haha! Thanks very much Celia , - Hayden is a genius ! 
your list is a great motivation for me !
MAY 2020 Progress Videos
Hello! It has been a bit challenging working and teaching from home 
due to covid crisis but I’m so pleased I am able to make a bit of time for practice and learning interesting and challenging lessons from PianoGroove…
Embraceable You | Week 3 Progress
(feels like it’s taking me forever haha! there’s a lot more work to do here but for now - this is where I am. Hayden’s arrangements are amazing, challenging, and really fun to learn and play - Hopefully in the near future, I’d be able to arrange my own version of these beautiful tunes!)
This one below isn’t from Piano Groove but since it is also one of the tunes I was learning, I thought just to remind myself of my favourite pieces, that I also post and share this here…
I was also learning bars 59-73 (i think) of Can’t Help Falling In Love arrangement by PianoGuys - this was also fun to learn…
Week 1 Progress
Hope you are all doing well and staying safe! Take care always!
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June Month 2020
has been crazy busy in school! (i mean doing virtual teaching from home )
The last week of May and first week of June - I went back to practicing “Nearness of You” and “Girl from Ipanema”
things got hectic and I’m really aiming to record my recap on Nearness of You soon !
I started analyzing how I am progressing and one of the things I noticed with my monthly practices -
Since starting with Piano Groove - I am so happy and amazed to find out that my sight reading is immensely improving! 4 of my fingers hahah in each hand are now more comfortable and very slowly getting the hang of things - I would notice they would sometimes automatically place themselves (each finger) on the keys when I am reading certain jazz chords - the finger muscles are remembering very well
I used to have a bit of difficulty playing some pop tunes - and I realised the reason was because most of them use jazz chords! I recently played a few of the pop music scores I have at home and to my surprise - it was so much easier to learn them and play and I was really enjoying more!
So this post is also to send a HUGE THANKS to Piano Groove, to Hayden and the wonderful instructors who make things more musical in our lives and funner too!
The musical arrangements are always beautifully planned and excellently executed, performed - the lesson explanations are well detailed and very INSPIRING to learn from!
That progress I made and achieved in such a short time is all because of Piano Groove.
A Million Thanks! to Hayden and the other Piano Groove Instructors!!!
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Seems i miss your practice log … thanks sharing all this !! some really cool performance
Bravo !!
PS maybe placing the recorder in another place could help avoiding the noise that we hear in front of your recording.
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hey Thanks very much Pierrot - really appreciate it!
Yeah - this has been an issue for me for some months now - - I’m gonna try moving the recorder and look for a good spot. I used to record on the piano connected to the computer using garage band and was easier to produce an mp3 or a wav file my connector got broken so will need to buy a new one! Hope you are doing fab! Stay safe and take care!
July 2020 Progress
Two months of not much progress due to other distractions in life that we have lol 
but have been trying to dedicate small chunks of practices just for recall of Hayden’s Jazz standard arrangements that I started to learn …
I finally got the chance to practice and record " Nearness of You "
…yet , still with a lot of things I want to improve on but otherwise happy that I was able to play this without so much stopping in between… I did put the metronome on and as always - it would be a constant battle hahah…
Apologies if the recording is not that good - any/all critique are welcome
Hope you are all safe. Take care. After recording, got me to listening more to different song versions - Just now I was listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s version - I really liked it.
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Nice Kristeta! Don’t you just love that song? I did not know about it until I took Hayden’s lesson on it. Now I can’t get enough of it. Keep up the good work!
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Hi Celia
Thanks for listening
this indeed is one of my favourites too - difficult part is when Hayden plays any song, the piano instrument sings big time - you listen to it and everything you would want and need to hear in the song is already heard in his performance
that’s big for me and I really want and hope to learn that… in a - - years haha…
I enjoyed this tune and I must say, one of the challenging ones for me …
hope you’re doing well! Take care.
I did try to up the tempo (70bpm) today in my practice
still a work in progress - I really like the song!
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great work … bravo
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Thanks very much! Pierre Hope all is well. Take care
August 2020 Jazz Christmas Song goal 1
(Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire…)
I know it’s too early hahahah… a friend of mine told me I should first think about Halloween lol before even playing X-mas tunes 
So this is more of me sight reading the notes and chords, though I did just very minimal changes on maybe a couple of the rhythms and I’m not so sure if that is something that matches this style of music?
