Piano lessons [November 2015 - August 2016]

I had been taking piano lessons for around 6 months after a long break, but then stopped when the summer holidays began. I have now started taking them again to improve my piano skills.  My main goals are:

• to learn to read sheet music
• to improve my piano techniques

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22nd November 2015

I attended my first piano lesson since May of this year and although I had been practicing as often as possible, I could see that I had become a little worse. This has motivated me to practice even more and it is easier to improve now that I am being given more guidance. We began learning a new piece by Mozart, called 'Minuet en Sol Major'.

29th November 2015

Throughout the week, I didn't manage to practice as much as I would have liked, for various reasons (including technical ones) and I could definitely see a difference. I hope to sort everything out by Monday so that I can return to practicing (almost) daily. I am already seeing a slight improvement in how I play my assigned piece although there is one challenging part that I still need to work on.

6th December 2015
I noticed that taking piano lessons, instead of just practicing by myself, has made a huge improvement to how I'm playing. I was given a new piece and I could read the sheet music almost instantly (with a few mistakes, obviously). I've actually downloaded an app to help me with this.

13th December 2015

19th December 2015
I have already started seeing big progress in learning to read sheet music. Now that I am generally improving because of practice, my teacher is giving me new pieces much more often than before. This means that I have to read new music much more often that I had to.

10th January 2016

17th January 2016
Although I didn't manage to practice much this week, despite being given two new pieces to learn, I have seen huge improvements in my note reading. I find it much easier to read a piece while attempting to play it without going through and working out each note individually.

24th January 2016

31st January 2016

7th February 2016

14th February 2016
This week I was given a new piece, which I find extremely challenging as there are a lot of new finger 'moves' and transitions. The piece is called 'Sarabande' by Händel, which I actually didn't know before my lesson.

21st February 2016
We have now started to play the first variation of the piece, which I like a lot more than the one I was playing last week

28th February 2016

6th March 2016

13th March 2016

8th April 2016
I've been on holidays for two weeks followed by wisdom teeth extraction, but I still managed to fit in almost daily piano practises. I was definitely a little rusty, but it was not as hard as I expected to get back into practicing.

17th April 2016

25th August 2016
Since my last piano update, not much has changed. I've still been practicing every day (almost) and I've learned a lot of new pieces. Many of them are for practicing my technique. With school coming around sooner than I expected and my upcoming university entrance exams within the next few months, I've decided to stop going to piano lessons. This is also due to the fact that, while I'm in the boarding house, I find it very difficult to find time and place to practice piano. The music rooms are often taken during the times that I am free, so I was never as prepared for lessons as I would like to be. This means that I wasn't progressing as much as I would like and with even less time this year, I decided to focus on my other actives for 'Creativity'.

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Learning Outcomes:
LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
Through continuous lessons and learning new pieces, I am consistently developing as a pianist and learning new skills. 

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
With learning each new piece there are challenges that have to be undertaken. Although it becomes easier over time, the initial stages are always a challenge.

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
It takes commitment to use my free lessons during school hours to continue practicing piano and improving. Although I've decided not to do this activity for the rest of this school year, it has been an ongoing activity for the past few years.