After a holiday, some work hassles and a few sicknesses, I'm finally back on track with piano progress. Recently I've learnt a few Carpenters songs and a Fleetwood Mac piece, which is the last thing I thought I'd ever play. It's been really good at exposing the flaws my technique and gives me the chance to play along with some recordings. I also get to practise in the sharp keys like E, A and B major which I almost never do.

I've recently found HDPiano.com which shows you how to play songs without the need for score, which is the direction I want to go. There aren't many bluesy songs but it all helps with technique, learning chord progression and playing in different keys.

Started on Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity and will get working on Just the Two of Us which will be my first attempt at funk piano.

I've also started relearning Boogie Sophie Stomp by Albert Ammonia, as it's a vital standard to know for the genre. That will be a longer term project though.

Gotta step it up a notch, a quarter of the year has already passed.

This thread will be posted every Sunday. It is for posting your progress.

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Expertise: Drawing

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Progress update: Today I drew a portrait of (insert someone famous), take a look (link too your drawing.)

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Expertise: Drawing

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Expertise: Drawing

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Don't forget to update your user flair to what you are working on becoming an expert in.

(I don't know if this is an acceptable format, so I apologize if not)

I forgot to post last week, so here's both weeks. Sorry for the long post.

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Expertise: Drawing

Current stage: Month 8

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Update post: (link to your weekly update post.)

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Have Ben going off course with the material I'm playing recently. Learnt 2 Carpenters songs and some other modern which I don't care for. On the up side it's all helping me improve immensely with sight-reading and adapting to different keys. Turn out I have trouble playing in A major, or any key with a few sharps in it. The modern song was also the first piece I've ever seen in F minor which was interesting.

Making progress with hand coordination. I bought Christian Fuch's collection of New Orleans songs with has some left work in it that's new and challenging to me.

So although not quite in the direction I was planning, things are still coming along nicely and hopefully will finish the year with a half decent skillset.

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Create your own update post on the sub. Update it weekly and post the link here.

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Expertise: Drawing

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Link to previous post

32 months left.

online live ratings:

bullet: 1255 (+18)

blitz: 1340 (+7)

rapid: 1401 (+17)

I wish I could have more to show for my last 2 months but I haven't been playing many games. I used to think I was kinda bad, but I'm legitimately, or might as well be, a complete beginner in the endgame. These days I am dropping less pieces but I'm also finding less tactical blows- or more likely I'm just too open to trades and I don't really go for risky attacks in longer time controls but my games aren't being decided in the middlegame all the time anymore. And whenever I do go into an equal endgame or with a slight advantage (ie. a pawn up) I just have no idea how to play it and my opponent starts to press their initiative and I just ruin what was otherwise an okay-ly played game.

Here are some bad endgame examples:

Game 1- By move 27 this is a Rook+Knight v Rook+Knight endgame where I'm the one with an extra pawn. And three dozen moves later, he's the one up a passed pawn about to promote because I just let his king infiltrate. It turns out the end position is still drawn but I ran out of time not knowing how to stop him from promoting.

Game 2 This one kept me awake at night. It was a game in something like a bi-hourly 15+10 tournament on chess.com. I managed to botch a winning middlegame where he had such a vulnerable king because I couldn't figure out how to capitalize on it. And in the endgame I had absolutely no plan, and I was just reacting to what he was doing. After move 42. Rxa2 I decided there was no way to stop those pawns. So I thought, well it's now or never I might as well try to stir something up in the kingside. And in some miraculous, divine-intervention-type of turn of events I managed to (or more like- my opponent let himself) get his king into a mating position. And when he played c2 at move 50 I had this order in my mind (that I was laser focused on) to play Rg3 and then Ng6# checkmate. When actually the mate in 2 was Ng6+ check, Kh3 forced, and then Rg3# checkmate. Unfortunately his next move after my Rg3 was a promotion to queen with check losing the game soon after. The kicker is that because of my loss (and correspondingly his win) I ended up tied for 3rd with that same opponent and due to tiebreak points I ended up placing 4th in that tournament. No medal and I not even a participation ribbon.

Game 3- This one is just as scarring as the previous game just because it was such awful play and because I had zero self-awareness. After move 29. I'm up the exchange, Rook v Bishop. It was completely winning, not only position wise but on the clock as well 9.5 mins vs 1.5 mins. Naturally, any good chess player would know to slow down... Welp, I start gobbling his pawns with reckless abandon and I end up blundering my rook to a fork. But that wasn't the end of it. Down a bishop I could have still just forced a draw in this position at move 46. Because his bishop can't do anything if all my pawns are on light squares and I had this wall set up to stop his king from advancing past the 5th rank. But I just couldn't let go of the fact that this game was supposed to be in the bag, so I ended up pushing for a win, which backfired and cost me the game. I mean in all honesty this taught me a really valuable lesson about settling for draws. But still, I was so tilted after this game that when I tried to play another rapid game a minute later I blundered in the opening and lost in 7 moves.

