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Touch Pianist

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Re: Touch Pianist

#151
post #23

Great choice of song! If you ever have access to a piano, I highly recommended trying to fumble your way through Beethoven's moonlight sonata, even if you don't know how to play piano. Not quite sure how to put it into words, but it's absolutely exhilarating hearing your own fingers produce these huge sounds and intense chord progressions. Every time I managed to find the right chord I'd get such a rush. "Oh no he di…

Not a bad idea for the first and maybe the second movement. The third is definitely for advanced students. Nevertheless if you have command of a few basic keyboard skills, learning to play a passage or two from a really advanced piece can be advantageous for later work though few teachers will recommend it. Let's go for the ultimate but assume you're not actually taking lessons!

How about Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit? Certainly one of the most difficult pieces ever written. It's quite possible to work productively on the first page of 'Ondine' and as with the Moonlight sonata, it's exhilarating to hear yourself play that exquisite tune - distilled as it were, into its essence. Plenty of other possibilities such as passages from Mozart piano concertos. A bonus is that one's appreciation of great artists becomes much enhanced.

Re: Touch Pianist

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo! Thank you. Turning off silent mode and refreshing the page fixed it. That's very strange though, I wonder if it uses a weird sort of web calling API or something for the audio. I've never had an issue with audio in web pages before, and even the youtube video the page embeds sounds fine. It seems quite poor UX (of Safari? Chrome?) to require turning off silent mode – many people never turn it off so it's not v…

You're confused why a feature called "silent mode" would make your phone not make sound?

iOS has changed over time, such that silent mode affects notification and interaction sounds but not multimedia - I can still listen to music or watch videos regardless of whether the phone is on silent or not.

Re: Touch Pianist

#156
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I agree with you but I also understand not wanting to do the same fucking song done badly for millionth time.

> I also understand not wanting to do the same fucking song done badly for millionth time My wife is a piano teacher. This describes a large part of her job, especially since she focuses on beginners. She'd be so happy if she could teach "Moonlight Sonata" all day. "Old Macdonald" is much more common. My wife does feel looked-down-upon by some in her profession who see teaching advanced students as more prestigious.…

I can't understand why someone would look down on people teaching beginners. If you teach beginners you play perhaps the most critical role in someone's development. For one, it is the stage where someone is going to decide if this is something they enjoy, and want to carry on doing, or not. Second, you are taking someone from nothing to something. That's a huge step.

Re: Touch Pianist

#157
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also understand not wanting to do the same fucking song done badly for millionth time My wife is a piano teacher. This describes a large part of her job, especially since she focuses on beginners. She'd be so happy if she could teach "Moonlight Sonata" all day. "Old Macdonald" is much more common. My wife does feel looked-down-upon by some in her profession who see teaching advanced students as more prestigious.…

I can't understand why someone would look down on people teaching beginners. If you teach beginners you play perhaps the most critical role in someone's development. For one, it is the stage where someone is going to decide if this is something they enjoy, and want to carry on doing, or not. Second, you are taking someone from nothing to something. That's a huge step.

We as a society need to step down our high horses. All jobs have a purpose without which our society would not be what it is today, good or bad.

Re: Touch Pianist

#159
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also understand not wanting to do the same fucking song done badly for millionth time My wife is a piano teacher. This describes a large part of her job, especially since she focuses on beginners. She'd be so happy if she could teach "Moonlight Sonata" all day. "Old Macdonald" is much more common. My wife does feel looked-down-upon by some in her profession who see teaching advanced students as more prestigious.…

I can't understand why someone would look down on people teaching beginners. If you teach beginners you play perhaps the most critical role in someone's development. For one, it is the stage where someone is going to decide if this is something they enjoy, and want to carry on doing, or not. Second, you are taking someone from nothing to something. That's a huge step.

You're spot on.

My wife is a middle school mathematics teacher (and a damn good one). Sooooo many former students (now high schoolers) have approached her and said, "Because of you, I excelled in math in high school...and I love it!"

She had a student last year who actually told her in a very long letter, "You taught me that math matters. You taught me that I MATTER."

The earliest teachers / coaches / mentors set the foundation which is absolutely critical for all future learning.

Want to experience the highest of highs? Become a teacher. Alas, being do close to kids who are changing so rapidly (and often struggling with things outside of school) it also comes with some pretty deep lows.

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