Last week I took a break from my piano project, but it felt good to get back into it this week. Like Catherine Ready was saying… we are already half way through our learning projects! I can’t believe it! I never anticipated that I would enjoy playing the piano this much. Even though I wish I stuck with piano growing up, it’s an enriching experience learning the piano at an older age. Now when I learn the piano, I am more determined to play the right notes and chords and reach my goals.

This week, I took your votes into account to choose the next song I learned on piano. I had an overwhelming response of… 3 votes! Okay, so maybe not as much input as I would have liked, but the majority still wins.

The winning song was Part of your World from the soundtrack of Little Mermaid. Honestly, I am glad that song won the poll. I remember learning this song when I was in piano lessons at a young age, but I didn’t have as much enthusiasm to learn it because I didn’t enjoy the practicing part of learning piano. I feel like I finally have a do-over… a fresh start… a clean slate!

In order to learn the song, I found sheet music online. I also had to revisit the resources I previously used for learning sheet music, because it was difficult to remember all of the notes at times! I put a lot of effort into actually reading the music, rather than just playing it by ear. After learning the right hand melody on my own, I decided to ask my piano-loving friend, Danielle Maley, to help me learn the proper finger placements for the song and answer other questions I had about the piano.

Since this song was longer than what I was used to playing, and more difficult, I chose to just learn the right hand and pick up the left hand chords next week. The song is not as smooth as I would like it to be, so I will also keep practicing the melody. I still want to become more fluent in reading sheet music, and practicing this song is a good way to do so. Along with Part of Your World, I also learned the E major scale. I now know the C, D, B and E major scale. Even though I have a long way to go, things are coming along, just take a look for yourself!

The Resources:

This week, I used these tools to help me learn:

• I used sheet music for Part of Your World

• My friend Danielle was an awesome resource this week! It was really beneficial to meet with her and work through some of the questions I had

• I used the mnemonic phrases “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” and “F A C E” to help me remember the notes on the Treble Clef

Goals for Next Week

• I will keep practicing the proper finger placement and reading the sheet music for Part of Your World and if I am ambitious enough…I want to learn the left hand chords too
• My plan is to learn the rest of the major scales! All I have left are F, G, and A.
• Since I didn’t get to this goal this week, I still want to learn and play all major and minor chords comfortably
• I know the Treble Clef notes, but now I want to learn the Bass Clef notes too

For those of you who are learning instruments for your project… Are you finding it hard to complete your goals within a week? Are my goals too ambitious?

Not only am I learning how to play piano, I am also learning the art of goal setting and working through challenges when skills don’t come as quickly. I am glad that this learning project is a process and we can all go at our own pace. On that note, here’s to another week of goal setting, learning, and celebrating successes!

-Amanda