Journal Entry 23

Journal Entry 23
December 1, 2008
Well, I am kind of idle, with all of the insane amount of studying for midterms that I have to do; I have barely had time to do anything, but I have still kept up with practicing all of my old songs. But I definitely haven’t had time to work on my transposition of Fur Elise, I plan to do a lot of the work over Christmas break, I will have a lot of extra time then to do it. So I have really enjoyed practicing all of my Christmas songs, especially with Christmas less than a month away. So its been kind of weird, like more than two weeks ago, I went for my lesson on Monday instead of Wednesday which was fine, but I didn’t know if that was a permanent change, so Allie told me that she would call me and tell me when my next lesson was, that was over two weeks ago and I haven’t heard a peep, and because of this, I haven’t gone to my lesson, because I don’t know when to go, so I don’t really know what’s up with that, but ill just keep trucking away on Fur Elise and start the transposition after mid-terms, hopefully I can get a hold of Allie before then.

Journal Entry 24

Journal Entry 24
December 22, 2008
I am STILL working on Fur Elise, but I think I am in the home stretch of it. But I discovered that my piano has preset songs in it, one of which is Fur Elise, so I have been listening to it, trying to perfect my timing. I also have picked my new song, it is called Traumerei by Schumann, it is only a two page song but it is a really great song, I will probably start it after the break. Also I plan to start working on my transposition again in a couple of days since I have the break. I was supposed to have piano practice today but my teacher has the flu so I guess it just gives me another week to practice Fur Elise. Also I am thinking about what I should do for my presentation in January, Mr. Eckerson said I should do something to involve the audience but honestly I can’t think of a way to include anyone that hasn’t played the piano before, I am not a piano teacher. I will keep thinking about it though, I mean I know that I will play a little bit for the presentation and I will talk about my process of learning piano but I am not sure if that is enough.

Journal 22 November 17th

Okay so Christmas is right around the corner now, so I have decided to take on a couple of fun Christmas songs, to help me calm down after drugging my way through Fur Elise; it certainly isn’t perfect yet, but I am getting there, I still need to work on the ridiculous block, but I think I have the chromatic scale down pat, and I need to work on the timing of the chords. I keep thinking that it is 4:4 timing instead of 3:8 timing which keeps messing me up. So my simple Christmas songs are from my level one book, I am not trying to stress myself too much, and more importantly I don’t want to go out and buy a new song book, so I am doing Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls, I am still keeping up with silent night and I wish you a merry Christmas. So those are some pretty fun songs to be able to play around the holidays, I play so much now that I am starting to annoy my family, especially since I got my new piano. I am dreading transposing Fur Elise, I guess I have had it pretty easy throughout my senior project because playing piano is so fun and even theory has its moments but actually sitting down and transposing something is real work, especially with a song

Journal Entry 21

Journal Entry 21
November 3, 2008
I think I have finally worked my way through that ridiculous part of Fur Elise, it may not be perfect yet but I can definitely play through it. However, I have hit another snag in my project with the written part. I just think it is beyond my knowledge to be able to transpose Fur Elise, first I found out that it was in A Minor not C Major and I don’t want to do it at all if it isn’t right, but then I tried to switch it to E Minor yesterday and I just couldn’t figure it out. I think I should either switch my written document to something completely different or just change it to a different song. But my dad got me this amazing new digital baby grand piano so; I pretty much haven’t stopped playing at all since I got it. I also worked a little bit with Sean tonight on the stuff we are supposed to perform in march, I hope I am up to it, it doesn’t seem like really difficult stuff but ya never know. Also I am picking up a couple little songs along the way, Believe from the Polar Express and Somewhere Over the Rainbow, two pretty epic sounding songs that I have always wanted to play, they are like my stress relief songs, whereas Fur Elise is my work song.

