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Sonatine Colllection 1 followed with scribbles known as the Chinese language, haha.

It's a local publishing company that threw a whole bunch of Sonatines into one and sells it for real cheap

A nice collection is the Clementi Op 36 - there are 6 sonatine. I'm working on the first one.
There are a number of editions - Amazon has some which also have CDs.

How fun! I wish I had someone I could do that with.

Ahhh. You are inspirational!

CebuKid,

If you go to the sheetmusicplus site and seach under piano, sonatina, you will find several different collections. The Fabers have two albums at what looks like early intermediate/intermediate level.

If you want lotsa sonatinas for sight reading, perhaps you should check out this offering from CDSheetMusic:
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Piano-Sonatinas-And-Standard-Study-Works-Version-2-0/7868051

Here's the contents:
http://www.cdsheetmusic.com/products/disk_contents.cfm?product=17

SheetMusicPlus has a 20% off sale on all their CD Sheet Music until August 4th.

It's spelled Mendelssohn, dear. :P
But in all seriousness, it amazes me how fast you seem to progress! What piece was it that you started?



You sightread that stuff? O_O
I've been busting my ass over that stuff for hours, haha! That's pretty amazing, give yourself a pat on the back!
How long have you been playing?

P-Rex, thanks for the spelling correction - that's what I get for rushing and not checking! lol....

I will have to check the name of the piece we played - she kept pulling them out and we just kept plugging away at them. It was a charming piece - we're meeting tomorrow and I'll write it down.

Things have started to come together in the last few weeks. Of course everything is relative, but I definitely can feel a change in what I'm able to do, it is very exciting!

It really is a good thing to be able to find the positive in everything we do.

I am pleased with the fact that I don't get as anxious as I used to when I go to my lessons. I am also much less critical/self defeating. Now I can practice without beating myself up over every little thing. Because of this I think I am making better progress than I have in the past. My reading is getting better as well.

Getting a recording for the piano bar that I was happy enough with on take #1. It's not perfect (but what is) and I covered a big flub nicely I think (not going to say what it is!!).

The MendelsSOHN duet I played with my teacher is OP 62 N. 1
It is peculiar in that the "primo" part - the easy one - is mostly only right hand until the end.

This week my achievement was that for the first time ever I played something better during the lesson than at home! woohoo!

Kymber - that sounds like great progress!
Andy - how nice you were able to cover up your "flub"..... I won't even bother listening for it !

(edited to add: I've just listened to your piece - lovely!!!!!! You have a really nice touch, and your playing is really even and steady. I'm inspired to put that piece on my "must learn"list! May I ask when you started plyaying? )


Isn't it stressful recording? Worse than playing in front of people because any mistake you make is always going to be there! argh!!

I'm hoping I'll have my piece in shape before the 15th to submit for the August recital. I dropped the Vinciguerra I was working on as I realized I was never going to get it anywhere near the right speed for August.

Thanks! I was self-taught as a teen (though I did take classical flute lessons and theory) but mostly just took guitar chords and melody lines and played piano with those. I started lessons with a teacher to play classical piano in May. I've learnt not to be embarassed about that question - although I've played for more than 20 years, I really never "learnt".

I had to read that twice - first time through I focussed on the fact that you started in May and gasped, thinking you must be a ruddy genius!....... Then I finished the sentence - whew- you're definitely good, but I'm not quite so intimidated now - and I'm still inspired! Complimenti again!

Ok this weekI seem to have made a bit of a breakthrough in getting rid of some tension in my arms.
I've been playing around with position and found that my moving slightly farther AWAY from the keys, I seem to have a more natural "fall" onto them, which is much more relaxed.
I had tried this before in the past, but always felt I was too distant and kept creeping back.

I'm also pleased to note that I'm definitely making progress in terms of "getting the hang" of my pieces. I can see that my fingers are learning where to go with a lot more fluidity and somethings are just .......easier to do. I also think I'm practising better, more productively.
It is most gratifying.

I currently have a 'sight-reading' bug... So my achievement this week was to practice 7/7 days, sight-reading pieces & exercises for the first 15 minutes or so.

I'm using "beginner" pieces from Pianist Magazine (but many of these seem to be level 2 to 3ish (although they do have some easier 'for starters' pieces but not in every issue).

Apparently to improve you need to practice sight-reading with material that you can read 95% fluently. So for some 'easy peasy' material I dug out my very first book from my very first lesson (this is so old it cost 3 shillings). I sight read through that this week. Off course, this was very very easy and sight-reading it was a doddle and I played each piece pefectly! Well perhaps not! It did show me how pants I am at this. This was a very curious experience, I vaguely remember doing it the first time all those decades ago (queue wavy line moment).

So I decided to get some sight-reading method books and start working through them from the beginning...

There's a lot of series available on Amazon, but in the end settled for ordering a bunch of material from the local public library. I just got back from collecting them. Although I only ordered book 1 of each series, the whole set of one came bound in a hard cover. So effectively I've got 12 or so method books in total for £0.00.

So my final 'achievement' was finding out that the public library is an amazing resource for method books and collections of graded pieces.

You're lucky! I'll take another look at ours but I'm pretty sure there's no method books.

Hmm, I'll have to have a look in the library again. I couldn't see anything last time I checked though.
It may not be the best idea, but I use Bach Preludes for sight reading practice, which is certainly helping, I am getting a lot better at it.

My 'big' achievement is bars 37-50 of 'Pathetique' mvt.2. Granted I can't play it up to speed, but I can at least get through it now.

The trick for me was searching the library catalogues online. The one I go to is part of a very large network. Several were in a branch 80 or so miles away but turned up in a couple of days.

I just finished working through the first (Sight-Reading for Fun, Vol 1:Preliminary by Peter Lawson). I could do this one.

Our library has an irritating tendency to be missing the first couple of books of the great majority of its methods (lots of volumes 3, 4, & 5...). :phooey: Since my actual playing level is still late elementary, my sight-reading level is pretty low.

But I've been on a sight reading kick too. My accomplishment of the week is that I've figured out how to alleviate the tedium of sight-reading beginner material in the key of C (G or F if we're getting adventurous) -- sight read it transposed into other keys! It adds a little spice to playing London Bridge... :rolleyes:

Unfortunately I live in the smallest (geographically) county in the US (though it has a really great library system). However, there is World Cat and that says the nearest library that has that sight reading book is ... Ottawa!

Actually I did a bunch of other searches and there are some basic primers that should provide good material in my local library. I'll check them out (pun not intended).

I was away on holiday last week, but my big achievement was sitting down at my cousin's piano & playing a few pieces from memory, & with other people in the room. They weren't sitting listening or anything, but they were there & I managed to ignore them.

My cousin, btw, is 83 & still an excellent pianist. Played in a few jazz bands when he was in university, many decades ago. I hadn't had a chance to listen to him in ages.