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Hi Everyone,

I am looking for any good 'beautiful' piano pieces for beginners? Perhaps a song book that can be purchased or even sheet music that can be purchase online.

I find it difficult to not have any descent music pieces that I can sit down and practice. The music pieces that I often do practice are small songs for learning piano. However, it's nice to have a few simple longer pieces to play the piano as well.

An example of what I think is a beautiful piece is:

Clair de lune - Claude Debussy's
Alone In The Ring - (author unknown)

However, it's Claire de lune is way to complicated for a beginner. Please list the title of the song and author if possible. Or, list a book that is invaluable for a beginner.

Thanks!

Jason

Jason

I am currently working on several pieces that are not too difficult and can be played in a few days quite well.

My Way
Blueberry Hill
Morning Has Broken

You should be familiar with these titles.
The books are readily available in the UK for these. Send me a PM and I will give you exact details of the titles.

You should also visit to Pop Piano Pro http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/7708.html thread as it is very good.

Clair de lune is not an beginner piece.

Many pieces by Senneville and Toussaint are quite beautiful and approachable for a beginner. Three I have done are Nostalgy, Marriage d' Amour, and Souvenir d' Enfance (excuse my poor French). I have my beginner recordings of them on my website, or you can find good versions of them by Richard Clayderman on YouTube. Good luck!

Welcome to the forum, JasonCA!

I recommend some of David Nevue's pieces highly for beginners, especially "Solitude" and "Wonderland." You can listen to all of his pieces, see sample pages of the sheet music, and even view a listing of his pieces that have been rated for difficulty on his website: www.davidnevue.com

Also, a while back I started a thread talking about his easier pieces:

Thread on easy David Nevue piece for Beginners

Bluekeys,

Where can I find that "Nostalgy" piece???? I looked on sheetmusicplus and I couldnt find it. I really like it.

Thanks in advance, KaylaX

Hi Jason,

You may like to look into Tchaikovsky's "Album for the Young". There are a lot of very pretty little pieces in there.

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/b/b5/IMSLP07996-Tchaikovsky_-_Op.39_-_Album_for_the_Young.pdf

It seems that #21 in the set seems to be fairly popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fU2ppdFJJs&feature=related

Good luck!

You know, I can not resist to second that I just found one of their pieces that sounds really nice and I think it is easier than Nostalgie ( and easier than Bach's Minuet in G ) it is called "Rondo pour un tout petit enfant" (Rondo for a very little child) by Paul De Senneville.

Kaylax, if you search by keyword Nostalgie (french word) and Paul De Senneville you will find it somewhere on the internet.It is also in the Richard Clayderman Anthology book

JasonCA, I also think that Catherine Rolling's Lyrics Moments books have very beautiful pieces They look quite simple and have very detail notations. I haven't learned any of her piece though.

TB

What I would suggest if you love Claire de
Lune especially, is to simply start playing it,
as of right now, even if it is too difficult
for you. Play it one measure a day (because
anyone can play one measure of any piece,
even the most difficult ones) instead of
trying to bulldoze your way through the
whole thing; you'll burn yourself out
that way--this way, the small bites approach,
you can't burn yourself out. This would
be in addition to the regular beginner's
pieces you're currently working on.

What it sounds like you're asking is something
like: "I want to play CDL, but I can't
at my current level, so what novice pieces
are similar to it and will prepare me
to eventually play it?" But there is nothing
really like CDL, because each piece
is essentially unique, and so nothing is
really going to prepare you specifically
to play it. Of course, after years of
study you'll be ready to play it, but
that's simply a case of gaining strength
and experience to play a more advanced
piece. The many pieces you played
before you tackled it simply enabled
you to develop that strength and experience,
but did not actually prepare you specifically
to play CDL. The only thing that's going
to prepare you specifically for playing CDL is
CDL itself.

Of course you can wait till years from
now before tackling it, but why bother
when you can simply dig into it right now--
but in small bites so you don't burn out.
At the snail's pace of one measure per
day, it might take you months to just
get through the whole piece, but so what?
At the end of that time you'll have
"played" it, which is what you want to
do especially. When you get through it
the first time, go right back to the beginning
and proceed as before--don't try to
rush things. The second time around
you'll probably find that you've improved
so that you can do two measures a day
instead of one, which cuts the time to
cycle through it a second time in half,
a 100% improvement right off the bat,
nothing to scoff at in anyone's book.
And so forth.

What you're aiming for is to get to the
point where you can play the whole thing
through in one sitting, although slowly
and with errors. When you get to
that point, it's just like any of your
beginner's pieces, and you can simply
play it over and over until it's up to
speed.

Thanks to you TrueBeginner and Bluekeys, guess which book I've also recently acquired? Yes, Santa graciously rewarded me with Richard Clayderman Anthology book for finishing my Alfred book 1. It also contains that "Rondo Pour Un Tout Petit Enfant" piece in it and it's very good to know that it's approachable for a beginner.

I've been trying to decide which piece to learn first since I like so many of them, and have decided to go with "Mariage D'Amour" for now, and have been learning all of the treble clef melodies so far.

Thanks again for all of your help and recommendations.

Best,

Key Notes

"To a Wild Rose" by Edward MacDowell (1861-1908), roughly contemporaneous with Debussy's Claire de Lune. It's a very simple tune, and easy to master in terms of playing the right notes. The original version by the composer is much easier to learn than is CdL and you'll see progress much more quickly with "To a Wild Rose".

The direction says "with simple tenderness". I've heard many recordings of it. There is plenty of room for interpretation; the harmonies are not straightforward. MacDowell was described to me by my piano teacher as an American Impressionist so the harmonies are quite interesting.

My teacher at the time had suggested I learn easy pieces along with the hard ones. I was learning CdL at the very same time as "To a Wild Rose". While I finally got CdL somewhat right after months and months (and months), I was able to simply enjoy playing To a While Rose after just a couple of weeks.

I like all of the music of David Nevue too Monica. I bumped your thread up with one of my favorite songs he wrote.

Your thread: http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/4354/2.html#000041

Dale

You can always find easy arrangements of a lot of non-beginner pieces, Clair de Lune included...

I would check out books like these:
http://www.amazon.com/Library-Easy-...mp;s=books&qid=1233533435&sr=8-3

What about some "easy" Chopin? Op. 28 no. 7 looks like something you could learn.