Senior Exhibit Journal

Journal Entry 1

January 22^nd, 2008

I went back and forth for a long time contemplating what the focus of my project would be. I really love science so I thought maybe I could do something to do with science. Especially since I already had a couple of summer studies that I had applied for that had to do with science. But at the same time my mentor advised me that since I would be doing science and medicine in college for the next eight years that I should try something new. I have always wanted to learn how to play the piano. I have never really been able to play an instrument and my brain is always so focused on academic work that I think it would be great to switch my brain to music every once in a while. Also piano is the kind of hobby that you can do for the rest of your live. I had to think a lot about this decision; it’s a pretty huge deal. The biggest school project that I will probably ever do. I wanted something that I could really deal with for 18 months and I already knew I liked science. But I had no idea how I was going to like piano. I looked up a couple of piano schools and a couple private people who teach out of their homes. I left a message at the Yamaha music school downtown and I plan on calling the rest of the people in the next few days. So my outline of a plan is to start taking lessons around February. Then I will keep taking the lessons over the summer. My application will be something along the lines of a recital. My written document will be one of a couple options, a composition (if I get good enough), a research paper on one of my favorite composers, a research paper on one of my favorite types of piano playing or time periods or an introductory manual of piano.

Journal Entry 2

January 28^th, 2008

I have chosen Mrs. Garcia as my mentor and I have also scheduled a meeting with a piano teacher this Saturday at 12:30, her name is Miss Goldstein. My cousin has been taking piano lessons from her for about five years now. I’m pretty sure that she is the teacher I am going to chose, I talked to her over the phone and she seemed really cool. I think I am really starting to get excited about learning to play the piano. I think that this is a hobby that I can carry with me and do for the rest of my life. I am really looking forward to practicing at home when I get home from school. I have to schedule to get my piano tuned up and I’ll probably get a keyboard for my room so I can get the feel of both a real piano and a keyboard. I am probably going to prefer the actual piano; I have always preferred the sound of a real piano to the sound of a keyboard. I finally had my first lesson, it was so great! I learned about beats and notes and Miss Goldstein sent me home with some homework to learn the beats and notes and to attempt to play my first song. I am so psyched that I picked to play piano as my project. I actually learned how to play the beginning of ODE to JOY from the book but I wanted to go at her pace so I didn’t tell her. I play the song constantly as I pass my dining room. I love to play piano it is just so great to come how and not only listen to music but be able to listen to music that I am playing. So tomorrow (February 11, 2008) I am going to meet with Mrs. Garcia to go over what happened at my lesson so that she is up to speed on how I am doing. I also wanted to say in this log that these logs in general have already started to sneak up on me. I didn’t even realize that the second one was supposed to be done already; I can’t believe it has already been a month!

Journal Entry 3

February 16^th, 2008

Just today I have had my second official piano lesson with Mrs. Goldstein. Well it would be an extreme understatement to say that this one was a lot harder than the last one. It was so intense, the first lessons was just about learning the names of the notes and the beats (which I still haven’t mastered yet). But today was crazy, I was learning how to almost play complete short songs. But that wasn’t even the hardest part; I have never played piano and thus have not understood what a chord was. A chord is when you play three notes at the same time with one hand while playing something different with the other. Well, it is a lot harder than it sounds and it sounds pretty hard to begin with. So, just as I think I have hit the end of the difficult part of the lesson I am proven wrong. I was then taught how to play/practice scales. Well, I would explain scales and I’m going over it in my mind and I still don’t completely understand it. Scales are the most ridiculous culmination of everything to learn in piano and this is what I have to practice for the rest of the week. I pride myself on being a pretty quick typist comparatively speaking, and I am barely able to move my hands after I played piano today, it was like a legitimate workout! However, just because this is getting a little difficult I am still really excited that I picked this for my senior project; I really think this is the kind of thing I am going to do as long as I live. But I am also really relieved I got a nice head start on this project, I mean some people haven’t even picked their topic yet, I can’t even imagine! But even all of the people that picked their topic haven’t done anything and it has been a month and a half out of an 18 month project. So, basically, I am a little intimidated but still psyched and now I am instructed to play 4, 15 minute sections per day until my next practice. So basically by then my hands will either be dead or able to lift a building.

