Category: Music

Hi Carly’s Crew!

These last few days have been crazy with the Coronavirus on the rise in Canada, classes have been cancelled so I have been stuck at home! The good news is, this has given me extra time to practice the piano. My family must be getting tired of hearing me play every day 😉

Like I said last week, this song has been a bit of a challenge for me. The more I practice in small sessions each week, the more I see myself improving. So far, I have learned the entire song with my right hand. The song repeats the chorus multiple times which makes it super easy to memorize the notes. Now that I have learned all of the notes I have been able to practice the whole song up to full speed.

At first, I felt that the song was too fast and tricky for me as a beginner. But now I’m having the opposite problem! I am beginning to rush through the song and having trouble keeping a steady beat. This was interesting to me because I didn’t even realize I was doing this until I watched a video of myself playing the song. The video recordings have been so helpful for me to see what parts of the song need extra work. But also it allows me to see the parts where I am having success…this acts as a huge confidence booster!

I have just over a week to learn my left hand and to perfect the song. I can’t wait for you to see the video of me playing!

Carly 🙂

Hi Carly’s Crew!

Welcome back to my piano journey. I’m currently working on learning how to play A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. I noticed that there are a lot of similarities between this song and my previous song but there are some new things that have been causing me some trouble.

For now, I am just focussing on using my right hand. I have learned about a minute of my song with the right hand so far but I am feeling super confident because the chorus is long and it repeats! The chorus is much faster than I have ever played before. It was tricky the first couple of times but I have been practicing it slowed down which has really been helping. I learned that you can use settings on the Youtube video to slow it down which also helps me practice.

Before I began learning my right hand I listened to the whole song and watched the video with the notes to see what I was getting in to. The left hand is much more active in this song so I know that is something that will be a huge challenge for me. To help me succeed I want to finish the rest of the song with my right hand pretty quickly so I have extra time to practice using both hands together.

The song has a variety of dynamics that I will need to practice as well. I have been trying to learn the dynamics as I work towards learning the notes because I think it will be easier rather than learning the whole song and then coming back to learn the dynamics after the fact.

I think I am definitely on the right track to being successful by the end of semester. Talk to you in a couple weeks so you can hear more about my musical adventure:)

Hi Carly’s Crew!

I have been working on my piano lots the last couple of weeks and it is finally starting to become a habit that I fit into my everyday routine. I am feeling really proud of myself so far, however, there are definitely a few places where I am really struggling! To make it easy for you to understand where I am at with my practicing I will organize this post into two sections: apples and onions. Apples represent the things that I am doing well and onions will represent the areas where I am still having some troubles. 

Apples

1. As of today I am able to play the whole song through with my right hand only! This means that I am right on track with where I need to be in terms of my growth plan. 
2. I am able to play about 75% of the song from memory. This means I am not looking at sheet music or any videos. 

Onions

1. In all honesty, I am very nervous to start using my left hand to play at the same time. I have spent some time trying to add it in slowly but I am finding it impossible to play two hands at the same time. 
2. I keep rushing the timing of the song as I get more comfortable with it. I know that when I video myself I will be extra nervous, and rush even more than usual, so I need to practice and focus on the correct timing! 

That’s all for now! Fingers crossed I will have figured out how to get my left hand playing simultaneously with my right hand by the next time you hear from me 😉

See you then! 

Hi there Carly’s Crew!

This week I began learning how to play the keyboard! I have never played an instrument in my whole life so this should be an entertaining journey for all of you. I will be blogging every other week to document my progress. I will be sharing both my successes and my struggles…hopefully I will be able to play some songs by the end of the semester! If you are interested in my specific goals, please check out my growth plan!

So far, I have spent lots of time watching Youtube videos in order to get inspired. I’m having some troubles because I keep getting carried away and watching the advanced piano songs and I want to try to learn how to play them…I need to remind myself that I am a beginner and I don’t even know how to play “Happy Birthday”yet! I am very excited to learn and practice the piano and I believe getting motivated is the first step towards mastering something. I definitely won’t be a master by the end of this semester but let’s just say I’m on the right track!

My friend was kind enough to let me borrow her keyboard for the semester. She just dropped it off the other night and I have already began playing around on it. My mom told me she is excited for me to learn an actual song! Here is a picture of my keyboard, her name is Liesl! (named after the Sound of Music)

I’m gonna go start practicing now but I will keep you updated on my progress and hopefully by next week I will be on my way to becoming the next Beethoven!