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Hello all,
Over the past few months I've been teaching myself a bit of piano. I've sung in choirs in the past, so I do have a little musical background, and I've managed to learn several pieces (Bach's Minuet in Dm, Musette in D, Polonaise in Gm, now working on a Clementi Sonatina). I also work on scales, somewhat less diligently than I should.
At this point the best way to proceed seems to be to find a teacher, and I was given a decent amount of money for lessons this Christmas by my parents. However, I'm not really all that familiar with piano literature, and I'm uncertain as to what I'd like to work on. I've recently heard a number of Final Fantasy piano solos, which are beautiful and some of them seem to be within reach in terms of my ability. So, with all of this in mind, can any other piano players recommend nice pieces that are around my skill level, or maybe a little above (for the challenge)?
Also, when you were learning, what pieces did you progress with? Any other ideas for practice and so forth would be welcome.
Thanks for reading.
-Andrew
 
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Its been a while since I've played the piano but I would suggest getting a teacher. He or she would best be able to assess your skill level and to pick out songs for you to play.
When I started learning piano, I used skill level books that had a variety of songs of one level, and when I finished that level I moved on to the next one. Once I had become good at playing the piano, my teacher picked songs more advanced songs for me to play/perform.
Also it would be nice to provide a sample of the sheet music you play at your level instead of the names because I doubt people would know the level of the music just based off of a name.
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I am a beginner with the piano. Started out with a teacher back in elementary for a while. Now I'm on my own and am unable to read sheet music (I can read a bit because of my basic lessons a long time ago). I mainly look for video tutorials now though. Hoping to learn to read sheet music soon.
Recent pieces that I have practiced that would be easy for beginners:
- To Zanarkand - Final Fantasy X
- River Flows in You - Yiruma
- Moonlight Sonata (1st movement) - Beethoven
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find a teacher and work on technique
Hanon and arpeggios
don't worry about playing pretty pieces b/c they'll just serve as time-wasters that you play for fun but they won't help you at all
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Baa?21245 Posts
Fur Elise's a very easy piece that sounds complicated but really isn't, and everyone will know the tune xD
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it really all depends on your interests in the music, or else thats how it worked for me. i heard a piece that i loved, and i wanted to learn it. and its because i WANTED to learn it that i had the initiative TO learn it.
so if youre like me, find a piece that is beyond your reach as of yet, but that you thoroughly enjoy. work on it slowly, take small sections at a time, theres no need to rush. you will find however, that as you finish each part, and start to get a sense of playing the whole of the piece, or the whole of a section of it, that you will enjoy it more and more, and then get into learning it more and more, and then enjoy it more and more, etc. etc. its a cyclic process that can really help.
you will also find, that, by choosing a piece that is outside of your capability now (dont choose anything TOO difficult, you may end up discouraging yourself) that upon its completion not only will you have a grand sense of accomplishment, and enjoyment because you like the piece, but also your skill level will have improved in leaps usually without you noticing until you are done the piece or a large section of it.
also dont be afraid to take on a long term project of a piece. having to really think about something you are playing will lead to understanding not just that piece, but also music in general, and how when it is put together in certain ways, it MAKES SENSE. jazz is also very helpful in ithe pursuit of playing classical music, as to be a truly great jazz pianist you have to internalize how chords, scales, modes, and music really fits together.
some things i recommend:
listen to a lot of music. im talking a LOT. find some piece you love. then find one you love even more. whatever you do keep listening.
choose a few pieces. some people take on a few pieces at once, some like to take one at a time. whatever you do, stick with your decision.
work at it. work slowly, work confidently. if you make mistakes, go back and fix them. if you cant fix them, then just try to understand WHY you are making them. a lot of times playing an instrument can change completely if your approach to playing it changes.
think. if you think about what you are playing, how you are playing, why you are playing what you are, you will get a better sense of the piece, music as a whole, and yourself as a musician.
go back to simpler pieces. work on sight reading, analysis, dynamic expression in pieces you may have done already. i find it easier to work on musicality when i dont have to worry about technicality, so i like to find an easy piece and just get the very most i can out of it.
believe in yourself! you can do it!
if you really are serious about a piano teacher, a teacher is only good if it is a GOOD teacher. if you go and pay for lessons, make sure that a) you like the potential teacher b) the potential teacher is good enough to teach you c) the potential teacher is willing to teach you d) you can work out any problems with the potential teacher should they arise e) you and the potential teacher can, generally, work together efficiently and beneficially. finally, make sure the teacher and the time with them is worth the money.
specific technical studies you can work on (exercises) would be hannon and the likes, but a lot of people think these kind of things are, not useless, but pretty close. in fact, if you worry about hitting every note and only every note, then really, hannon only helps you become better at playing hannon. if you are going to use the hannon exercises then i would suggest you concentrate on the general dexterity, flexibility, and strength of your fingers, rather than the correctness of each individual study. if you choose a handful of exercises and just use those to work on your fingers, youll be fine. also, its more important to know your scales and chords than to be able to play them, although of course you DO have to be able to play them.