Journal Entry 4

March 3^rd, 2008

I feel like I am actually starting to make some real progress just after a month of practice. I practice piano pretty much every night for about thirty minutes if my homework isn’t insane. I have also, for the most part conquered the C major scale and I’m getting pretty fast at it! But now that I am barely finished with the C major scale, I am now moving on to the G major scale which is pretty much the same thing just starts at a different place and has some different chords. I have also noticed that my hands are getting a little bit stronger and faster and used to playing piano, not like a pro or anything but I think my progress in only a month is pretty awesome. I am also able to read the treble clef notes really easily but the bass clef is taking me a little bit longer because the pneumonics aren’t as easy. She also says that in about five months that she is going to give me a huge ridiculous piece from a different book, I just can’t imagine at this point being able to play piano that good. Piano even helps me relax now, I mean if I have a lot of homework and need a break I just switch my brain and play piano. I really feel that this is going to be one of those skills that I can do and enjoy for the rest of my life.

Journal Entry 5

March 12^th, 2008

I just had another great piano lesson over the weekend. My teacher introduced me to the D major scale, but I also still have to perfect the G major and the C major scales pretty soon. She told me that I would start an actual piece in a new book pretty soon. So I decided to look and see what pieces were in it. I was looking through and I found silent night, I have always wanted to play that song on piano. So I decided to play what I could, just to get a little head start. At first it was a little difficult to read the notes in silent night, but after a while I got the hang of it. I think it was really good to just read and apply what I have learned on my own. I got stuck on one measure for about a day but I finally cracked it last night. Therefore, after two days of learning how to play silent night, I am able to do it. My teacher will probably be pretty surprised. I am really happy on how quickly I am learning the piano, I would never have dreamed that I would be able to read music and play a whole song after only two months. Anyway, from here I will probably perfect the silent night piece, practice all of my scales, C major, G major and D major. I also have some pretty simple warm ups that I work on. I am really excited to show my piano teacher that I have learned this piece. I am really proud of myself that I learned it all on my own, without any help, in two nights. Now all there is to do on the song is just work on the beats, my speed and make it flow right without any pauses. But as far as the notes and beats are concerned, I think I am learning them pretty well, the treble clef is easy to remember, and it’s the bass clef I sometimes have trouble with.

Journal Entry 6

March 30, 2008

Okay, so it’s been a while since I’ve written a log. First of all I now know all of my major scales, I just learned the F major scale and that’s the last one. So I have pretty much perfected silent night and it’s a pretty quick easy song. I really like being able to play silent night, as I said in my last log I’ve always wanted to be able to play it. So the major thing that I have done since the last log is learned Fur Elise. Fur Elise is a song written by Beethoven and he wrote it for a countess that he was in love with, Elise thus Fur aka For in German and Elise so For Elise. At first she just gave me the first couple measures to do, but I went ahead and learned the whole first page. I just couldn’t stop playing it, it actually wasn’t that hard to site read and it is the first pro piece that I’ve done. So at this point I am able to get through the whole song pretty much. Once I was able to get through the whole song, which was yesterday my teacher taught me about dynamics, which is about like how loud or quiet you play it I guess. So now that I am able to get through the whole song I am working on the dynamics of it, and keeping in mind that it was supposed to be a love song. She says now that I have Fur Elise down pat that I am going to learn a little more theory and then get on a new piece.

Journal Entry 7

April 16, 2008

I am still practicing piano everyday. I usually start by playing silent night and Fur Elise because I like to hear them and they are also good warm ups. Since I had my surgery last week I wasn’t able to practice for a whole week and I missed a lesson. But my teacher knew about it beforehand so she just gave me a bunch of random unimportant stuff to practice. She said that when I get all healed up and by this Saturday she is going to give me a new piece. I am really excited about that, she gave me a bunch of theory stuff to practice but I prefer the pieces much more like Fur Elise, I like to be able to play something that sounds awesome rather than just scales. But I also have to learn the scales because those are the basis of all piano playing, so I really should practice those more. But my teacher told me that I was a concert type person more than a theory person and she was okay with that. Mrs. Allie said that I would probably like something from Chopin but I was also thinking about something Jazzy since I just did a classical piece.

