# Practice Problems



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Many people have commented on how hard it is to learn new things when you're older, and they're not kidding. In the first few days of this week, I did my violin practice first, and then in the evening, after tea, I did about 20 minutes piano practice with the basic melody only five-finger notes, and Taggart overseeing me!  I found I was very tired and couldn't wait to get it over with.

I've now got through the *Easiest Piano Course Book One*, and a few similar pieces that Taggart has downloaded for me from the internet - _Red River Valley_, _Amazing Grace, Old Joe Clark, Yankee Doodle, & Twinkle Twinkle_ - except that my little star doesn't *twinkle*, it *hirples**.

The last couple of days, I've done the practice, about half an hour, in the morning or afternoon and Taggart says I'm definitely beginning to sound better. What annoys me is that everything is going hunky-dory, and then I'll strike a bum note with either hand. I usually go back and start again - it annoys me so much.

When I analyse why I keep playing F with my right hand when I should be playing G with my right hand, I realise that it is because on my violin - though with my *left* hand, mind you! - I play G with my ring finger, which I think of as finger 3, but in piano terms is finger 4. But F is played with my ring finger on the piano. I know this in my conscious mind, but I find that the instinct of my deeper brain has already pressed the wrong note.

The other thing that I've noticed is that even though I use my left hand a lot when playing the violin, my pinkie (violin fourth finger, piano fifth finger) is not used to the hard work of pushing a key down, rather than briefly pressing a string. Pinkie soon gets tired and starts feeling sorry for itself. So I guess that even if I don't persevere with the piano, I'll have strengthened my finger muscles, which has to be good.









In violin terms, I've hardly practised the piano at all - but I am determined for once not to strive, not to be such a perfectionist as I usually am. Keats said, 'If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.' And that is what I feel about my piano playing.

By the way, this morning I had an excellent violin lesson with my teacher, the Baroque Performer that I'll refer to as the I. O. (= Inspired One). It was a baroque lesson, playing my violin with my replica baroque bow, which has a Lully shape and black hair, so I call him Beau Noir or Monsieur le Noir. Next week, it will be a folk fiddle lesson played on my conventional bow, Beau Niel (after the Scots fiddler Niel Gow.)

The I. O. has some personal troubles in his life, but was utterly focussed and explaining bow strokes, weak and strong, active and passive, in such an interesting, helpful way. Lessons with the I. O. are always intense, whether it's because of the music, or the argy-bargy - at the end of the lesson we argued about English spelling, of all things! Afterwards I felt happy but drained, and it was actually quite relaxing to turn to the piano. 

Piano Lesson number 2 is tomorrow morning. I'll tell you how I got on in this blog, which is the musical equivalent of Adrian Mole...

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* *Hirple* = a Scots dialect word meaning *to limp* or *falter*.


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