introduction

Hey All,

I'm not really up for these things but since I'm lurking around once in a while since some time I figured I'd say Hi. Found Andrew on Youtube when looking at random piano stuff.
I'm a 32 y old (well just 31 for a month or so :p) guy, and recently started learning to play the piano (I'm talking couple of weeks, so a real beginner). Live and work in Budapest, Hungary, I'm working in IT Security for a telecom company.

Usually not a very ambitioned person, really depends. So I just started it and I'm waiting to see where this takes me. I hope I'll enjoy it and do it for a long while (like forever?), after all I was always a bit envy when listening or watching people playing. For some reason it's the instrument I like the most.
It's really confusing for a beginner, well surely for me, there's a lot of stuff on the Internet and I'm not even sure where to start, or what was I supposed to be doing. Hopefully I'll figure it out with time.
For now watched some of Andrew's lessons (first 10 I believe), everything was pretty simple till the chords and circle of 5ths where I got totally lost and no clue even what is it good for or what purpose it serves, but I figured it's probably a bit too soon for me anyway so just gave that part a rest and will go back to it later

Oh, and I also take lessons (just had 1 so far) from a piano teacher, once a week. I think the start is a bit different than for most people since I'm using material made by hungarian musicians / teachers like Bela Bartok or Lajos Papp, simple stuff for now, but I need to get past this slightly boring period :p It's a bit frustrating at first to be honest, there's a few pieces / songs I'd learn but everything "decent for the ear" is like bordering the impossible for now :p but I'll just take my time, do what my teacher tells me, and in a couple of weeks I'll have some of the basics to be able to start "experimenting" a bit more.

Anyway, here's my essay. Congratz for the site Andrew, and for your comeback (read your bio), no one is perfect but you're probably closer to it than most of us :p

cheers

Szia Endre Üdv a fórumon

Glad to read your intro. In my opinion Bartók might be a slightly different way to learn and might be boring but it has consistency at least which most teacher all around the world doesnt really have ( respect for the exceptions of course)
Can I ask exactly what material are you using?

Have a nice day
Maggie

Bartok Bela - Mikrokosmos for piano 1
Papp Lajos - Piano ABC 1

It's 3 language books (hungarian, english, german). This Papp guy is some hungarian piano teacher that teaches in Germany since 73 or so, some Bartok fan it seems, so I guess these books go hand in hand fine.

I think we'll run through these pretty quickly (I assume then I'll take the following books in these series). Well I didn't look at the last parts yet so I don't know but I had some (small and amateur) exposure to music as kid so it was easy to remember note names, note length and notation (like full, half, quarter etc), rhythm (if that's the correct name, you know 2/4, 3/4, those things) and stuff. It's mostly sight reading and technique that's tough, since I never touched a piano before

There's another book we use:
Anton Diabelli - 28 melodic studies

This is for duet actually, no idea how this fits in learning/teaching but on my first class, Saturday, we did play something simple and did sound neat, considering :p Even tho it's just five finger stuff (in beginning at least) I did find some challenge in it, like get stuck somewhere for a few minutes to figure it out ... so all in all wouldn't really call it all that boring.

I really don't know squat about piano and teaching, but to be honest I liked these books, they have some real kid stuff in there sometimes, but what you said about consistency... there's a lot of simple melodies, where they introduce a new concept in each one, they are simple enough for me (so far) to be able to understand and be able to play it in a few tries. I think this will help me remembering the basic theoretical stuff, like what things on sheet music mean, for example.

All in all I'm pretty confident, my teacher is a nice lady 40yo old or so, pretty cheerful and all that so I'm having quite a good time for now. Not used to be a student since some while so I was nervous but that'll go away hopefully. It's my fault not hers, means I can actually change it..

Sounds like you're on the right track! also WELCOME to the music community we have here!!

Your teacher sounds like a nice lady. I think she'll get you playing quickly as long as you practise every day If you get confused with any of my lessons don't worry, you can skip ahead to a topic you feel more comfortable on.