Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Challenging pieces for beginners.

I agree with UK PAUL UK, if Shumanns "Kinderscenen" seems slightly out of reach then Burgmullers Op 100 could be what you are looking for.

BURGMULLER OP 100

or try some of Streabbog's "easier" pieces, i.e.

LA VIOLETTE

LA VIOLETTE - YOU TUBE

Why don't you aim to prepare a recording of Fur Elise for the ABF e-cital in Feb since you are looking to record anyway?

Removed at request of poster.

I already said that I got it, quit it with the insulting poem.

The point of this thread wasn't to say that I wanted a PhD before a Bachelor's, it was to ask what kind of pieces I could aim for in the given time period, and I also said that the time I would spend learning a bunch of easy pieces, I could spend on one difficult piece which is perfectly logical, and I showed that I was aware that it isn't the best idea and everyone said that it was a very bad idea so I changed my mind and decided to aim lower. I'm not retarded.

Look at the progress this guy like many other self taught people made in one year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W7tez0l_sQ

All the pianists on youtube say challenge your self with pieces, but every here tells me slow down, stop, you don't know what you are doing and I still get the insulting poem on every thread.

Mohannad, I think you're a smart guy - most people your age wouldn't even be able to write on a forum in intelligible English. You seem to have a critical mind and I'm sure you will make good use of the advice and suggestions you received here. I look forward to listening to your recordings! You will certainly progress much faster than I could ever do.

Funny how piano snobs also seem to fall into that first category...

If you really are after a steep learning curve then try Scriabin's Vers La Flamme. If you can master it from the relatively easy beginning to the end you'll have about as steep a learning curve as you could wish and with the benefit of an all-in-one piece.

I learned" heart asks pleasure first" within 2 years.... not amazingly well.... but if your intent on wowing a crowd then you could do a lot worse.... women litterally paid for my drinks after hearing it....

Id stick with burgmuller though, youll get a good grounnding and have some flashy stuff to grease the social wheels with.... :-)

You certainly are not retarted, but wasn't maybe not quite aware of how challenging it really is to learn to play classical piano to the commonly required standard. You can spend a year learning a challenging piece (I have and it's still getting better every month, while I am learning easier stuff as well). But if you only do that you will after a year most probably just play it rather badly because you do not have the ingrained physical and mental ability to do better. If you used that year on pieces that are easy enough to build you the foundation, you can maybe learn the piece in 6 months to a level that it actually sounds good. My point here is that learning pieces that are too difficult do not teach you anything, you will be "faking" in a sense. It would be like learning advanced mathematics without knowing how to count or understanding basic stuff. One might be able to memorize some formulas, but it would all fall to pieces when one should explain what they mean and where they come from.

I think many of us have tried that and found it a useless approach. It took me only a couple of weeks to realize there's no way I could learn the chromatic etude of chopin I really love, because my hand just could not execute what was printed on the sheet and trying would cause damage to my hands. And I did play a few years as a kid. I am determined to play it one day, but most likely it will be after at least 10 years of study with a teacher.



That is mainly for two reasons:
There are always some extra talented people who can just pick up something fast without much work, but most of us can't. Those who can't but try either turn out rather bad or stop when it becomes too hard.

I hear really nice performances in youtube by these extra fast learners, but usually not classical. Mostly the way they play demanding classical pieces leaves a lot to desire (just like in the link you posted). Poor playing of classical music just is not entertaining for anyone who has been exposed to great performances of the same pieces. You might be able to wow people who do not know better, but will it be enough after working hard?

You should challenge yourself, I agree here. But challenge in a way that is in the reasonable limits. Many of the suggestions in this thread pose a lot of challenge without being unreasonably difficult.

I hope you do not find my post insulting, I really want to help, since I have been where you are now and wish to share what I have learned in the process.

Fur Elise is not that simple,the middle part is hard to play well if skills level is too low.
It is grade 7 RCM from their 11 grades, it is not for real beginners but rather intermediate piece.
Above it Moonlight Sonata 1st movement which is grade 8.

To play beautiful pieces, you do not need advanced proficiency, if you pick the simple versions of classical music - they still sound very nice if played with good expression. There are also a lot of popular music for different levels, so a lot of opportunity to play to your friends without spending 10+ years on piano studies

I was cleaning out my bookcase, and found:

"Playing the Piano for Pleasure" -- Charles Cooke.

