This week's wtf (I mean, "learning") moment in piano

So those of you who hang out here on a regular basis will know that Spanishing has been going reasonably well of late. Alas, the same cannot be said of the piano. 

I am still very much enjoying it, but it’s being held back by two very strong forces:

• It’s an indoor toy and it’s one of the few lovely months of the year, so I want to be outside 
• I’m a beginner and beginner music is boring ;) 

So to combat the first, I need to be learning something interesting enough to be inside during summer. Tricky given the second ;). So I looked at the pieces that I really passionately want to learn to play, none of which are level appropriate, and picked the one which seemed most feasible.

It actually didn’t end up being either of the ones I would’ve expected but okay. Still all good. My feasibility scale was based on:

• Is the tempo slow enough that I have a chance of ever playing it at speed? 
• How much of it can I already play from having learned an easier version that was smart enough to use similar patterns to the real thing? 
• How much musical theory is there that I have never seen before? 
• Are there any parts I looked at and went wtf, how is that even possible? 

So the song I picked, I can play prob 75% going in. Win. To put in perspective, of that other 25%, I spent an hour tonight learning 2 bars. An hour. 2 bars. Hands SEPARATE. And it was a HUGE win at the end that I could do the “hard” hand *almost* correctly at 50% speed. And it fell completely apart when trying to add any of the other bars or the other hand in.

Musical notation there are two sections that I have no idea what they mean. I’m reasonably certain FB will provide an answer. One I figured out by context - I know the song and you can watch a person play it on the app so I figured it out, even though I don’t actually get it (aka if I didn’t know how it was supposed to go, there’s no way I’d know to make it happen). The second one I have no idea but have deemed it mildly irrelevant atm ;)

This is way better than the half a dozen in the other songs I wanted ;-P

Then there’s capability. Almost all of it, I’m confident I could get to. Except - there’s one part with THREE four-note cords in a row. Plus side, I can at least reach all the notes. Down side, neither my sheet reading nor my playing capabilities are at the point where I can hit that many keys simultaneously with any sort of accuracy or rhythm.

So yeah. In over my head? For sure. Harming anyone? Nope. And we all know I do better with the almost impossible challenge, so this is the approach for now.

If things go well, I will likely attempt to find a teacher (not so easy out here) when the weather turns. I *may* even have figured out this one song by then lol. Wish me luck!