Learning

Here are some recordings I’ve made since February (mostly in April, I think). I continue doing 15+ minutes of piano most days. Miss a day here or there but that’s okay. It’s a life-long habit, not an addiction. It Had To Be You On Green Dolphin Street Sweet Georgia Brown (new version from different piano book) These Foolish Things You’ve Got a Friend With A Little Help From My Friends A few things I’ve recently noticed Figuring out the proper fingering used to be a challenge. It’s still not easy, but it’s more intuitive now. I seem to find tricks based on how long I have between notes, what the next few bars will require my fingers to do, etc. I realize there’s no simple rule for fingering. It requires context. And once I figure out I should start the piece with my middle finger (or whatever), things generally fall into place. And, when I do mess up my fingering, I’m somewhat more able to recover from my mistake now than I was before. Chords are becoming easier. I’m finding it easier to do inversions and add non-standard extra notes to standard chords (like some slash chords). And I can look at a series of chords and reason out which set of inversions would be easiest to play. It’s easier and less risky to make small leftward/rightward shifts with my hands than larger jumps, so optimizing which inversions I choose to minimize big jumps really helps. I think it also makes the music sound smoother/better. I need to look down at the keyboard much less than before. For chords I’ve played a lot, I’m able to move my left hand around the keyboard from chord to chord without looking, usually landing on the chord I intended. I’m playing a wider variety of pieces now than before, and I’m rotating through them slower. Before, I would work on two or three pieces at a time. Now, I find myself playing maybe ten or twelve songs but not circling back to the same song for days. “Spaced repetition” is the optimal learning strategy, meaning that it’s more effective to study A, then B, then C, and then rotate through A, B, C again than it is to study A, A, A, then B, B, B. I wasn’t consciously adopting this strategy for my piano, but I naturally gravitated to it because playing a wider variety of pieces keeps things fresh and because I suspected overpracticing a single song was neither fun nor effective. My brain’s ability to remember how to play songs is going into my muscle memory. I’m still bad at this, but I’m far better than before. When I play a piece I haven’t played in a while, I sometimes startle myself when my eyes lose track of where I am in the score but my fingers keep moving on playing mostly correct notes. I realized I had been struggling to read the notes and eventually realized it was because my left eye was seeing everything very blurry. I couldn’t read anything at any distance with my left eye. I hadn’t noticed for months because my brain just showed me text from my right eye. In late 2019 I had had a retinal detachment. That (successful) surgery caused my natural lens to dry out, leading to cataract surgery a few years later. That (successful) surgery cleared up my vision until a complication of cataract surgery, “posterior capsular opacification” slowly made everything blurry. Fortunately, I knew this might happen and is easily and quickly fixable via a laser treatment (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24737-posterior-capsular-opacification), so I didn’t panic when I realized I couldn’t read anything at any distance. I had the YAG laser treatment several weeks ago. My vision cleared up instantly, and I’m seeing great again. Hooray for medical science and technology! With appreciation to Lorenzo Spoleti for their photo on Unsplash ...

Three new recordings reflecting my growth – I hope – since beginning to learn piano about eight months ago. I try to do at least 15 minutes a day. Missed a few more days recently when I drove with my son to Pittsburgh (where he auditioned on trombone at CMU). The Trolley Song I Want to Be Happy I Get a Kick Out of You A few things I’ve recently noticed Piano has become a habit. I now naturally remember to and generally enjoy sitting down to the piano. I read recently that researchers determined that it typically takes about doing a task roughly 66 days for it to become a habit. I’m way past that, and daily piano long ago became a natural habit, not something I need to be reminded to do. I’m now enjoying my piano time a bit more than when I began. It feels like less of a chore and more an enjoyable break from the rest of my day. I suspect I’m practicing a bit more than I did months ago. I don’t measure my piano time but suspect I’m occasionally spending an hour at the piano. And I definitely now occasionally sit down to practice a second or even a third time in the same day. Certain chords have become automatic. My muscle memory for chords I’ve played many times has become very strong, and my conscious brain isn’t needed to play them. I can now play better without looking at my hands or the keyboard. I used to have trouble because my eyes were bouncing back-and-forth between the sheet music and my hands on the keyboard. I was unsure where I should be looking and would lose my place in the sheet music every time I looked down. Fortunately, I’ve been developing a sense of where the various chords and keys live on the keyboard and the ability to track where my hands currently are on that keyboard. This feels like a very important skill, as it will allow me to keep my eyes glued to the sheet music and not lose my place. Of course, when learning new pieces, esp. with unfamiliar chords or large gaps between notes, I’ll need to look at the keyboard as I begin learning those pieces, but as I become more comfortable with each piece, I should learn to play it without looking down at the keyboard. And my sense of where my hands are positioned relative to the keys should continue improving. Great athletes don’t need to look at the goal to shoot the puck or kick the ball because they know exactly how they’re positioned on the field and exactly where the goal is, so they can focus intently on how they strike the puck/ball. Playing piano well seems to requires developing a similar intuition about where one’s hands are relative to the keyboard at all times. I’ve developed an (imperfect) system for learning a new song. I try to figure out my fingering early and write down numbers on the score telling me which right-hand finger to use whenever there’s ambiguity and which left-hand chord inversion to use. I previously waited longer to work out the fingerings but eventually realized how important it is to practice identically each time, which I can only do once I figure our which fingering to use. With appreciation to Dolo Iglesias for their photo on Unsplash ...

I read quite a few books in 2023, mostly as audiobooks while making coffee, taking long walks, doing laundry, raking leaves, watering the lawn, showering, washing dishes, preparing lunch, brushing my teeth, shoveling snow (ominously little of that these past several winters!), etc. I sometimes even enjoy watching sports – mostly condensed soccer match highlights from around Europe – with the sound off while listening to an audiobook. You can find a lot of time to “read” if you put audiobooks (or podcasts) on your phone (which you can likely borrow for free from your local library!) and seize the many opportunities that arise when your brain is only half occupied with simple tasks/chores. ...

In June, I committed to practicing piano at least fifteen minutes a day for the rest of my life. Here are a few new recordings for anyone curious how quickly a middle-aged man can learn piano with non-intensive daily practice. Georgia On My Mind Sweet Georgia Brown Fly Me to the Moon My previous update (Christmas songs) ...

I’m blessed to live in a safe, walkable town with plenty of trees, good sidewalks, a pretty downtown, and several lovely parks. I used to jog frequently and play squash, but I’ve grown lazier. I now enjoy long walks. On days I’m too busy working, I’ll often walk late at night around our local middle school because it’s nearby and has good lighting. (I occasionally see deer, foxes, and bunnies!) ...

Six months ago, I bought a Yamaha DGX-670 – which I’m very happy with – and committed to spending 15+ minutes a day for the rest of my life learning piano. As I explained in Never Stop Learning… Slowly; Old dog learning new tricks in small, daily steps: I’ve said many times that I’ll die regretting I never learned to play jazz. After hearing myself say that one too many times, I decided to do something about it. I have too many other things I love and want to do to spend hours a day becoming a musician, but I decided I could set aside 15 or 30 minutes a day for the rest of my life to learn piano. ...

[Jerry Seinfeld told me] the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. ...