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just want to see what's the first original piece everyone ever learned when you start playing (any Hanon or others' exercises are not included)?

for me, it's Fur Elise, but i only learned the first part (till repeat bar) then. i guess many people start on this piece, and we'll find out...

I think my "first" was Glinka's "The Lark"
Virginia (from Virginia)

If you're talking about classical, I haven't learned one yet. If you're talking about a piece that's not just an exercise in a method book, my first "piece" was Silent Night.

maybe i should clarify the words of 'original piece' little bit more: which should mean any piece written or transcribed for piano solo originally, not a simplified version of such a piece/song, whether it is classical or not.

For me, its a Minuet in G from the Anna Magdalena handbook. My teacher has me in the final stages now - I've got it memorized, and we're working on hand motions, specifically getting some upwards motion at the end of phrases and what not. I"ve also been working on playing it with my eyes closed. Its the first piece I've played worthy of such attention. Already started on another Bach Minuet, quite a bit more challenging for me than the first. Good stuff, that. I have taken a look at Fur Elise, but its way over my head at this point I'm sorry to say. Perhaps next year.

HM

Fur Elise - all of it.

My first piece (just recently learned) is Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, which I learned with my second piano teacher. I am so glad to be an adult and be able to play whatever I want now. Before, my first pieces consisted of Schaum arrangements of classical pieces. While they did introduce me to pieces I'd like to play later, it is an accomplishment for me to say, "Hey, I can play something real"

I was going to save myself retyping the answer to this question by finding my old post in P.C. and link to it, but the search function is not all it should be.

The question perhaps needs clarification--first piece "learned" as in started and understood, or first piece brought to performance level? My answers would be different either way.

I am the original idiot. I decided to teach myself piano as a freshman in college with access to a herd of new Steinway grands. So I went out and bought Ernesto Lecuona's Andalusian Suite and started with "Malaguena". It didn't dissuade me in the least to have other students comment, "Have you met the idiot who's starting with Lecuona's 'Malaguena'?" But lack of access to a piano DID dissuade me the next year. When I bought myself a new piano several years later (my first ever installment purchase), I picked up right where I left off, with the Lecuona. While I could read it and finger it all, some of it rather well, there were portions of it where an upright just didn't cut it--those two pages of fast quintuplets on pages 2 and 3--the upright couldn't return the hammers fast enough. Nor generate the complexity of building tone I was after. So I worked on other things in the little time I had available for practice for about a year. Until the working world and a 100-hour per week job killed all practice time.

Fast forward 20 years to quitting that job and buying a concert grand and devoting myself to piano full-time after 20 years of not playing a single note, literally. So out comes the old yellowed and dog-earred Lecuona. Only now, the piano can deliver what my mind and fingers want on those fast quintuplets with contol at PP and every shading I'm after while building to those FFFF crescendos. Meanwhile, while working that piece regularly, I committed Satie's 6 most common Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies to memory and consistent performance level. And finally worked up the nerve to tackle the 3rd Mvt. of LVB Op 27, 2. (I'd done 1 & 2 on the upright and refined them enormously on the grand). And on a good day, that's performance level as well (enough to fool neighbors they're hearing a "great CD"). And I can wing my way through a sizeable number of other things as well.

But I'm still working on polishing the Lecuona. I did play it once, but only once, that satisfied me absolutely. That left me exhilarated. But most other days, I can only come close, but see very specific elements I could have done better (always those quintuplets--maintaining speed and uniformity until the right gets a rest on page four is demanding). But I still put in the patient and focused practice time each week to make it more consistent eventually.

So I have not truly left my beginning behind even yet, though I've learned a lot alongside that effort. I'm just not that linear, I guess. And no one ever accused me of being reasonable about expectations or demands.

So after I finally "finish" that "first" piece, I'll tackle the next, "Rhapsody in Blue", which I went out and bought a half-hour after the grand was delivered.

Bach's fugue in C from WTC book 1. I know I set my sights kinda high, but I was absolutely obsessed with Bach and the WTC in college. It was also the 1st piece I learned when I started playing again after a 20 year break. (Why did I ever quit?)

If with folly on this one, I also learned moonlight sonata, but just the first movement. Didn't really like the second and the third is too hard so maybe later.

--DR LO

Allegretto in C by Diabelli.

First original piece learned: A Bach minutet.

First performed: Chopin Mazurka in G minor, Op. 67, No. 2

If I had it to do over, I wouldn't have gone with that particular Chopin piece. There are easier ones in my Chopin book that sound just as nice. Live and learn, I guess.

Herman - I started laughing when I went and found the Bach Minuet in G - I love it when I already know a song - for us oldies - "How gentle is the rain? That falls softly on the meadow?" What is it? - Toys 1967? Don't despair - Fur Elise isn't that bad - I bet you'll be at it before you know it.
I have only recently begun to play any Bach at all and I really like him - I think there's a lot of good learning in his music, for me anyway. I'm currently working on a Prelude in D Major that is driving me nuts! Holding the voices while playing others at totally different counts is really hard. I don't know why this particular one is giving me such fits.

Has anyone else done this piece? Am I just brainless or is it really hard?

Chick I did exactly the same thing to Lecuona while I was in college. Of course I learned Malaguena on the guitar first.

Other than Thompson Method, my first peice was sheet music for "A Summer Place" that I found in the piano bench. It had pretty easy repetitive chords that I labelled on the music. Then I went into a major Bach phase starting with Two-part inventions. Bach rocks.

Julie

Rach 3 in a piano showroom.

I found "Meet The Flintstones" blown into my hedgerow one fall. Haven't felt inspired to try it.

The first piece I learned as an adult that wasn't in a method book was Tchaikovsky's "June Barcarolle" from The Seasons.

Ditto. I played it so much im turned off fur elise for life now.

I really can't remember what my first piece was. Some of the earliest I can remember playing are: Fur Elise (of course! ), "Born Free," a series of piano duets from "Sound of Music," and some simplified themes of Chopin's work.

My first "real" pieces were an obscure Bagatelle-thingy by Beethoven (in my book it was named "Farewell to the Piano," with no opus or WoO --note--not "Adieu to the Piano," this was different) and Chopin's Raindrop Prelude. For some reason I was entranced by Clair de Lune and learned that pretty early on as well. Weird, since I don't think I play Debussy all that well today. (I probably didn't play Clair de Lune all that well, but folks loved hearing an 11 year old play it! )

Nina