Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum "40 Pieces A Year Club" for 2019

1. Nearer My God to Thee - Bastien Religious Favorites
2. Early One Morning - English Folk Song
3. Desert Gold - Alfred 2A Performance
4. Heart of My Heart - Favorite Melodies the World Over

This was not the "Heart of My Heart" that I am familiar with, although I did vaguely remember this one also. It should be called "Heart of My Heart, I Love You".

1. Nearer My God to Thee - Bastien Religious Favorites
2. Early One Morning - English Folk Song
3. Desert Gold - Alfred 2A Performance
4. Heart of My Heart - Favorite Melodies the World Over
5. The Autograph - Alfred 2A

I’ll try to get 40 pieces this year.

facdo,
You played it so beautifully.. I want to learn this piece, but it's too tough for me at the moment.

mom3gram,
You are so rocking this challenge!

Revisiting something after laying it aside for some time is a great way to make progress without having to put in any additional effort! That being said, ornaments are tough to consistently get right. I'm finally starting to get my ornaments with 2-3 right more often than not. Now, only all the other finger combinations remain...

You play it well, by the way! Nice clarity, with a steady rhythm, and I really like your staccatos in the second half of the piece!

What you could try is to slow a bit down in the final bar, to sort of round off your piece. In fact, that's something that you could try with every piece that you learn, as it works every time!

Three new recordings. I do have a couple more pieces which are ready to be recorded, but my pedal is once again acting up. It occasionally lets out a loud clicking noise, and that just disrupts my recordings too much. My piano technician does know what the problem is, so I hope he'll come and fix it soon.

1 Robert Fuchs – Sad at Heart (Op. 47, No. 5)
2 Cornelius Gurlitt – Wild Mignonette (Op. 205, No. 1)
3 Dmitri Shostakovich – Waltz (Op. 69, No. 2)
4 Alexandre Tansman – Dreams (Happy Time, Book 1, No. 14)
5 Erik Satie – Chocolate-Almond Waltz (Menus Propos Enfantins, No. 3)
6 Béla Bartók – In Three Parts (Mikrokosmos, Book 3, No. 76)
7 Cornelius Gurlitt – Lullaby (Op. 101, No. 6)

Number 2 for 2019, another Martha Mier pice (probably the last one for a while, but you never know ):

1 To Catch A Dream <Recording> (by Martha Mier)
2 Shadows At Sunset <Recording> (by Martha Mier)

Thanks Kesolo, for the suggestions!
Will work on all the things you recommended. I think this piece was a little over my current abilities, and will try to stick to the easier ones in the book for now.

Enjoyed your videos a lot. You have put together quite a nice set-up.

Great job on that Minuet. It is tricky. I did it myself after about 4 and a half months of self-teaching, and recorded this just a week or so after I started piano lessons. I found it challenging at the time, and I too couldn't get in any of the ornaments since as Keselo alluded to, my fingers don't like ornaments , so my recording is ornament-less.

But what I did was put my scores of all of my repertoire pieces in a 3-ring binder with a date on each one. Minuet has a date of 6/28/18, and when that anniversary comes, I'm going to revisit the piece and see if I can't bring something new to it. This is also in keeping with my little personal theory of not beating pieces to death but moving on an returning later when one has more skills, resources (and yes, even patience! ).

I was hoping 6/28/19 would see me adding ornaments, but seeing as I haven't yet learned ornaments, and my fingers still don't like ornaments, perhaps I'll only be able to improve the dynamics and add some voicing, since this recording from June is essentially with one level of dynamics for the entire piece - probably made it before I could control dynamics to any degree while maintain the tempo.

You too may want to date your performances and revisit after a suitable time since I'm sure each revisit will allow you to add something new technically or musically.

Keep it up!

You did well six months back, Tyron! Binding your repertoire together is a good idea. I was thinking of doing something like this too. It gets tiring to keep shuffling the books on the stand.
On ornamentation, why not try an easier piece with just one or two measures with fancy ornaments? That will help gain the needed confidence, and prepare you well for the scheduled revisit in another 6 months.

Pretty piece, JoBert. I really like Martha Mier's pieces.

1) Cafe Vienna (Alfred's AIO, Level 1) <SoundCloud>
2) Fantasia in G minor, by Telemann (Essential Keyboard Repertoire, Volume 1) <SoundCloud>
3) Rock It Away! (Alfred's AIO, Level 1) <SoundCloud>
4) Lullaby (Alfred's AIO, Level 1) <SoundCloud>
5) Minuet in G Major, BWV Anh. 114, from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (Essential Keyboard Repertoire, Volume 1) [<SoundCloud>
6) Ländler, by Schubert (Trinity- 2015-2017 syllabus) <SoundCloud>

1. Samuel Arnold, Gigue (Keyboard Musician)
2. Emil Söchting, Reflections (Keyboard Musician)
3. John LaMontaine, Highland Song (Keyboard Musician)
4. Alexander Tcherepnin, Joy and Tears (Keyboard Musician)
5. Minka (Russian folk song) (Keyboard Musician)

Hi,
I would like to give this a try this year. I will be working on pieces from John Thompson Modern Course for the Piano Grade Three and First Lessons in Bach. Also, I will learning to play the pieces that I am singing in my voice lessons.

1. O Sole Mio - E.di Capua (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course Lesson Book 1)
2. Jericho (Alfred's BAPCLB1)

Moving along in the Faber Piano Adventure books. Update in bold:
1 Allegro Grazioso, Biehl
2 Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven
3 Strawberry Malt, N. Faber
4 Mazurka in F Major, N.F.
[/b]5 Polka, Secondo and Prima
6 Greensleeves, Traditional English
7 The Spy, N.F.[b]

Finally on the board:

1. Square-O, Elissa Milne, 1/23/19


I've got six more in progress. Guess as long as I don't fall more than 12 weeks behind, I'm on schedule?

Don't worry about falling behind, just keep making progress. And have fun with it!

1 - Burgmuller Op.100 No.1, La Candeur - youtube
2 - Burgmuller Op.100 No.2, Arabesque - youtube
3 - Burgmuller Op.100 No.3, Pastorale - youtube
4 - Burgmuller Op.100 No.4, Petite Reunion - youtube

Oops already a month behind but yes sign me up. I've only ever studied pieces for exams and juries, and, have never gone backwards. I didn't learn very many pieces probably not even 40 in my life.

This 40/yr sounds like a good idea. I'll be very interested to see what happens.