Welcome. A little about me.

Hi there.

Welcome to my first post!

This blog is to track my progress as I learn the piano. I have actually been learning for a year or so now so it's not right from the beginning. But I'll fill you in on my progress. First I'll tell you a little about me......

I'm a British guy, born in London, and I am about to hit 30. I am currently living in Wellington, New Zealand after moving here early 2012. I had previously lived in London all my life and never moved out. I had the opportunity to come and work on Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. I am a Visual FX Artist (FX TD to those in the know). I've always wanted to come to New Zealand and this job came along at the right time.

I tool piano lessons as a child. I was an aimless child forever daydreaming and practice was way too boring for me. I stopped taking lessons having not done any grades. One thing that I did take from them though is how to read treble and bass clef. That is something that I have always retained and has been hard coded in my brain. The two octaves around middle C are quite easy for me to read which has been really helpful as I approached learning as an adult.

My goal with the piano is to one day reach grade 8 and hopefully use my musical abilities as my main source of income. Gigs, performances, composition etc.

I have recently learned lots of little mental techniques which have helped me remember scales, chord, inversions and sight reading. I will post more about them here in this blog.

That's probably enough for now. I'll probably post videos, exercises and pieces for everyone to look at. Also there are some iphone app which have been really helpful. I'll do some reviews of those too.