5TH AND FINAL POST!!

Hello everybody and welcome to my 5th and final post!! I have been hard at work this week with Charlee, getting more familiar with using all 10 fingers and trying to keep it together. I was able to play "Roller Coaster" but it did take some time and I still feel like my form isn't very good. (You'll see what I mean in the video below). I guess only practicing an hour per week doesn't help, and to be honest I get discouraged very quickly and if I practiced any more then I would probably not be a very pleasant person to be around.LOL. I did however learn a lot more than I initially thought and spending time with Charlee has made us both very proud of each other. She is a great teacher and I was amazed how much she knew and how patient she was with me. I believe she is proud of me too, she has never said it but, she does get happy when I get something right. I enjoyed the time we spent each week and I will miss interupting her TV time on a friday to help me practice. Looking forward in the book I was using I could see a whole bunch of different symbols and weird lingo, as well that the notes stop displaying the letter on them, so you would have to know the note by its postion on the staff. Hahaha I only know that word because I cheated looking ahead. I have to say that it looked very discouraging and I'm glad that I didn't make it that far. I guess what I am trying to say is that I have a whole lot of respect for anybody who can play an instrument. It takes alot of practice, patience and talent. If I could have changed anything about this experience it would probably be to go into each lesson with a more positive attitude, I always saw the pages and songs and immediately thought that it was too hard or impossible to do and it really annoyed Charlee. As the lesson went on I would find that it got easier the more you did it and it would have been better to be positive from the start. When my lesson was finished this week I found a music sheet for Happy Birthday on the internet and I am going to practice on my own without Charlee knowing. I hope to be able to surprise her on her birthday by playing it for her and hoping to sing as well. This will be sure to embarass her in front of her friends and that, my friends is what makes this project all worth it. HAHAHA. I hope that you have all enjoyed my journey and who knows maybe I will continue to practice and learn new songs, even if I dont make it in the music business at least I can have a hobby that I can share with my family. Ciao for now and stay classy!!!

4TH POST

Wow! I can't believe this will be the 2nd last post and that next weeks post should have me ready for Hollywood. Time flies when your having a mostly good but sometimes bad time. Welcome to this weeks post where I got introduced to alot of new and crazy things. Again me and Charlee started off be recapping last weeks lesson. I nailed notes A through E using the thumb,index and middle fingers on both hands and Charlee was pretty impressed that I did it pretty much on my own. I knew I was in trouble though this week when she turned the page and said oh daddy this is gonna be hard for you. Like what kind of teacher says that? The page had two new songs on it and guess what? two new notes, G and F. Now I would have to start using the ring fingers on both hands only leaving the pinkies out. It definitely took some getting used to and there were again some moments that I'd rather not mention. About half way through the lesson I started picking it up more easily and played the 2 songs quite easily. First was "My Clever Pup" then "Kitty Cat" (real tough guy songs). I then made the mistake of gloating which then prompted Charlee to turn the page. Oh No! guess what? even more notes and more fingers. Like c'mon man. Yup I got what I deserved, F and G notes again? yup, but on opposite sides which meant that the right hand would have F on the ring finger and G on the pinky and the left hand would have G on the ring finger and F on the pinky. WHAT??. I knew that I was in trouble so I apologized to Charlee and told her im sorry and I would buy her whatever she wanted if I didnt have to do that. She agreed and I thought we were done, haha I win. Unfortunatley my wife must have superhuman hearing or something, because she overheard me and said "you're not buying her anything, stop being a baby and just do it". There was a breif timeout for all the crying, but once my eyes were dry I could start again. This is where I really had a hard time, trying to read the music now was even harder because you have 2 notes that are the same and you need to know which hand to use. I was not able to play this song by the time the lesson ended but I guess there was some progress. I'm hoping that next week I can do better at using all 10 fingers and be able to learn this song, it's called "Roller Coaster"(pretty fitting). My goal after hopefully succeeding will be to try and learn Happy Birthday. I'm wondering how many notes and fingers it takes to play and if I would be able to learn it for my finale next week. I figured it's a song that everyone knows and I can play it for Charlee's birthday in March. Even if I can"t learn it by next week I will continue to practice so I will be ready for March. I think she would love if I surprised her with that, so I may have to learn on my own without her knowing. Shhhh. Anyways that's all for this week, I hope you've enjoyed my journey thus far and I hope you will be back to see what my final week brings. See you soon!

