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Hi all, I'm new here. I am 23 this year and I have been taking lessons for a few months after I made up my mind to learn Fur Elise and some pop music arrangements. After almost 7 months of study, I can play a simplified version of Fur Elise and some songs by SENS.

I think it's wonderful to have so many adult beginners here encouraging each other here. I want to propose that we start a study group on La Campanella. I saw a video of Li Yundi performing it in his Japan concert and totally fell in love with it. It is such a lovely song and I can't stop listening to it. It sounds rather difficult but I believe with determination and hard work anything can be done.

Pianofairy,

Welcome. Good luck, I admire your ambition!

I've often thought that if Yundi can play that song, surely I could also. I've just havn't gotten around to it yet .

Anyway, I'm busy working on simple pieces by Brickman and Lanz, so for that reason, and that reason only, I'll pass on joining this group for now

I'm not sure which video you watched, but in the video below you can see his hands while he's playing La Campanella.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9jJEFfyayU&search=yundi%20li

Watch this, if you still think you can do it, well, good luck:).

BTW, I love that etude, too. I listen to it almost every night.

hi. last year marks my 15th year studying music, and my 13th year playing the pianoforte. last year i performed this piece for my concert. it's a delightful piece to learn, to practise and of course, finally, to bring to an expectant audience.

my philosophy is that regardless of technical ability, anyone should be allowed to try any piece. this piece is technically difficult and is rated LRSM standard.

at my standard, it took me exactly 1 month from the first time i looked at the score till the time i performed it. i'm definitely not encouraging anyone to learn the piece within 1 month. firstly, you will feel totally pressured to practise hard and your end product may not be completely polished.

however, i really admire all of you and i do agree its a very interesting piece. it is inevitable that you may find the piece technically very challenging. that need not be discouraging though- you know that practice CAN overcome them. (:

i await good news following your practise! have fun with the exciting la campanella~!!

Yikes - I think that although I wish to play the piece, my abilities are waaay short, and it would be a pointless exercise.

The first few bars contains lots of 2 octave jumps which I found impossible to hit, let alone turn into a nice melody. And the trills? Try trilling your 4th and 5th fingers and play other notes with your remaining three fingers at the same time.

As I say, would be cool to play - but surely it would take years of practice (in general) before such a piece could be played?

The sheet music is in the public domain, so you can get it at

http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/dlpage_new.cfm?composition_id=774

All the best!
Euan.

I'm sorry to tell this but La Campanella is definately way too hard for a beginner. Of course you can try and play around with it but its impossible to get it up to speed right now. It's even hard to get all the notes down. I think its smarter to learn easier pieces first.
Sorry for not being encouraging

But there are many very good pieces for your level or a little higher that are achievable. =)

Thank you all for your feedback, the reason I suggested a study group here is because my teacher refused to teach me this song. She is a student in a local conservatory and she said she herself is not able to play this song yet, hence it would definitely be impossible for me. I don't believe in the impossible, and I sort of question my teacher's ability after she declaring that she herself can't play the song. Should I fire my teacher and find another teacher who would be more encouraging and capable?

Yes, I saw the video that was posted on the Youtube. I'm aware that it looks very impressive. I already printed the score and tried to play the first page. It looks quite impossible, how the heck do you hit so far a jump with your right hand? Any tips on that?

I don't think it would be fair to fire your teacher because she can't play that piece (I'll bet the majority of teachers out there cannot). Yundi is surely one of the better players in the world today.

Also I highly doubt you would find a teacher at your level who would genuinely try and teach you that piece either. I would take Margareths advice and learn some pieces at or just over your level and I'm sure you will get a lot more enjoyment from playing the piano.

Maybe you could try this version of La Campanella instead:

http://sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_detail.html?item=4620079

Liszt Made Easy
By Franz Liszt. Arranged by John Brimhall. Piano.

"This is a great book for early intermediate piano players that want to play Liszt music, but are not piano virtuosos."

"These skillful arrangements capture the essence of the original composition in easy-to-play versions that stay faithful to the original musical intent."

Contains: Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major (Adagio Theme); Consolations, Nos. 1, 3 & 5; En RIve (Dreaming) - Nocturne; Hungarian Fantasy (Theme); Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (Theme); La Campanella (6 Grand Etudes of Paganini, No. 3) (Excerpt); La Romanesca; Liebestraum No. 3 (Dream of Love) (Theme) and more.

Dvdiva, you beat me to the punch. I was also going to suggest finding any easier version.

Pianofairy, are you in Japan? There are all kinds of "classical Piano Solos made easy" type books, and also lots of "for adult beginner" type books as well. Thanks to Fujiko Hemming and Yundi Li, in Japan this piece is almost as popular as a pop song, so it should be easy to find an arrangement that's more accessible for you.

