Making the Grades

I had a couple of piano lessons when I was home in Sept/Oct. My fingers were all wrong, and I've learned to do C, G and now D scales with the proper fingers.  And I've got a book of grade 1 pieces - not ABRSM pieces, but grade 1 nontheless, - and I've started with Imagine. Really it more or less just follows the sung harmony of the original song, with some simple wee harmonies in the left hand.  

The plan is to learn as many grade 1 pieces as I can now in Saudi from this book, (Scarborough Fair, Greensleeves, The Sound of Silence, California Dreamin') whilst I'm here. I hope it gets easier as I go along. Imagine is hard work, though I'm getting here. 

Come February, (or thereabouts), I'll be home again, and I'll get the 2014/15 ABRSM Grade 1 syllabus pieces to learn in time for the Summer 2015 exams in Glasgow. I'm hoping that I can more or less sight read grade 1 pieces by then. I'm just focussing on that for now. Grade 2 et seq will have to wait for now. My notions of doing the jazz piano grades, and of learning proper ungraded pieces of music, were overambitious. I need the structure of the ABRSM system, and a good teacher, if I'm going to make good progress... and oodles of practice too. 
Location: Ar Rihab Ar Rihab

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