I think I started reading this 2nd week of August so there sure is a lot more to improve on…
Any ideas/critique/tips you may have for me - I’d greatly appreciate!
I will re-watch the lessons about how to start and end jazz songs - to have more ideas…
Also, This is only @50 bpm so - I know I should … listen to other versions - but first, mainly just re-watching Hayden’s lessons and listening to how he brilliantly puts the ‘feels’ in the song… 
Thanks and hope you are all doing GREAT! Take care
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So here’s my 2nd attempt - Step 2 of the process
I listened and re-watched Hayden’s lesson today and no matter the difficulty - really motivating me a lot to learn it… (turtle pace)
This is like a song break down - I did practice and record in parts…
(on another note, I also tried to play the piece as a whole a lot of times … but will take me more time to further improve and finally play without thinking so much what the next chord or notes will be ) will also do my best to (bit by bit) understand the theoretical explanations etc from Hayden’s lessons.
please feel free to send me any critique or suggestion… I’d be happy to hear them. Hope you all doing great!
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Lovely performance Kristeta 
Some of the Xmas arrangements are quite tricky and complicated to play… so congratulations!
Exactly as you say, start slow and then gradually speed it up to keep control and good technique.
I better start planning some new X-mas tutorials soon 
Cheers!
Hayden
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Hi Hayden! Thanks very much ! That means a lot
In particular, this song has opened my eyes about the importance of interpretation… For each piece and arrangement I look into and study in PianoGroove - there’s like a piece from a big puzzle that opens up…presenting itself - for my brains to catch - haha 
The moment I start to change the way I was playing it - and definitely - perfectly guided by your lessons - made me instantly realise how I should keep training myself to be an effective player/musician (and a lot more!) … it’s not just about what I want to accomplish anymore (ex. learning to play a fave song, slowly learning about theory or challenging myself to learn something complex) … but going far beyond that purpose …
I kept listening and listening and watching the lessons - and finally after some time 
- something clicked and I was slowly able to follow through on the parts I found difficult … I am loving this journey! 
Still a looong way to go - but these are all rewarding! and inspiring! Thank you so much!
**
Yay! that’s super!
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September 2020 Progress
Jazz Christmas Song goal 2
“I’ll be home for Christmas” 
Hi there Hope you’re all doing great!
I really wanted to work on Hayden’s arrangement of “Have Yourself a Merry Christmas” - and ended up still working on it hahaha… too hard so that’s going to take time…
I went for “I’ll be Home for Christmas” - so this is my initial attempt to the song - you can tell my fingers are still getting jumbled on the keys so will keep working on it until it gets to that proper feel … and all else that needs to be improved (fingers crossed!)
I also experimented and changed the place of my phone - I noticed the sound was better - (am not sure) pls do let me know what you think or suggest…?
there were notes that I obviously couldn’t reach too so not sure - what was the best option for that, whether to skip that note or find the closest same note?
Thanks very much for the listen!
By the way here was my 3rd attempt on
“The Christmas Song” - I might change the place of the phone on my 4th try - Thanks so much to Hayden and other amazing instructors for the inspiring and brilliant lessons we have on PianoGroove
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Very nice Kristeta! You are going to be ready for Christmas!
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haha Thank You Celia - I think this is the very first time I ever wanted to be ready (most of all will be able to play Jazz Christmas tunes yay!) for Christmas - In case it will be my 2nd time to witness and celebrate it with siblings, parents in Manila 
Take care.
September 2020 Progress
Just writing down what I have started learning since January 2020 and still currently - forever practicing haha…
- My Funny Valentine
- When I fall inlove
- Embraceable You
- Nearness of You
- The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
- I’ll Be Home for Christmas
- Darn that Dream
I probably have played this more than a hundred times (100x +++) reading, practising, and have also been doing a lot of listening - not very easy but always a lot of fun… … this is still a work in progress and as Celia has mentioned in her post, the journey only gets better and better
Thanks for inspiring me to learn this song - that was all because I have watched or listened to members’ versions while checking PianoGroove threads and most importantly being finally led to Hayden’s lessons… my first time to hear the song and Hayden’s arrangements never fail to leave us awe-inspired.
hope you are all doing fab and staying safe too! 
Take care.
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I did find an easy version of “Moon River”
Some friends have started requesting some jazz tunes - and that means I need to play and practice more hahha … (hoping to still improve my interpretation of this too…)
Hope you are all doing excellent! Stay safe and Take care.