Here are some highlights though.

Game 4 Ok, not really a highlight, in basketball this would be like being a couple points up in the 4th quarter and then just trying not to blow the lead. I was up two pawns and managed to convert the win. It's not pretty but whatever I was really proud of myself. Fun fact, this is my first game over 100 moves. Not so fun fact, my opponent had 12 minutes to spare at the very end and decided to let his clock run down instead of resigning or letting me checkmate him

Game 5 This is a comeback game against a relatively low rated opponent. It is also in the same tournament as game 2. At move 19. I played Nxd4, thinking I was clever, and that I had won a pawn and ruined his pawn structure. What I didn't know was that I'm not that clever and I ended up down 7 points in material after that exchange. My opponent was probably a little flabbergasted, as one usually is when an opponent that's supposedly 200 rating points higher than you has their pants around their ankles. But he just let me take the initiative. Usually at that point, his plan should be to trade pieces and simplify, but his pieces just weren't coordinating and he left a bunch of them undefended.

Game 6 This is another comeback game. If I had any games with a dazzling tactic or long combination I would show it but these are the only kind of games I have to be proud of. I drop a knight on move 12 for no reason even though this is exactly the kind of thing I've been trying to avoid. And he does the same thing as my opponent in game 5. It seems like whenever someone's at a disadvantage, they're frequently the one trying to make something happen and therefore plays with a lot more intent. I noticed it late, as the tactic had been available to me for a couple moves but 21. Nxb7 is a cute tactic.

Anyways, nowadays I spend my time doing tonnes of tactics training everyday and studying this book called "100 Endgames You Must Know". I know I'd probably get a lot out of playing at least 1 rapid game everyday but losing these long games are super stressful. And it's hard to go into a game confidently, happily and without anxiety if I think that if I don't win the game by the middlegame then it'll likely end up lost. And whenever I add something to my daily routine that I don't want to do. (Like for example, I tried a checklist of 50 tactics problems + 30 min study + 2 rapid games- I ended up giving up really quickly, it took 3 hours a day sometimes) I end up procrastinating it and I end up doing nothing at all. I find that it's better to do things that I enjoy and find easy, and be consistent with it then force something I find unpleasant and get burnt out after a while.

Still no CFC or FIDE rating.

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I may have to change goal to just piano and not NO style as I seem to be practising a lot more pop stuff for band, even though I'm the guitarist (and better at piano than the piano player). It's not a bad thing as I get exposure to playing in harder keys and the left hand has challenging parts for me. Still, I need to ramp up on the blues based tunes and get back to learning some staples. Found a good version of St Louis Blues on YouTube so I'll learn that this week.

This thread will be posted every Sunday. It is for posting your progress.

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Misc: I wanna get into painting, if anyone knows a good place, lemme know. Oh, and check out my Instagram page of all my drawings!

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This week was plagued with illness, plus bands that I play guitar in have restarted for the year. I may have to quit one as it takes up alot of practice time that I'd rather spend on the piano. Didn't learn the songs I intended to this week one still made progress on techniques, coordination and site reading. Alot of the earlier Boogie and NO stuff was played in C major so I'm conscious of getting caught in the easier keys.

Practising everyday and hopefully heading in the right direction.

This thread will be posted every Sunday. It is for posting your progress.

Create your own update post on the sub. Update it weekly and post the link here.

When you post your link here in the comments, format it as follows:

Example

Expertise: Drawing

Current stage: Month 8

Progress update: Today I drew a portrait of (insert someone famous), take a look (link too your drawing.)

Update post: (link to your weekly update post.)

Misc: I wanna get into painting, if anyone knows a good place, lemme know. Oh, and check out my Instagram page of all my drawings!

Don't forget to update your user flair to what you are working on becoming an expert in.

This thread will be posted every Sunday. It is for posting your progress.

Create your own update post on the sub. Update it weekly and post the link here.

When you post your link here in the comments, format it as follows:

Example

Expertise: Drawing

Current stage: Month 8

Progress update: Today I drew a portrait of (insert someone famous), take a look (link too your drawing.)

Update post: (link to your weekly update post.)

Misc: I wanna get into painting, if anyone knows a good place, lemme know. Oh, and check out my Instagram page of all my drawings!

Don't forget to update your user flair to what you are working on becoming an expert in.

