Piano

I depressed myself a few days ago: I'm a somewhat grown man, and a mediocre musician, and will probably never be to a level to perform in public, so what's the point.  Well, the two answers are this:

• If you want to someday, then PRACTICE MORE, you lazy butt!
• Do it cuz you enjoy it, not for everybody else

Well, I guess that satisfied me enough.  

So we bought a used $300 piano about 5 years ago.  It's a good piano, but once the kids get out of the "hey I'm going to destroy all your stuff phase", we might have to upgrade. (I think they spilled some stuff on the middle keys last week and some of the keys kind of stick sometimes, so that got me kind of not wanting to play as much lately.)

I've been trying out the following songs recently:

Schubert's Serenade

Mannheim Steamroller's God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (rock 'n' roll)

and yesterday my mom asked me to do 

Pachelbel's Canon in D

Results: I'm about 80% on Serenade.  At least the 2-page version,  My mom has a book with a 4-page version, and since I only see that at her house, I don't practice it as much.  

Gentlemen is a little harder, but I've been trying some new fingering techniques lately - involving planning ahead a measure or two to prep where your fingers won't have to move as much, and I've gotten better at this one.  Typically I only practice around Christmas time.

You should also now that I have a pipe dream of mastering Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata - 3rd movement.  I've played the 1st movement (decently) for years, and the book has all 3 movements.  Personally, though, I think the 2nd movement is boring, but if you've never heard the 3rd, here's a cool video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSulR9Fymg

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8nQ3ZBSuEY

Well, that one I can play at about 50% accuracy and about 33% speed.  In other words, in about 20 minutes, it will sound terrible.  And I've spent about a year practicing it (about once every other week).