specific pieces you could play for their musical rather than technical value is harder to say. as i said before, its really up to you in that you have to listen to a lot of music and just decide what you personally like. if you are not sure where to start, i would suggest listening to (and if you intend to stick with classical piano, becoming familiar with) these works:
bach: clavier/partitas/goldberg variations
beethoven: sonatas
chopin: etudes/preludes/polonaises/scherzos/ballades/nocturnes
haydn/mozart/schubert: sonatas
liszt: transcendental etudes/paganini etudes/hungarian rhapsodies
also, some rachmaninoff never hurts. preludes and concerti are probably the most well known of his stuff.
of course this isnt stuff youll jump into, but if you listen to some of it, youll develop an idea of your taste in music. from there you can go deeper into that particular composer, or style of composing, to find what oyu like and what you would like to play. if you like clementi, check out some of his other stuff. its generally not too challenging, very light hearted IMO. bach has a much more expansive and deeper repertoire, so if you want more info there, just pm me. also, remember to take any pieces you know or have done and really get the most most MOST out of them that you can. it will really help, i promise.
anyways if you need more advice or questions or anything just ask or comment or whatever. you can pm me if you want, ill try to help as much as possible.
edit: lol, megapost. my bad for invading your blog.
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On January 12 2009 05:06 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Fur Elise's a very easy piece that sounds complicated but really isn't, and everyone will know the tune xD
lol I learned that piece back when I was taking lessons around 7 years ago. Pretty easy one to learn imo
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Roffles
Pitcairn19291 Posts
Ditch the scales, work on finger dexterity and strength through Hanon/Czerny exercises to improve your technique. Arpeggios, chords, and octave exercises help prepare your fingers for all sorts of stuff that appears in songs. You're gonna want to aim for some low level classical pieces, starting with Sonatinas at this moment. For a beginner your level, I'd suggest looking into the Sonatina Album, a compilation of moderately easy songs which progress into harder songs. Start with a few of them at first, progress further into the harder songs at the end. Work your way till you feel comfortable with your technique. Slowly progress into Sonatas, which are also technique heavy. I feel as if it's best to improve technique with true classical pieces, then moving onto romantic era pieces and all those waltzes, ballads, nocturnes, polonaises, and those sort of pieces. Those require good technique, but a better feel for the piece as you want to aim for more expression in those pieces.
Good luck to you and just remember that the key to getting better in everything is to just practice.
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I largely agree with what bluemanrocks said, although perhaps slightly disagree with what he said about the technical pieces. I've generally found that in order to be capable to play the rather advanced pieces such as...Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Minor (which I personally think is a brilliant piece) technique is incredibly important. That is not to say that you should play Hanon day in and day out: personally, I've always thought as well that Hanon, even among technical composition, is incredibly useless except for perhaps increasing stamina, and there are much better ways for you to do that. Not to mention Hanon is among the most boring activities you can do while at the piano.
In terms of technical works, I've always thought that the more advanced technical compositions by Czerny were always a lot of fun to play, especially once you start going fast and start playing at crazy speeds like prestissimo. Many of Chopin's etudes were also useful to me, and some of them sound very cool (Revolutionary Etude anyone?).
To be honest, much of the Final Fantasy music transcriptions floating around on the web are very simple. I've yet to find a truly difficult one, and if you're playing Clementi's Sonatinas now, I would wager that they would most likely be even easier.
As for progression, I can hardly remember now. It's been far too long: I remember I used to play through a series of books that were of increasing difficulty, followed by a shift into technical etudes of Czerny and Chopin for a while, then sonatas by Beethoven, Mozart, etc. By the time one finishes those, he would probably find that he could play any song he wanted, given the score.
In any case, any advice I give you here should be taken at face value: I'm no teacher, and can only tell you what I went through myself, and more than likely you would take a different path than me. However, I can not understate the importance of getting a proper piano teacher: it is by far the most useful thing you can do. There are many things that he or she can recognize that you may need to work on that you might not have even thought of before. bluemanrocks gave excellent advice on how you should choose one, so I won't repeat it here.
Cheers!
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rachmaninoffs prelude in g is not particularly technically challenging IMO, and in fact i think that the only real technical challenge it poses IS stamina (and also stretching/flexibility, which kind of goes without saying for rach), so im going to say that in that context hannon is in fact useful. and to the other comments on hannon, i addressed them in my original post; in moderation, and worked with efficiently, i find hannon pretty useful.
the rest though i completely agree with.
hannon was just one example of specific technical exercises. like darkoptik mentioned, chopin etudes (and, generally, chopin/liszt's works) focus on specific technical abilities. again, these may not be things you are looking at right now, ibut its nice to keep them in mind for the future.
also czerny is SO much fun.
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EPT
