This was one with my teacher - he moved me on several weeks ago but I want to keep this one (it’s why I got the book - Faber 4 BigTime Rock n’ Roll). It’s almost there (80-90%?!?!) now I’m working on playing the whole thing (and just keep going if I flub up … which I do here 🤣) and sound good.

Simple Version from Faber Adult Popular Book 1. Always loved this song when it was popular (I think I was in high school). I am pretty much sight reading this, practiced for 5-10 minutes.

I always thought a pianist should know how to play Happy Birthday! I used a Lead Sheet in the key of G to learn this and made a sort of little classical arrangement. I memorized the melody and the chords - I-V7-V7-I etc. so that I can be able to transpose it and play in any key. It was a good fundamental exercise for some things I would like to do in the future. Happy Birthday - Key of G Major

Thomas Frederick Dunhill (1 February 1877 – 13 March 1946) was a prolific English composer in many genres, though he is best known today for his light music and educational piano works. His studies and pieces are never lacking in musical interest, and they still prove to be popular and useful among teachers today. "A Song of Erin" is a lyrical, expressive piano piece by English composer Thomas Dunhill, featured as No. 8 in his First Year Pieces collection. It is a popular, g

I started learning this one years ago, but it was a bit beyond my level at the time. I've revisited it each year to play on May 4th and this year I was finally able to record an entire performance! I still didn't leave enough time to practice it this year, should've started earlier so that the ending was smoother. May the Force Be With You - Star Wars

The English composer Marjorie Helyer wrote many suites for young pianists between the 1950’s and the 1980’s. This piece is taken from ‘The Greenwood Tree’ in which she followed the example of Schumann in composing short pieces that conjure up musical pictures for young people to learn and enjoy. Although this piece is a Grade 1 ABRSM its a little tricky with the hands so close together! For this one I focused on phrasing and lifting between the phrases, no pedal with finger

Fun little pattern based piece learned by rote and memorizing chord pattern. Current by Paula Dreyer

Piano Adventures 3A - Sakura Focus: Clean pedaling Dynamic Contrast Phrasing

Improv is something done on the fly ... but in order to do it, it takes a lot of practice to get to that point. I would consider this exercise "done" now ... I was able to improv a melody over the chord progression and move my right hand around out of a 5-finger position. I will continue to practice improv for this year as one of my main goals. I consider this ability to be part of being an actual pianist and musician ... plus - its FUN! Final progress recording. I practic

I've decided a good plan for going forward in 2026 with piano is to withdraw from Grade 5 class and revisit things I rushed through and never really understood or mastered. I am going to start going through select Grade 1 and 2 pieces and then moving on through Grade 3 and 4. I plan to learn the piece to a fairly decent standard and make recordings to post here on the blog. I am going to review some genres and periods in music and post blogs as I go with some of the inform

I'm not even going to review the list I made at the beginning of the year, because not much got done on that list and it will continue to be a list of goal pieces for the future, probably for the next several years. However, I did learn a lot about how to practice and how to plan and organize goals this year. I also learned that there is a degree of just exploring and having fun that needs to be a part of learning music and playing the piano, its the best way to learn and o

I worked on this piece for quite a long time, about 5-6 months as a technical exercise. I liked the piece and wanted to be able to play it, but was unable to just piece it all together. From Sep-Oct I had a plan to work on it with "stepping stones" and a final goal of a slow tempo, and not completely polished, but able to play musically and with ease. I met the goal! I did work on it diligently for 2 months, working on it every practice session and ironing out all the iss

One goal for 2025 ... only did one pattern in the left hand (goal was play from a lead sheet and arrange left hand with patterns) BUT I...

Where did Summer go? I had all these plans for piano of things to accomplish during the break from Grade 4 to Grade 5 classes. I did...

First version with lead sheet and simple left hand chords.

This was a really interesting exercise, I was able to speed it up quite quickly by listening to the original and singing along. FInal...

Exercise in adjusting the melody to fit the actual rhythm by ear. Will continue working on this to smooth out the rough spots and...

Before I started CPP Grade classes, I started a challenge from PianoTV and never finished it. I'm not going to do it in 30 Days ... I'm...

Enchanted from 24 Days of Music by Nikolas Sideris. We did a few pieces from this work and all of them were really cool, amazing...