3RD POST

Hey everybody I'm back at it again! This week me and my daughter started off with reviewing what I had learned last week. Surprisingly I rememebered most of my steps, where my hands go and where the notes are. We then moved on to some new material. I was taught how certain notes look and what they mean. The quarter note is where you hold the key down for a"one" count, the half note is a "two" counts and the full note which is a "four" counts. This is important to know so u dont play too fast or slow. As well, I also learned how the note looks is related to which hand you use to press it. For instance if the note has the stem on the left side and going down, you will use your left hand to press it. As for the right hand, those notes have the stems going up on the right side. Its very confusing to be able to read that when you are also trying to remember where your fingers should be. There were a few times where I found myself about to hit that damn piano with all my fingers rolled up in a ball over and over again. Luckily for the piano and myself, my daughter intervened and I had a "timeout". Once I got back to it, I learned about the bar lines. These are the black lines that are in between the notes and divide the music into equal measures. They are also at the end of the song. If it is a double bar then you end there, but if there are 2 dots beside the double bar then you must repeat the notes a 2nd time. I didnt realize how much of these lessons are learning to read all these symbols rather than playing. I was hoping to play with more than 3 fingers on each hand this week, but we didn't get that far. I did however learn to play 2 more simple songs and did get pretty familiar with how to place my hands and felt more comfortable with hitting the keys. For next week I hope to add those other notes and if I turn the page in the book I see that the next lesson is adding the G and the F. That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by and tune in next week to see my progress!!

2ND POST

Welcome back everybody!! I have been busy at work with my daughter learning this devil of a piano. I mean who invented this thing with so many buttons and letters for notes that just repeat over and over? There are even pedals like a car, but believe me, pressing them does not make it stop or go. I feel like if this were a video game, my TV would have already been smashed and the controllers would be in pieces. Anyways, this was my idea and it did feel pretty good when I did something right. We started off with opening up my daughters piano lesson book for beginners level A. I learned how to sit at the piano properly, which was very uncomfortable for me (I couldnt slouch or put my feet up) I was to sit tall, lean slightly forward, let my arms hang loosely from the shoulders and keep my feet flat on the floor. If that wasnt hard enough I had to curve my fingers as if I were holding a bubble without breaking it. Really??? I also learned that my fingers have numbers. On both hands the thumb is #1 and the pinky #5. I'm sure you can fill in the rest. Lets just say I gave the piano a few #3's during this lesson. After all the boring stuff it was time to start learning some fun stuff, the notes. We started with the white keys and my daughter taught me which keys corresponded to which note(ABCDEF or G). This sounds easy, but it is actually pretty tricky, especially since they repeat again and again. I finally got to know where the keys were and how to remember their location(using the black keys above helped me alot). So far the process was pretty time consuming and I had a hard time keeping my fingers on the right keys and remembering to read the music. I had to take a couple breaks and just "step away from the piano". After some time I did get to learn two "simple" songs. One was called "A Mellow Melody" which uses only 3 keys: A, B and C on the left hand and "A Happy Melody" which uses C, D and E on the right hand. I actually read the music book to play them, but I found after a few times I knew without looking. It took some time to play pretty smoothly and my daughter clapped a couple times so I guess I'm a natural!! Im defenitley gonna have to try and remember where the keys are for next week and also how to postion myself and my hands. Im hoping that once I sit down it will come back to me and I'll know how to play those songs again. I'd really love to know how proffessionals make this look so easy and how long it took them to get there? This is alot harder than I thought and I havent really done anything hard yet. For next week i'm hoping to spend a short time recapping this week and moving on to using more fingers and not just 3 notes. Overall I feel like my daughter's feelings weren't hurt that much when I yelled at her 7 times and she told me she was quitting. Although mine were hurt a bit when she called me names, I feel like it was a great bonding experience and we can put aside our differences and continue on to lesson 2 next week. I hope you will all be back to see my progress and my wife doesnt read this. Talk to you soon.

WELCOME POST!!

Hi everyone!!! Welcome to my genius hour blog. HOW CAN I LEARN TO PLAY THE PIANO IN 6 WEEKS?? That's a great question isn't it?! lol I am not "musically inclined" per se, however, I have watched my dad sing in his band my entire life. I've always wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument seeing how much fun my dad and his friends would have. They even sang at my wedding, which I will never forget. My daughter Charlee took piano lessons and was a natural at it. I thought it would be a great idea for her to teach me what she knows. Plus we get to spend some great quality time together which is a bonus. She is super excited to be my teacher. I hope to make her proud. By doing this, I hope to find out if I have what it takes to learn how to read music and play a simple song in 6 weeks. Hopefully, even afer this project, I can continue to learn and play more complex songs. Wish me luck!