Journal Entry 8

May 1, 2008

O my goodness things are going so great, I am still practicing everyday. I got my new book about a week ago; it’s basically all of the piano songs from Lord of the Rings. Its great because there is this one song in there called In Dreams; it has such a great tune to it. I just love listening to the song; I am starting to get it down. I have the first page of it, sort of down pat. But I will see my teacher tomorrow and I will see how I am doing on things. I probably have not been practicing my scales as much as I should but I am still moving at a pretty good pace, I mean this will be my third legitimate song when I am done, Fur Elise, Silent Night and now In Dreams. I mean I have never been really exposed to music before, it is just so incredible it is like this piece of my life that I should have had all along. It just relaxes me so much to sit at the piano and practice, in fact my break from my ridiculous amount of homework is playing the piano.

Journal Entry 9

May 14, 2008

Wow, things are getting a little harder. My teacher sent me home last week with a huge amount of homework, basically since I did so well with the first page of IN DREAMS that she thought I could just finish it. Well I think that since this was so overwhelming that I could barely do any of it. However I did learn the scale formula of tone tone semitone, tone tone tone semitone. So now I can make my own scales and chords. She is also getting me to be able to play this short thing in seven different keys. But IN dreams didn’t go as well as planned, but on Saturday I told her my situation with AP exams and she was completely cool about it and told me that we would go a little slower with the song. So she sent me home and told me just to perfect the first and second page and make it sound smooth and that we would deal with the last page later. But I have been playing the grand piano in the theater a couple times since the last log. It just sounds so much better on the grand piano than mine at home. But from here I’m just going to keep practicing the way I should and do my best.

Journal Entry 10

May 26, 2008

Okay so not much has changed since the last log. I pretty much have the second page of In Dreams down but the third page is proving to be pretty difficult. My teacher says that whenever I finish this song that I will move on to whichever Billy Joel song I like the most, which is New York State of Mind. It is much different from anything I have played it is a much more jazzy piece. My teacher told me during my lesson that I need to practice my scales more so I guess Ill do that this week. But I am definitely going to have a hard time balancing my English homework and my piano homework. But I am still having a lot of fun with the piano, I am just a little stressed because school is almost over and my teachers are killing me with work especially English. But I went to the Senior Exhibit meeting the other night and saw all of the seniors with their finished projects. I have yet to really choose what type of thing I am going to do for my written assignment. My teacher says that it would be cool if I transposed one of the songs I learned into a bunch of different keys.

Journal Entry 11

June 9, 2008

Okay so I did finally manage to finish In Dreams, I am still practicing but my teacher has said that I am able to move on. I am moving on with New York State of Mind by Billy Joel, I have been working on it for about a week now and it is pretty great. It is just such a different sound, like I said it is much more jazz in it, sometimes the notes that follow don’t even sound right but I guess that is what makes jazz, jazz. Last week I pretty much perfected the first two pages, now I am moving on to the rest, it repeats a lot so I have to keep all of the different parts straight, it isn’t just laid out in front of you like in In Dreams. Mrs. Allie also has me working on a bunch of theory stuff, theory is okay but I much prefer the songs, she told me to transpose a couple of things before our next session. I think for my written piece she wants me to transpose one of my songs into a bunch of different keys. I think that would be kind of cool and it would give a new sound to my old songs.

Journal Entry 12

June 26, 2008

Well quite a bit has changed since my last journal entry. First of all I am having a little trouble staying on task and practicing due to my excitement of the summer. Well I have pretty much gotten New York State of Mind down pat but I think I still have a couple kinks to work out; however my teacher assigned me a new song already. It is Piano Man and it is also by Billy Joel. I am able to slowly play the first two pages of the song and it is a pretty great song so I just need to keep up with my past songs and work out the kinks in my two Billy Joel songs. Mrs. Allie has suggested that I record a CD at a recording studio. Honestly this is really amazing to me since I have never played an instrument before now and certainly never dreamed of recording my own CD. She has also come up with a pretty awesome idea for a written document which is to transpose (which I can do now) the full version of Fur Elise by Beethoven in the 7 major keys, it sounds pretty hard but I think I could probably knock it out in a couple of weeks. I still have so much time to do my project and yet I feel like I have accomplished so much. Most of my friends haven’t even started their projects yet, I really do enjoy playing the piano like I have written before, and this is something I can take with me for the rest of my life. But my teacher has been kind of pushing me pretty hard lately (probably because I am slacking), I guess it’s just because it’s the beginning of the summer and I want to relax a little but she has also been pushing a lot of music theory work my way like transposing. I do trust her when she says that I have to learn theory in order to be a “well rounded musician”, it’s funny a couple of months ago I would never have thought myself as a musician.

