On My First Adult Piano Lesson

A little over 2 years ago, Aria and Christian started piano lessons with Joseph Hoffman at the Hoffman Academy.  They learned a lot and had a lot of fun.  But their parents didn't do so well at followup.   It looked very likely that we were going to move for work, so we dropped out.  And the next year was just too busy with me in school, etc.

But I finished in June and have had some time to decompress, so it was time to head back to learning.  This time, Aria and I enrolled in partner classes at the Hoffman Academy.  This is a cool place - highly recommended.  Great staff, great price for the quality, good location.  

Partner lessons are what they sound like: 2 students, 1 teacher.  The homework assignments for both are similar but not always identical.  The idea is that the students reenforce each other.  For Aria and I, it also means that we play piano together every night. 

We showed up for lessons early - our session with Kim was due to start at 6:15, but we were there at 5:45.  We sat in the car for 20 minutes waiting, which was totally my fault.  We walked in the place, and found Dave Thomas in the back room, finishing with some vocal students.  Kim was in the next room, and had just started to eat an apple.  Turns out that she gets a break between students.  

In our first session, I did a ton of things I'd never done before.  I improvised at someone's request.  I did an improve without title first.  Then Aria did one called Snow.  Then she picked Thunder for me to do.  We practiced singing and plunking the notes out (Kim called it voice matching).  We transposed a song from D to C.  And one of our assignments was for Aria to play an arrangement of "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie" on the right hand while I accompany with the guitar.  So lots of variety - this is not a place where you see a song and master a few songs.  This is a place where you learn to transpose, improvise, play by ear, and read notes.  All at once. 

It's a little outside my comfort zone, which is good for me.  I'm loving it.