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A Dilemma: There are tons of recordings of more famous, flashier pieces of the classical repertoire, and tons of recordings of the more popular easy pieces, like Fur Elise, but what if you want to hear recordings of easier pieces that are more obscure? It's a bit of a no man's land, isn't it? Too easy to be a part of professional pianists' repertoire, and too unpopular to be played in general. (A good exception is the UIPianoPed channel, which has Ph.D. music pedagogy professors recording musically expressive, beautiful renditions of pieces from the easiest IMTA levels!)

That being said, I am looking for some easier pieces to play and record, just to get used to playing something well (but without having to sit on something for months and months to get a harder piece to the point where it is worth recording as a fully developed piece). Is there something that you would like to hear played that is on the easier side? If the sheet music is public domain or you can provide it, I'm happy to play it and share it here.

Mostly, I'm just looking for some suggestions on what I could learn to play that people would enjoy hearing, and all the better if I can help someone in ABF appreciate or learn a piece better for having heard what it sounds like.

What level are you? Are you a professional or teacher?

How about Satie Nocturne 3? I was fiddling around with that one today.

I have a simply gorgeous classical piece which has only performances by two pianists on Youtube. I've located it and it is being scanned for me right now since even the score is so rare it is not online. I'll post it for you to try out when I get it. I'm guessing it will take a week to have it scanned. It's not "easy" (the Clementi Sonatina Op 36 No 1 that I am working on is easy, but that would be like going back to grade school for you), but having heard it, I don't think it is very hard either. If you post your performance on Youtube of this one, you'll be the 3rd performance (or 2nd performance, depending on how one counts) on Youtube.

Level: I can't say, because I didn't do ABRSM or RCM growing up... The Music Teacher's Assn in the state where I grew up had an equivalent up to Level 10, which I passed when I was relatively young, after which I just worked on repertoire and competitions. But, after browsing through the ABRSM and RCM syllabi, it looks like I would be safely past ABRSM 8 and RCM 10... I see repertoire I competed with on the RCM Licentiate list... like the Les Adieux Beethoven Sonata, Bach's Partita No. 2, Debussy's Images, and Rachmaninov's 2nd, so maybe I would have been somewhere around there at my peak. That being said, I hadn't practiced for years and just regained access to a piano recently thanks to a generous music store manager who lets me play and a friend who lets me use her keyboard when I visit, so I'm trying to get back what I lost.

That probably answers your second question. I have taught in the past, but I'm not a teacher. I have been paid professionally for my work in the past and probably could have had a career in it if I had continued in it, but I am not.

I actually had never heard the Satie Nocturne 3 before, and I have you to thank for introducing me to it! It sounds so beautiful, and I can't wait to try it out. I'm limited to about an hour of practice a day because I don't own a piano of my own, but I'll try to post something in a week or so.

Thank you so much Tyrone for thinking of it and thinking to provide me some music. I love being introduced to new pieces... And all the better if it's something beautiful that deserves to be heard more widely.

I can safely say that pretty much anything anyone on the ABF forum might want you to demo should be manageable. LOL.

in fact, this super rare piece I am waiting to have scanned should be a "no problemo" work for you. Will send when it is scanned.

Okay, I'll bite.....to what piece are you referring, Lt?

Well, this will be easy for you then. I just purchased the Henle volume of Satie Nocturnes and even I was able to sight read it (albeit slowly), and I'm nowhere near your level.

How about Metallica, Master of Puppets, like VK does

0:03-7:42:

If you look, you'll find that except for a brief segment of this played by a concert pianist/professor (who is the one scanning the score for me), she's the only one with performances of this piece on Youtube. She has at least two. I'm really not one to judge difficulty, but watching her hands, I can't believe this is harder than a RCM 10 / ABRSM 8 - 0:28-0:30 appear to me, as a beginner, to be the hardest part. But let me know your thoughts. It's definitely going on my "wanna learn" list...

:thumbsup:

(How do you get those icons to work anyhow?)

There are music score sharing sites like www.8notes.com and www.musescore.org. You can browse through their menu of uploads and do a search on different pieces. You can often find more than 1 version of a piece from easy to difficult. You can do a playback of a piece and decide whether it is at your playing level before downloading the sheet music.

While I do like me some Metallica, there's already such a good performance of that on youtube that I don't know what I can add to it.

YouTube link to a recording from this morning: bit.ly/2PH5HVD bit.ly/2PH5HVD

Well here goes nothing... I had a few hours to work on this today... It's still a far ways off from polished but I just wanted to post my interpretation. Open to suggestions!

Nice! I like it!

You might want to post it to the Members Recordings - Pianist Corner subforum too.

BTW, for Youtube videos, you can use a immediately before and immediately after the URL to your Youtube recording (without carriage returns) and it will insert the video in-line in your post.

I had trouble with your link but got around it. Here it is for others:



For a quick one-off run through, I'd say it's great! I might let that last note hand a little, or the silence hang a little before shutting off the camera. A little more work on it for dynamic and get it "under your fingers" and it'll sound even better. What a fun, weird piece! Thanks for sharing.

BTW, for Youtube videos, you can use a immediately before and immediately after the URL to your Youtube recording (without carriage returns) and it will insert the video in-line in your post.[/quote]

Thanks! This is super helpful to know!

And if I ever get a better piano to record it on and polish it more, I'll post it on the member recordings forum. Thx for letting me know about that too:)

@cmb13 thx for the suggestions... Yeah I agree that I'd like the dynamics more under control. Thx for sharing your opinion on the last note, as I've been thinking a bit about it too and feel divided. I played around with keeping it longer, but because Satie wrote a rest at the end, I reconsidered maybe that he was signalling that there was supposed to be an abrupt end to the piece, kind of like a linger and then feel the absence kind of effect. After playing around with that idea, I thought the sudden dramatic end seems to work well with the structure of the crescendo buildup, which is sudden and doesn't make as much sense to me in light of the structure of the pull backs of the rest of the piece if it isn't meant to be a bit brusc and leave the audience wanting more... Something about it doesn't feel like a true arrival to me. But yea, I'm going to give more thought on what makes more sense in light of the whole.

Regarding posting it here go to the Full Editor and there is a drop down for YouTube - it’ll do it for you. In that last note, I really don’t know the piece that well and you may be right about the rest and abreupt ending (posting from a waiting room) - if so, though, I’d suggest after ending it, to let the hands linger above the keys and let the camera remain on for a few seconds, let the silence be heard, before shutting off. You’re ahead of me so I know I have no business advising, but that’s just a suggestion on artistry.

There's a book about an angry old man and a cat..and the back of the book had sheet music..maybe you could give it a whirl? I'm so curious to hear it but I can't find it on youtube! Hopefully it's at your skill level.