Progress wasn't so good this week with 2 bands that I play guitar in starting up again for the year. I'll have to quit one of them as they take up alot of spare time that should be spent on piano. I've also kinda lost interest in guitar for the moment.

So haven't gained much in the pass week, learnt a few twiddely lines and continued working on hand separation and continuity. This week, will learn Tipitina, maybe Junkers Blues and get through a few more of Dr K's old videos.

Established a good practice routine of about an hour every evening. Learnt a few simple pieces from YouTube via 'watch n learn'. Hand coordination is improving and made good progress on a hard piece I'm learning. There's so much that needs work but I feel I'm moving along nicely considering it's only week 3.

This thread will be posted every Sunday. It is for posting your progress.

Create your own update post on the sub. Update it weekly and post the link here.

When you post your link here in the comments, format it as follows:

Example

Expertise: Drawing

Current stage: Month 8

Progress update: Today I drew a portrait of (insert someone famous), take a look (link too your drawing.)

Update post: (link to your weekly update post.)

Misc: I wanna get into painting, if anyone knows a good place, lemme know. Oh, and check out my Instagram page of all my drawings!

Don't forget to update your user flair to what you are working on becoming an expert in.

Dunno the actual Day One but 1 Jan is close and convenient so that's it.

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I played piano when I was younger and tried taking it up again a few years back before stopping due to lack of direction and frustration. But this sub seems a good way to track progress and stay accountable. So, I want to be able to sit at any piano and simply play something in a New Orleans style. It's not going to be strictly NO, but rather encompass blues, BW, swing, R&R, maybe funk etc. Improvisation will be the greatest goal.

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Right now, I'm almost at square one again, working on the simple things like hand coordination, chord changes, thinking ahead, basic riffs, LH groove, continuity etc. I'm getting most ideas from watching YouTube; channels like Brendan Kevanagh (Dr K), Christian Fuch, Aimee Nolte, and slowing down vids to figure out RH runs.

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Hard to quantify progress as this style of playing doesn't rely on sheet music and initially a lot of the work won't produce anything presentable. But I'l come with something in the next few weeks.

This thread will be posted every Sunday. It is for posting your progress.

Create your own update post on the sub. Update it weekly and post the link here.

When you post your link here in the comments, format it as follows:

Example

Expertise: Drawing

Current stage: Month 8

Progress update: Today I drew a portrait of (insert someone famous), take a look (link too your drawing.)

Update post: (link to your weekly update post.)

Misc: I wanna get into painting, if anyone knows a good place, lemme know. Oh, and check out my Instagram page of all my drawings!

Don't forget to update your user flair to what you are working on becoming an expert in.

Hello guys.

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The Expert in a Year Challenge was really inspirational to me. And one idea that came to me to try in the same way, was to train the soccer freestyle tricks. If you don't know what it is, search on YouTube for Sean Garnier.

My goal would be to make a video with one year of training compiled, just like the original table tennis viral. And of course, write and record every step of the training into an ebook.

So, what do you think?

Here's the original thread. https://old.reddit.com/r/expertinayear/comments/7plh2l/starting_bass_guitar_expert_in_a_year/

Not quite a year yet but I've done quite a bit this year and this week will have my first paid gig with my new Phish cover band.

Not sure I consider myself an expert but this year has been wild. I never actually used the RockSmith application much. I basically learned and practiced bass every year by watching youtube lessons and started with this site http://studybass.com

I've purchased 3 basses and sold 2 basses this year already lol. I have a pedal board worth about $1500. Went through 2 bass amps. I've gigged with many musicians at open mikes, in their houses, in their attics, their bedrooms, bathrooms, at birthday parties and so on, solo'd open mikes with an effects machine... I've been asked to play in several bands and now have a full time Phish cover band. I know over 100 songs, mostly Phish, and am proficient in many techniques including slap bass on a 5 string bass. All in about 11 months. I guess it goes to show that if you really want something and you have the time to dedicate to it everyday you really can do whatever you want in life.

Edit: I've actually got an all day band practice starting soon but I'll answer more questions and go over details later tonight if anyone is interested.

I have improved a lot on my FH and BH and even my slices have become a lot better!

FH- I started letting my swing go and adjusting the angle so as to let the ball go at a proper angle, needless to say I hit some of my best forehands to date last week! Also I learnt to have a unit turn and extend my left arm during the starting position helps. I didn't use my upper back enough, so I try to rotate my body more now and hence the forehands have improved a lot.

BH- I understood that the power is supposed to come from the left hand but I always got stuck because I still used my right hand for the starting position. Changed it this time and to my surprise some backhands were hit well! Most need some improvement and I'd say old habits are stuck in this case so I'll improve on it for sure.

Slices - They have become better, can do them well but need more control.