# Piano Lesson 3



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Not so good this time. In the words of a British Tabloid, *'The Gravy Train has hit the buffers'.* :lol:

I am still not overlapping the notes properly. I veer between plonking them too separately, and holding them down so that they seem to be kvetching about life.

Also, I cannot lift my fingers between phrases properly. And if I do it with one hand, I forget about the other one. I'm really living up to the gospel admonition *'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth',* forgetting that it is about alms-giving, not piano practice.

So I've been set the same homework again, but this time I have to work on the way I use my fingers and the style of my phrases. Rho says it doesn't matter how slowly I play the tune, but I have to get this right. She sugared the pill by saying that she wouldn't bother telling a child learner this, and it is only because I am getting on so well that she's making a point of it. But still.... 

The last ten minutes were taken up with some computer games on little tablets that Rho has. The first one - identifying the basic left hand notes from F to Middle C - I did very well and quickly, earning a 'gold medal'. Then she upped the ante and put me on to a game involving the whole gamut of treble clef notes - which obviously I know from my violin playing.

Ah, but here I had to quickly choose the name of the note from four possibilities, laid out two above two, not in a list. And I only had a second before the computer moved on. I got one wrong here by plunging too fast in my panic, but the others I was just too slow on. I got 15 out of 20, and felt just a little *miffed*.

Not so much by my score, as by the fact that I could probably have done it much faster when I was young. But now, I just can't swivel my eyes quickly enough or push my digit fast enough. I have become the victim of age-related *tortoisification*. 

*Sic transit gloria Mollie*.


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## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

tortoisification? Really? No. It's all relative. You just need to tell yourself "Okay, nowadays my default speed is_ this, _and I can easily both attain and maintain it." Time and patience will still get you there - even if they're now in different amounts. So there.


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