I haven't looked at it for 40 years. It's still good! It was first published in 1948, and it's still available both on paper and in Kindle format. Try Amazon.com and/or Amazon.ca. It has a thread here, devoted to it:

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1770142/%22Playing%20the%20Piano%20for%20Pl.html

It has a few lists of "graduated difficulty" piano pieces, and several pointers to other sources.

It deals with all the difficulties that come up repeatedly in this Forum. That just shows that "learning the piano" hasn't changed much in 60 years.

Another book mentioned in that "Playing the Piano for Pleasure" thread -- newer, with excellent reviews on Amazon.com:

"The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness" -- Gerald Klickstein

The Amazon.com link:

http://www.amazon.com/Musicians-Way..._1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318594467&sr=8-1

It's also available in a Kindle edition. I don't think it has "graduated difficulty" lists, and it seems to be aimed at serious, classical-music students (according to the reviews).

Neither of those books will "teach you to play the piano", but they both give general outlines about _how you should learn_ to play piano.

I don't know if there's "helpful books?" thread here, but there should be!

. Charles

I have Cookes "Playing piano for pleasure", excellent book. I found THIS download site, it seems extraordinarily cheap....I'm not sure if there are "catches".

Mohannad, people here on the forum are usually working in their piano learning efforts towards constancy. Don´t be surprised about the answers advising you to first build up a fundament while not supporting you so much in finding a piece which could serve you to become a one hit wonder only. Be aware that the fallacy of leaving in your piano playing apparent gaps unfilled will frustrate your future consistency as a musician. This is what (almost all) people here in the forum know, likely because they are usually older than you and therefore having had the chance to already collect more experience on this during life.

You can reach out for a top piece, and it even might work out here and there, but sooner or later you will fall if there is no fundament supporting you. Having followed your statements in your former threads on different pianoworld forum boards, and having seen which (consistent) answers you received there, and here again, I suggest that you really decide if you want to become a one hit wonder everyone smiles (once) about, or if you want become respected and saluted steadily.
I as well suggest you to first take advices to build a stable fundament serious and stop to claim that you would be "willing to (...) sacrifice a good foundation". You will have little chances to receive the answers you are looking for, if you are not bringing up the questions properly.

I just can´t help you with your question for the one hit wonder piece, because I wouldn´t know a proper piece for this. But I will at least try to help you to well develope on the long term by bringing up the following general guideline:
The brain needs time for little by little becoming programmed with what we by practicing asked it to succeed with. Once brain circuits have had enough time to interconnect better optimized on the requested task, doing the task results optimized. So, we need to frequently trigger the brain optimization process by practicing, but also need patience to let brain optimization processes happen. Each brain works at its own pace, which you can not outwit. And your own pace is usually much(!) slower than desired! Although a challenging trigger can occasionally push things forward concerning a _special_ task, things will need intelligently graduated triggers, and will need time (in case of making music: much(!) time), to develope to an all-purpose ability.

Keep this in mind, and you will have a nice journey!

Thanks! I just got it, it's a decent pdf scan!

Mohannad, don`t worry about some of these guys. Glean any encouragement you get, and run with it. There are 9 year olds playing Fantasie Impromptu. . . . and getting those fiddly notes in. You can get a copy of the music free online. If you get to the end of the first line or two, you`ll be able to finish it. Eventually!

Let us know how you get on. Lots here wish you well!

We should be encouraging people to play piano properly, not just bang out notes. Yes they are very young people that are playing this piece, but they've been playing for 5-7 years already, and constantly made to practice and practice and practice. For an adult learner (of course anything is possible) but in 99.99999% of cases learning something of that calibre is setting up someone to fail.

Mohannad - Keep playing, keep learning new things everyday and don't give up. You will before you know it be ready to play that piece or any piece for that matter! Work on buddy!

"We should be encouraging people to play piano properly,"

Very true. But he`ll get encouragement getting through the first few bars of Fant Imp. by himself. And if he doesn`t then he`ll pull back a bit. I dunno if he has a teacher or not but that`s what I did . . .

Bach is the man for you!

Bwv 939
Bwv 924
Bwv 926

Maybe too easy for you, but for us old dudes Bach is perfection!

Fair enough, everyone has their own style of learning. If anyone who's an adult beginner can hash out enough effort and dedication to play the first few bars correctly then all the power to them!

Mohannad I've thought of a piece for you! RCM Grade 3 Piece Arabesque by Johann Burgmuller. Its not too hard, but it's a fast piece and sounds awesome, I played this one for my grade 3 exam and it was a lot of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aREB2y9ow_s

Tell me what you think

That's an interesting youtube channel. So much music!