A pianist
Wow! What a strange discussion. It's not surprising that this guy is not progressing when he has such a negative attitude. Does he want to solve his problems, or does he simply want to dwell on them?
He wants to solve them. He
If he's based anywhere near Birmingham, I'd happily give him a lesson and show him a systematic approach to practising. If he wants to get anywhere then he needs to worry more about finding a decent teacher and less time complaining about how everything is wrong.
Well, logically, if you're that decent teacher then I would have found you by posting my frustrations about learning the piano here wouldn't I?
Again though, I'll stress the amount of time taken to read and reply to these posts is not significant. 20 posts? 18 before you all waded in. It is far less time than I spent in front of the piano either when writing them, or before and since.
So no, it's a good theory, but the truth is, I didn't fail miserably at piano because I was posting here
I suspect more have an opinion about the posts than have actually read them, Alan included. But, give him credit, he is honest about it
Clearly, there are people who advertise as piano teachers up and down the UK. Some, believe it or not, aren't as good as others. How am I supposed to know. If you guys think posting here for 5 minutes is wasting time, I can give you the address of at least 3 local teachers who will waste hours and lots of money too
Ergo, to find a teacher is easy. To find a decent teacher is precisely one of the things I've worried about for a very long time. Worrying about it didn't work though. Neither does pulling names out the phone book.
If you need a teacher to address the specific things that Alan himself tries to address with his book and DVD. Kudos for him for recognising that. You may need a different teacher from others at different stages too.
But I shan't repeat it all again. Read the thread if you're interested in specifics I've already said. If you disagree, so be it.
The thing is, I'm not anywhere near Birmingham. So why do you think in other circumstances I'd have picked you rather than someone else and found you, that "decent teacher" rather than someone who wasn't? How to do that without posting or "complaining" if you prefer?
Nevertheless, I appreciate your offer. I'm in Bedfordshire. If I've said that already then perhaps you should have read the thread If not, maybe you know a good local teacher to me. If so, I'd appreciate their name.
In the alternative, I don't envisage weeks of lessons here because of the distance, but maybe you could help me get past this frustrating stage I'm stuck at now? If so, send me a message and we can arrange price / suitable time and so on.
Could you teach someone who just wants to learn, say, playing notes comfortably and without pain? I doubt I'll progress at all until I can do that, now more than ever because of injuries.
So I get to the stage where I can do a practise regime with pieces.
If your advice was going to be stuff like "cut the piece into chunks / practise extremely slowly in x minute sessions / hands separate / then together and so on" that's not my problem. I do that now. Or at least I would for pieces if I could use my right arm.
Most of the time now I spend doing the exercises here
That site is worth a read, even if you think his fundamental action is complete nonsense, he's absolutely spot on in his experience and frustrations of learning.
His essay is verbose too, which will stymie some here early on, but after reading it and I realised how I was wasting my time asking people here more than once. He asked one teacher, and then the next and then the next and so on. These teachers couldn't answer - no matter how many pupils they had that could play or how well they could play. He appears to have suffered, and done that for 27 years. So I'm a lightweight by comparison.
But read it and you'll see more or less what I was trying to say and may have failed to get across. The only question is whether he has actually given the answer. Thus far I'm not so sure.of people who can just play
Lastly, as I said, I don't want to reopen the debate. Buying the DVD was a mistake best forgotten now. If someone wants a free copy and you're fairly close in postage terms message me and you can have mine - someone else having the DVD is close enough to a refund.
As I said already I'm sure Alan would be the ideal teacher in person.