memories of the time when I was learning to type. A piece of cardboard with string around the neck was used to cover up the keyboard. Shouldn't wonder if that wouldn't be called child abuse these days. Anyway, it worked as I turned out to be quite an efficient touch typist.

[Zauberfloete]

Anyway, it worked as I turned out to be quite an efficient touch typist.

In that case, I should have no trouble at all, as I type at 100wpm without looking at my fingers at all! It's just practice, I suppose ... I've been typing for a lot longer than I've been playing the piano!