So when it comes to my new hobby, in my last blog post I wrote about how I had managed to start playing piano again after a 20+ year break. I had managed to start playing the instrument after hearing a piece of music that was so beautiful and compelling to me.
Indeed, once I heard J. Halvorsen composition 'Passacaglia' almost a month ago, I started practicing it every day. I had a solid practice routine (three times a day) that allowed me to learn the song rather fast, even though skill-wise I had to start almost from zero.
Not surprisingly, after I learned to play 'Passacaglia', the next question was would I keep practicing and would I have the motivation to keep going. Would I be able to learn to play stuff like 'La La Land', that I happened to mention in the article.
Fortunately, when it comes to what has happened during the last few weeks, I have some good news to share. As it happened, I did continue practicing and did learn to play 'Mia & Sebastian's' theme from 'La La Land', even though I had some setbacks too.
Learning-wise, the biggest challenge was that during the first two weeks of September, I had limited opportunities to practice. I had previously practiced at my parent's place and once they came back from their summer house, I had no 'free' place to play anymore.
Thankfully, once my dad came back from the farm the second time, he actually brought me an electric keyboard that was stored there. The keyboard, even though cheap and a bit clunky to play with, gave me an opportunity to play whenever I wanted to.
Practice-wise, I noticed rather quickly that I unlike with 'Passacaglia' that I learned with 'synthesia' (program that shows which keys to play) this method didn't work anymore. This time I had to learn to read notes in order to figure things out properly.
Not that surprisingly, at first learning to read notes turned out to be rather painful and frustrating. This was especially the case with the bass clef and the notes that were outside the bar - particularly for an amateur like me who had been on a break.
Another challenge was that unlike with 'Passacaglia', a composition that is pretty simple to memorize, 'Mia & Sebastian's theme' wasn't as basic and repetitive. It was a challenge to do stuff like memorizing more notes, using black keys and using more fingers at the same time.
Fortunately, as I kept diligently practicing every day, I kept progressing rather steadily. I managed to already learn to play the melodic part of the song (played it at school) and have now moved to the 'jazz solo' part of the composition, which will take some additional practice.
In that sense, now that I'm almost ready to start practicing yet another piece of music (probably Pirates of The Caribbean), it can be said that things are going well. I've managed to exceed my expectations, even though things could have gone better too.
After all, when it comes to this whole thing, there's no question that playing piano is hard work and that there are no shortcuts. You have to be able to put in the hours and understand that sometimes in your sessions you feel like you're not making that much progress.
Still, when it all is said and done, in my case, I'm glad that I've managed to keep my practice routine going so well here. I'm happy that I've found the motivation to learn to play the piano again and learn these wonderful melodies that touch my heart.
After all, even though I won't become a professional pianist, that's not a reason to not keep going. I shouldn't be worrying about how good I might eventually become, because in the end, becoming 'great' is not what this whole thing is supposed to be about.
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