The Piano Handbook

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1. tzmudzinFeb 2015
   The /r/piano FAQ (https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/wiki/faq) is a great starting point. There's a ton of resources available online, so the trouble is actually in picking the really good ones. Still, if you want to play well, you should probably get a teacher.

   As for myself: I've started lessons about 6 months of trying on my own. The teacher's role is to point out the small things one does not even notice when learning on one's own -- and those can really make a huge difference. But in the end it is all about the learning process -- seeing what works for you at any given stage, filling the gaps, re-evaluating periodically if your approach should change. And it's a long-time project. Most people become comfortable after 10 years or so of daily practice. So either you're extremely committed/desperate/forced/enjoy the learning process with the long-term goal in mind, or you quit.

   The specific resources I can recommend are:

     - Lypur's video courses on youtube (both piano + music theory)
     - "Piano Handbook" by Carl Humphries
     - "All About Music Theory" by Mark Harrison
     - http://www.musictheory.net
     - Willi Schneider's "Klavierfibel"

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2. laxativesDec 2016
   * Fiction *

   The Alchemist -- reread one of my favorites of all time

   Candidate -- reread

   Infinite Jest -- takes 300 pages to "get" David Foster Wallace's style and 500 pages to enjoy it, but well worth the investment. Probably one of my favorites of all time now.

   The Brothers Karamazov (in progress) -- Have been wanting to read more Russian Literature and apparently Infinite Jest borrows many plot points from Brothers Karamazov. I just started it a few days ago...

   * Non-Fiction *

   String Theory -- another book by David Foster Wallace containing a few essays on tennis. Even if you don't like his fiction, I doubt anyone would argue that the eponymous essay isn't great.

   Open -- Andre Agassi's autobiography

   Inner Game of Tennis -- reread

   Winning Ugly -- Read this twice in 2016 (reread in progress). My mental game is volatile to say the least.

   My System (in progress) -- Aron Nimzowitsch's Chess study

   In a Sunburned Country -- Bill Bryson's description of his trip to Australia

   Sailing Made Easy -- ASA 101/102

   Coastal Cruising Made Easy -- ASA 103

   Buying Your First Sailboat

   Open Water Diver Manual -- PADI Open Water Certification

   Enriched Air Diver Manual -- PADI Nitrox Certification

   Adventures in Diving Manual (in progress) -- PADI Advanced Open Water Certification

   Shadow Divers -- Diver's in the 90's discover a German U-Boat just dozens of miles off the coast of New Jersey

   Triple Your Reading Speed -- It definitely works, but its only applicable to simple texts like popular fiction and maybe news articles/blogs. I guess it probably does still benefit denser stuff though.

   The Origin of Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind -- This is quite possibly the work of a crank, but there's some interesting ideas that seem not impossible. A lot of his arguments are clearly cherry picked and loads of sentences like, "The statue had a big ear, obviously an example of bicameralism".

   Piano Handbook (in progress) -- Been working on the exercises in this and started learning the piano as an adult, two years ago. Just two chapters of eighteen to go...

   Jazz Piano (in progress) -- Will focus on this once the above text is done

   The Wine Bible (in progress)

   Porsche: Origin of Species (in progress)

   Millionaire Next Door (in progress) -- In strong conflict with the ideas presented in the text above...

   * Technical Non-Fiction *

   Functional Programming in Scala

   Pro Git

   Learning from Data

   Optimization Models; Califiore, El Ghaoui (in progress)

   Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets (in progress) -- Not great. Very little motivation to finish this one...

   Had the goal of 30 books, at least 8 of which had to be textbooks. Not quite there, but there's some really dense stuff this year, so I'm not too worried. I had no idea how little fiction I was reading; will need to adjust that next year.

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