Hello from Finland!

Hiya!
One more Scandiavian wannabe pianist has entered the forum, let me introduce myself to y'all.

My name is Marika, I'm 26 y/o hag from Finland. Andrew's amazing vids brought me here, special thanks to Andrew for the lessons -you really know what you're doing!
I have a quite annoying thing going on with my keyboard.. well actually with my playing and I think it's time to do something about it. That's why I'm here.

I got my first keyboard for Christmas 20 years ago, felt in love with it. And since we're talking about late 80's, it had 4 octaves, no dynamics, few basic tones and rhythms.. It was like my extra limb for 15 years, and I hope it's still alive since I gave it away to my nieces! Five years ago I finally purchased new one, all these years I've been dreaming about having a piano but actually only for last two years I've had a change to get one fit in my livingroom-but because of the new house I just can't afford a (good) piano yet.

I took couple of years organ playing lessons but had to stop them for couple of reasons: Lessons were too expensive and I found them a bit boring.
Basically what I learned was few chords and reading treble clef and counting four or three. Wow.
I had (have) a bad habit to be too eager player and my teacher got quite frustrated with me, I hated boring tones I had to use, playing was on it's wildest pretty much Dan-Daa with LH on two and on four and RH played (slowly) boring melody.. all this great stuff was naturally played with "flute" which sounded like.. I don't know what it sounded like but not flute anyway. (I was 7 years old when I started and wanted to play piano, not some damn fake flute..)
After couple of years and three boring books I quit taking the lessons, there was a tragedy in my family which cut pretty much everything non-necessary from our lives and I started to play my lil toy on my own -the way I wanted to.

It has been a quite journey. I play mostly by hearing, Over 10 years has passed by when I didn't even look at the sheet music and now I want to learn it. I've been playing anyway if not daily, then at least weekly keyboard since I started. Only in my teens there was couple of months when I couldn't play my own kb and then I went and drove the local piano store owner nuts.

Things that I've NEVER done in my long playing 'career' are playing scales, believe it or not. I know the scales, but I've never paid any attention to them and same thing with fingering. My teacher never told me how to read bass clef, thanks to Andrew's vid I realized memorizing them is actually very simple ..I just need to tell that to my fingers who just wants to fly free and my eyes which just attends to skip bass clef and concentrate on chord names.

My biggest problems are:
-Keeping up tempo, I just get faster and faster and faster when the song goes on.
-Reading sheets.
-Poor knowledge of theory, I really know how to do something but I have no idea WHAT I'm doing and it makes learning bit difficult.
-Many years playing wrong, basically I should try to forget everything I "know" and start all over again. Feels impossible!

My current keyboard is a low budget Casio (WK3000) with 76 full sized keys, which is ok if you ignore the plastic sound it has -tones are a bit plastic (but pretty good for the price) and the noise the keys make while being pushed is horrible: Dhong-dhong-dhong-slam-Tick-Tack. I ordered a sustain pedal just couple of days ago and can't wait to get it under my foot.. I don't know why it took so long me to get one, anyway I think it's good to have it at this point, makes practicing more interesting when there's actually something I can learn to do for first time.

This forum seems to be full of super talented people, last night I just watched and listened your performances with a "little" amount of jealosy in my head, You people are fantastic! I'm sure if anyone can ever help me on my journey it's you, Cheers!

Wow, that was a long and good introduction
Welcome to the forum

Welcome Marika ! Feel free to check out my performance topic, and my Piano guide in General Piano discussion, and feel free to ask any questions you're curious about. Greetings from your neighbour Sweden.

Good introduction
Welcome Marika ..

You'll find Playing very Easy with Andrew's Vid's & the Forum Support ..

Welcome Marika ! We're glad to have you here! Be sure to post lots! Ask questions and post your own performances when you're ready

Thanks guys for your warm welcomes!

