Mastering the left hand!

What a week I've had with the piano!

I finally found an easy beginner version of the song "Someone Like You" after using trial and error on both Google and YouTube. After watching it and following along several times (all while pausing and resuming), I was finally able to learn the left hand of the song. The beginning and chorus parts of the song are relatively the same. The only difference is that some of the notes and octaves change.

A difficult aspect of playing this song, is that you need to be able to hear the original song playing in your head, whilst playing the notes. If you don't have a solid concept of the tempo and pace of the song you are playing, then playing it becomes very difficult. I have begun to break the song up into identifiable parts, in order to sing the song in my head and familiarize myself with the way that it should sound. It didn't take me a very long time to learn the beginning parts of the song. What is causing the most difficulty for me, are the middle and ending parts of the song. I have already consumed so many notes and chords from the beginning, that it feels like my brain doesn't want to absorb any more information! The pace at which I'm playing is very slow as well, so I definitely need to pick up my pace. Playing the piano is the biggest multitasking job I have ever done in my life. It requires a lot more brain power than one would typically assume.

I have learned the left hand part of the song quickly, as it is usually just one or two notes. A, E, G#, E, F#, C#, D, A are the notes that need to be played by the left hand. They are played A,E followed by E,G# followed by F#, C# followed by D,A. Next week I have to incorporate both the left and right hands together, to ensure that they are being played at the same time. A, C#, E, C#, G#, C#, E, C#, F#, C#, F#, C#, A, D, F#, D are the sequence of notes that need to be played by the right hand. The right hand has to move much faster than the left hand, so I have been listening to the song to set the pace.

Before the next Genius Hour, I need to speed up my pace. This will only come with practicing the song, so I will also need to do lots of practicing - not only within my hour of Genius Hour research, but other times too. I don't have any questions except for the fact that I'm wondering if I will be able to also sing along whilst playing the piano, but I'm not including that in my Genius Hour.

Well, where do we go from here? Now I need to practice until the song is perfect!