Journal Entry 13

July 10, 2008

It has been about a week and a half since I went to my piano lesson because my teacher went on vacation, but the main thing that she sent me home with was to work on making piano man my own. It’s like how hard or soft you play it depending on the different parts on the song. I am actually having a lot of trouble with this because when she played it, it sounded just how Billy Joel plays it but when it play I just don’t hear it that way. But I do really love the song, I play it all the time, even on my way to the kitchen I usually just sit down and play it through a couple of times. I still have to go by the music store and pick up the full version of Fur Elise so I can start transposing it. That is probably going to take a while but there is no rush, school hasn’t even started yet. I also really have to think about this recording thing she was talking about, she is pretty serious about it, but I’m just not sure if I’m good enough to play like that, but then again I will probably regret it if I don’t do it, there is really no harm in doing it. Well I should probably go work on my older songs because I have kind of forgotten them since I play Piano Man so much. It’s so funny that I am actually having trouble typing when I can usually type about 80 words a minute because my fingers are so used to piano keys.

Journal Entry 14

July 24, 2008

Because I went to the beach I ended up having to go to my piano lesson early which went great. My teacher gave the okay on Piano Man so now it’s on to a new song, I chose to stay with Billy Joel because his songs have been awesome so far so why not keep going. I chose Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel; it is a much softer sounding song than Piano Man or New York State of Mind. I still have yet to pick up the full version of Fur Elise from the music store, but I still have plenty of time, I should probably do it in the next couple of days though. But Piano Man is still going great I think I am finally starting to hear the actual song somewhere in there. But I found out at my last lesson that she wants me to play at one of her recitals, I have yet to tell her but I honestly don’t think that I am ready for that sort of thing yet. I mean it would be good experience for the panel but I have only been playing for like four months and I don’t think that is enough to be playing at a recital.

Journal Entry 15

August 6, 2008

My piano lesson today was pretty productive, my teacher and I worked out the kinks of Just the Way You Are, so that should be done pretty soon. I also bought the full version of Fur Elise yesterday so I could start transposing it for my written document. Mrs. Allie wants me to learn to play the full version before I start transposing it. So I guess once I am done with Just the Way You Are I will move onto the full version of Fur Elise. My teacher is also having a recital on the 23^rd at the Rappahannock library which is really convenient because that is where and about when I am going to have one of my SAT classes. She wants me to play like three songs so I guess I am going to choose Just the Way You Are, Piano Man and I am deciding between New York State of Mind and In Dreams. I would have to polish off In Dreams; I haven’t practiced the ending in a while. Of course because of my vacation I had my lesson on a Wednesday instead of a Saturday so now my class is in like two days I have a lot to do.

Journal Entry 16

August 20, 2008

I just had my piano practice today and it went great. My recital is this Saturday and I’m pretty nervous, I haven’t ever preformed in front of a group like this with the exception of two times. I guess a few awesome things have happened since my last entry, first of all I went to Missouri and saw this guy David Lomascola play piano, it was pretty amazing but then he asked me to come on stage and play his $650,000 piano! It was insane. And this last Saturday I had my lesson right before the younger kids’ recital so I just stayed to hear them play. And while we were waiting for this kid’s grandparents to arrive Mrs. Allie asked me to play the piano to entertain the guests and get a little mock recital, it was awesome. So right now I’m still trucking away on practicing my recital songs so they are perfect by Saturday . They are pretty good but I still got a couple places where the tempo slows down where it shouldn’t I guess but I’ll keep working on it.