I got my sustain pedal just under an hour ago and my leg is on pain already. I think I need to adjust the height of my kb and learn to relax my foot, that new toy of mine gives a nice touch for my playing and I think I'm already in love with the effect(s) it gives.. but it will take a loong time to learn not to over use it.. Haha.

I might give you some samples of my playing some day, sure I could give you one right now, but I feel embarrassed so I think I'll pass for now.

I've been reading and studying this forum (and Blake Neely's book called "Piano For Dummies" -things are well explained with lot of humour!) all over again, surprisingly this whole thing makes more sense written in English than if I tried to study from Finnish sources. Still no progress to mention, I've been waiting this pedal to appear and now I have it and I guess I ran out of excuses and should start to do something about my problems.

OH MY GOD!
Tervehdys kansalainen!
Hienoo nähdä muitakin suomalaisia täällä :D

Hey!! well now that you've got a pedal you should also get a metronome if you don't already have one.

you said these are your problems?

My biggest problems are:
-Keeping up tempo, I just get faster and faster and faster when the song goes on.
-Reading sheets.
-Poor knowledge of theory, I really know how to do something but I have no idea WHAT I'm doing and it makes learning bit difficult.
-Many years playing wrong, basically I should try to forget everything I "know" and start all over again. Feels impossible!

to keep your tempo get a metronome use it ALL THE TIME maybe for a month. Also learn baroque music written by Bach. My piano lesson #40 has some pieces in the grade 2 and 3 and 4 section you could check out.

to read sheets, it simply just takes practise. If you set aside 30 minutes every day to practise reading sheet music, by maybe starting with flash cards and then working your way up to playing notes on the flash cards, then doing basic sight reading. In no time at all you'd be able to read faster than you might think.

To learn more theory, it's pretty simple fix. get a theory book and my videos explain some theory. There's other stuff out there of course as well, also if you can't find an answer don't be afraid to ask away. ^_^ We'll do what we can to help

Don't worry so much about having to relearn anything. If I had to give you any advice, i'd say you need to slow down and build a foundation before you try to go up levels first. Enjoy every moment even if it's learning a scale or how to read sheet music, this will help you so much.

Hehe.. Its only been 6months since he was on the forum

whoa... i shoulda looked... ^_^ *embarrassed*

I almost forgot that I've registered here, thank gosh for my bookmarks I found my way back here again, and didn't even lose my password. So, here I am again, and this time I try not to forget you guys!

Thanks for your tips Andrew, I don't have a metronome but i've been using my keyboard's rhythms which has helped me alot with my tempo problem. Another thing that obviously helps me is just trying to feel the music and not just try to hit right keys, you all must know what I'm talking about. I'm still too eager, but now I know when to back down and find the tempo again, the fact I play mostly metal songs are just too easy to get lost in the groove.. or something.

About sheet music, I still can't read bass clef (at all), I know it's easy and I know how it works but my f*n brain just black's out every time I try it, with melody I don't have any problems but I'm just so used to read the chord marks (and improvise), so any real piano sheets gives me a huge headache, -thanks for my "organ playing" history.
Good for me I can learn almost any song by hearing quite fast (have doing it for ever), it's not sheet reading, and I still want to learn it, but well.. I don't know.

I just love the pedal, I don't know how I ever survived without it before. I might overkick it, but I enjoy it more and more with every kick!
I'd say my playing took a huge step with pedal, using the rhythms and by watching your vids of course (and browsing this forum) helped me a lot to understand what I'm doing, only the sheet music frustrates me.

I'm (again) saving for digital piano, usually my savings just disappears from my account for "more important" things (what could be more important, well.. ask my fiance. ). I think next year might be THE year. We'll see about that.

PS. I'm She, not he.

PPS. Moi vaan AnimeCrazy, pitäisiköhän tätä paikkaa mainostaa muillekin suomalaisille pimputtelijoille kukaties?

Kyllä pitäis alkaa mainostamaan