I also wouldn't say "don't try this" because it's up to you. But I personally don't choose pieces that are so dramatically above my current level for two reasons. 1) I want to experience the satisfaction of finishing something and getting it up to playabilty so I can share it with others. 2) I'm going to be playing the piano for a long time, so there's no reason to suffer for an unreasonable amount of time on a difficult piece when I can work on other satisfying music and then get to that difficult piece when I'm more ready for it.

However, I have read about people who just focused on one piece, and worked only on that, and they were eventaully able to play it. You have to decide what your priorities are, to put all of your energy for the next 1 or even 2 years into one piece, or work on a variety of music as you work up towards the dream piece.

Just my opinion.

Hi pianofairy, and welcome.

Are you the pianofairy who's into healing music?

*smiles*

Here's a welcome picture for you:





Mel

Wow Pianofairy!

I hate to limit myself, but I don't see La Campanella in my repertoire at any time in the forseeable future. And if I'm going to be realistic and honest with myself, then I will have to admit, unfortunately, I will likely never see this in my piano repertoire.

Thank God there are many other challenging choices for me to enjoy.

Don't let my own self assessment discourage you, by all means...go for it!

Pianofairy, I just watched the video, and I can see why that piece has gotten under your skin. It is beautiful. But at your current playing abilities (= simplified version of Fur Elise), attempting to play the original version would be an exercise in frustration and heartbreak.

I think dvdiva's and ShiroKuro's suggestion to try a simplified arrangement is an excellent one. I suspect the simplified version would preserve the beautiful melody and get rid of a lot of the extremely hard trills and runs.

Please do not be too hard on your teacher. She has your best interests at heart. Why not ask her about one of the simplified versions and see if she is more encouraging?

Hi Pianofairy,
La Campanella is one of those touchstones of the piano literature, difficult even for advanced players. It's a real virtuoso piece. Your teacher is actually making the correct call in this case.
I also like the idea of having the goal of working on a simplified version. It is likely to be much more satisfying for you while still letting you capture the essence of the piece.
Good luck!

Sophia

Pianofairy... I don't want to make you feel bad, but I think it's a very big jump. IMHO you should study pieces you can play at your level, when you finish them... try harder pieces, and so on...

Enjoy your playing.

not all teachers can play la campanella. but generally, in my opinion, teachers should not try to teach pieces that are way beyond their own abilities. chances are neither the student nor the teacher has the physical resources to overcome technical problems presented in this case.

yet, it is not fallacious to cast a doubt on your teacher- because usually, conservatory students should be able to play la campanella. I myself played it with 14 years of study of piano. (actually I'm an intruder in this forum and I apologise for that- firstly because im not really an adult (im still a student) and ive been learning the piano for quite long already), but I should expect most piano teachers to be able to handle this if they really focus on it.

but if anyone here is keen on the original version, i myself can offer some advice on overcoming the technical difficulties.

-several say that the jumps are difficult. actually, this more-than-1-octave leaps are not dangerous. not to discourage anyone, but they should be played as if they were "the easiest thing to play on earth". you shouldn't be looking at the high D# by performance. these jumps are made by controlled horizontal movements of the hand and the fingers. several pianists use the 5th finger on the D#- which requires practise, but reduces the distance of movement in the hand. I prefer to use my 4th finger because I find that it is more accurate than the 5th, although that may be because I have large hands. just keep practising. your hands must keep moving left and right. feel the notes with your fingers and just look at the lower note because that is what changes. the D# stays there all the time! (:

-the trills on the 4th and 5th finger should be practised slowly and until they become natural. where chords are involved at some places, do lots of slow practise.

-if you get to the running notes, make sure your hands are warmed up! (: and practise slowly, with the correct fingering. the fingering is very systematic for the most part, thankfully.

-if you make it to the repeated octaves section, keep your wrist relaxed and refrain from practising much should your hands be fatigued.

-the last part has some rather nasty looking octave passages. don't think too much about it and just play it (:

if anyone manages to complete it, please feel absolutely accomplished- it IS as sophial said- a touchstone of piano literature. but having already played it, I might be biased, but my opinion is that la campanella is not as difficult as many make it out to be. there are much more difficult things in piano literature- like reminiscences du don juan de mozart- an outrageous 16-minute fantasy that makes incredulous technical and spiritual demands upon the pianist.

have fun with la campanella! (:

but if you wish to try a simplified version, it is of course okay (:

i would encourage you try the simpler version to see the themes and compare them to the original score to see how liszt made "variations" out of them. and then maybe you can try looking around for the paganini score- which is a really cute score - in a minor i think.

the high D#s (or rather, high E's) are made by playing natural harmonics on the E-string on the violin. it's really a very colourful piece. hope you all will continue to enjoy it!

islamey, you're not intruding and there is no need to apologise. Everybody's welcome in the AB forum, and the more advanced players help us novices out a great deal.

p.s. I liked your comment about the "nasty looking octave passages" ("don't think about it too much and just play it"). That's good advice for the Cristofori's Dream piece that several of us are playing.