Journal Entry 17

September 3, 2008

Wow, okay so I’ve had my recital since my last entry, I am my own worst critic so I think that I messed up piano man a little and I missed a key in; In Dreams but all in all I think that it went pretty well. I mean it was pretty exhausted, it’s pretty surprising how much of a cardio workout playing the piano for so long is. I was also so tired because like an hour before the recital I took an SAT and woo that really tired me out. But we got it on video tape so that will be something I incorporate into my presentation in the spring. Mrs. Garcia my senior exhibit mentor was there and she said she really enjoyed it so that was cool. Also she told the new drama teacher and the drama teacher asked me today if I would be the accompany pianist for all of the drama productions this year, which was awesome of course, I’m not really sure if I’m good enough for anything like that but I’ll see I guess. It’s also been forever since my last lesson, since the recital was on my usual lesson day and I went to visit UVA last Saturday it’s been like over two weeks since I’ve gone to my lesson. But since I got bored between lessons I learned a new little short song all on my own, it’s a song from LOST which I’m thrilled about because LOST is my favorite show ever. So I guess I’ll have my lesson tomorrow afternoon and I’ll have a new song to surprise Allie with.

Journal Entry 18

September 17, 2008

I am still working on learning the ins and outs of the full version of Fur Elise. I am not going to lie this is one of the hardest songs I have done so far, when you get to the second page the whole song changes but I am actually able to get through the whole song but not in the speed that I would like. I just had my lesson and she was pretty pleased with my dynamics of the song like softness wise. I am also still practicing all of my old songs, but I am getting back into theory which after so much performance is actually pretty cool, like I have learned a lot of the basic theory stuff just by playing so it’s pretty easy. So I am going to use all of that theory stuff in order to transpose Fur Elise in all of the seven major keys for my written document. I also am thinking about changing my written document. It was so funny all week I was thinking about changing my written document to writing my own song instead of transposing one. Then I went to my lesson and I didn’t say anything about it but Allie brought it up and I was like “yea that would be totally awesome” it was just amazing how we were kind of on the same wavelength without me saying anything about it. But if I did changed my written document I would be much less work/time intensive but it would be much more difficult. Because of the nature of writing songs it’s not really about the time you spend on it but the ideas you put into it. So I would have to think a lot more for writing a song rather than transposing always coming up with little parts and adding it to the whole.

Journal Entry 19

October 2, 2008

I just had my lesson yesterday night, we worked for a while, and Allie pretty much walked me through the basics of transposing. So I am going to start transposing Fur Elise from the key of Major C to Major D this week. I have to look out for small things like writing the notes too big or I won’t have any space left, it’s just small things like that, that will trip me up, so I look out for that stuff. So I also am still working on being able to play the full version of Fur Elise, I am slowly but surely getting through one really tough measure, the notes are just so fast I am having trouble playing both hands together that fast. She also gave me the sheet music to Somewhere Over the Rainbow, so that will be a fun little side thing I’ll do this week. So basically this is the beginning of my written document and I spoke to Mr. Eckerson about possibly having a recital in school, in addition to my February recital.

Journal Entry 20

October 16, 2008

I am going to have my lesson tonight. I have been working slowly but surely on transposing Fur Elise into D Major. However, I found out that Fur Elise isn’t actually in C Major, it is in A Minor, I was fooled because it has the same key signature and same sharps and flats. But Miss Allie assured me that it was fine and that I don’t have to worry about relative minor keys, something about the rule of 5ths, basically stuff that goes way over my head. So eventually I will learn that stuff but not for now. I played Piano Man in the talent show during spirit week, which was pretty fun stuff. I guess Sean, Danny and I are going to do some kind of performance in March, I don’t really know the details of it yet, and those guys can play guitar and bass guitar pretty well so I’ll have to practice a lot to keep up. I am still working on Fur Elise, there is just this one part that is insanity, I guess that’s why Beethoven is still so famous, because it takes a genius to play half of his stuff.