Reflection/Conclusion

I am very happy about the decision to take piano this semester, It had been a while since I practiced piano and I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to continue a useful skill.  I learned about the all-emcopassing skill of reading sheet music (something that I had put off) which will will (and has) serve me later in life both in piano and any other music I aspire towards.
Something else that I did not consider initially, but actually turned into a huge help was the public performance, and interestingly enough I was far less nervous during the final performance in front of everyone than I was during the midterm in front of maybe a dozen people. If I ever have to perform either musically or in any other sense, I think I will be very thankful having taken this class.
Taking this class made me remember how much I love music, and I'm very happy to be playing piano again, and at the prospect of being able to read sheet music.  I learned coordination, dedication, memorization, interpretation, and new methods and critiques such as using the pedal, which is something I had never done before. I'm definitely planning on continuing piano, both privately and at Marist.

Reflection

I definitely enjoyed taking piano this semester. I was enrolled in the Beginner Piano I class and I had never played piano before in my life. Piano was difficult for me the first time playing.  It took a while to memorize all the notes and be able to read and play at the same time. This class taught me the basics on how to play piano. What makes for great improvement is practicing a lot. After playing for a while the notes get easier to memorize and you are able to play faster. A major advantage of this class was the small class sizes. I think grouping individuals by skill helped with the learning process. A negative of the class was the short class periods. Practicing at home helps but having others there to  point out what you need to work on helps. I enjoyed both the midterm and final recital. I never played in front of an audience before and it was great to experience that. I definitely want to learn a lot more when it comes to playing. There are a lot of different symbols and terms that I don't know of when reading music. I would also like to learn how to incorporate the foot pedal when playing. I look forward to playing more and taking the next level of this class. Overall, I enjoyed taking this class and believe I learned a lot.

Final Reflection

Learning to play piano for the first time, overall was a really amazing experience. I am planning to take beg. piano II next semester and I'm really looking forward to that. One of the fundamental lessons that this class taught me is that practice really makes perfect, this was always visible, when we had the practice mid-term or final, because I would make sure I practice my piece several times before playing it in front of the class. The other two useful things that playing the piano taught me was to strengthen my memorization skills, just being able to remember by memory what sound and note to play. And lastly it is being very patient, especially when I feel like I am always messing up towards the end, when I walked away from the piece for a couple days, and would come back to it, it was always easier to play it. So in conclusion, I learned a great amount about a new instrument, and about myself, looking forward to learning more next semester.

Conclusion

This class has really helped me gain the ability to play piano. I am very happy with my progress this year and I intend on playing in the future. I would very much like to learn some pieces such a Claire de Lune and moonlight sonata, and I will continue to look for new pieces to learn. This class definitely taught me how to play piano and made it fun by allowing me to choose my own pieces. Overall, this class was very effective and I look forward to improving my piano skills in the future.

Here is the second video as referred to in my previous post. this is from a few minutes before the recital.

Here is one of the videos from my first practice, as referred to in my previous post.

My Reflections on BG Piano I & II

Hello all,

I wanted to thank Professor L. Natalie for all of her help in these two course. I have had a great time and learned more piano than I could have ever imagined. It was very nice having the professor keep me on track and remind me to be playing from the sheet music and not from how I think the song should sound. It was difficult for me to keep up with the required song amount, which is pretty silly. The professor only requires two songs for the semester, one for the midterm and one for the final. She did keep me on track through and allowed me to submit my song title late (Thanks!)... For my final post I would like to share two videos of me playing the piece. I played this piece much better in the videos than at the recital. Enjoy!! And thanks all!