Self Evaluation

First, when attempting to play the “Amazing Grace” piece, I began with reading the notes within the piece, taking notice of the key, time signature and other necessary musical observations. After I was theoretically comfortable, I started with separating parts within the right and left hand. In this piece, I began with the right hand then with the left at the start of measure 10 because it contained the chords/accompaniment line. I usually begin with the chords/accompany line. The reason I chose to tackle the accompany line first was because the coordination to switch chords was a more difficult task than playing single note melodies, at least in my experience. I have always found it best to start with the things that are most difficult; this will infer to you the amount of effort needed to play the piece. After I gained fluidity in playing the chords, I moved to the melody lines without accompaniment. Learning pieces by studying individual parts helps me to learn the piece faster than trying to play it all at once. I am sure this holds true to some degree for everyone who is learning a piece.
Once I had an understanding of both parts, I began a long process of connecting both parts together. In a piece such as “Amazing Grace,” I had some difficulty at first rhythmically due to the rest within the accompaniment line and the eighth notes within the melody line. This caused such difficulty on my part because I had a hard time keeping my hand off the note or chord that I just played. Instead of a rest, I was playing a note or chord which made the note or chord a half note, which served as a substitute for a quarter note. The eighth notes gave me some problems because I wasn’t playing them fast enough, especially in measure 4 where there is a chord switch that was somewhat complicated for me. However, my problems with the eighth notes and rests didn’t last too long because I eventually fixed it with constant practicing.
Overall, I would still say that the chords/accompaniment lines gave me the most issues. The biggest problem I had was with measures 7 and 8. The 3rd chord within the accompaniment line plays a C#, E and A then switches to an F# and A. This switch caused some complications for awhile because I needed to quickly move right and get my second finger that was on the E to the F# while playing the notes and other notes in rhythm. There were some other weird problems that I occasionally and inexplicably experienced, but these were just temporary, silly mistakes. Simply, my predominant tactic to overcome these challenges and become successful in playing this piece was replaying the piece over and over until the mistakes became minimal or absent. I am not sure that this was the most successful way to minimize mistakes; however, I do believe this is the less complicated way which made my experience less tedious. Also this was really the only tactic I knew due to my inexperience within learning piano pieces. Still, I found it to be a very effective way of completing a piece. What helped the most within this piece was that I have heard various forms of it before which, obviously makes note/rhythm reading a lot easier. Also this song is one of my all time favorite songs so the pain of learning it was insignificant.