Noo o - I haven't suddenly turned into an Einaudi fan. What little I've heard sounds all the same to me - I just don't get it. I guess some people might feel the same way about Bach fugues.. But I have a Grade 5 student(doing her exam today) who I think might enjoy playing some as a respite after her hard work on Hummel and Reinecke. Does anyone have any particular favourites that they think might appeal to a musical 14 year old? Many thanks.

I don't know any Einaudi (and, from what I've heard, I don't want to) but several of my (female) pupils of around that age have really enjoyed playing Yan Tierson (music from Amelie).

Yes, I have a student doing some Einaudi as a change after an exam - she's enjoyed Le Onde.

Mine like Nefeli and Diviniere.

Tasha

My mother gave me "I Guiorni" (may have spelt it wrong?) for Christmas and yes, there is a lot of the same and I find it quite easy, but I also really appreciate having something so relaxing to pull out when I'm stressed or being driven up the wall by something mor complicated and frustrating.

The Amelie music (Yann Tierson) is also beautiful and calming to play.

My pupil has done Le Onde and Password and enjoyed them both. Another nice one is Dietro Castra. Yes it is very repetitive, but teenagers love it and will practise it. Can't be bad.

If it is relief from hard technical work you are after then Bach, Haydn, Mozart Beethoven, Grieg and others major composers all wrote some pleasant, technically undemanding pieces with more musical content per bar than Einaudi's lifetime output.

There are many less well know composers whose easy-to-play works are much superior to Einaudi's. Alex Rowley's (e.g. Scaramouche) is worth seeking out. Going further back, Gurlitt also wrote much simple but attractive stuff, or further still Kuhlau.

'Una Mattina' sounds great on the harp..adding in a few harmonics and variations of course

For that kind of music you could also try Yiruma, whose music I prefer to Einaudi's - there are lots of songs on youtube and if you google it you can download the sheet music (from a Korean site which I don't understand, so I don't know if it's legal).

I would second the suggestion of digging out some of Rowley's music. An undeservedly largely neglected composer nowadays, he wrote lots of approachable and very tuneful music. Leagues above Einaudi in my opinion.

That may well be so, but teenagers who feel they are never allowed to deviate from an entirely classical diet can end up being put off learning an instrument entirely. In my opinion it's a bad idea relentlessly to impose one's own musical taste on one's pupils.

Heh heh,''more musical content per bar than Einaudis' lifetime output''....undoubtably there are many composers who wrote undemanding pieces that are far better than anything Einaudi has done, but I think some younger musicians may be looking for something ''modern'' sounding, or something they might associate with a film or background music for a tv programme. Certainly that's what comes to mind when i hear Einaudi : bland background music.

Sorry to deviate from your original post, Helen, but I cannot let this pass without comment.

Mad Tom, you may be a brilliant pianist but this post shows a lack of understanding of the teenage musical mind. Everything you say here is true; the teenies dont care.



Rowley, Gurlitt and Kuhnau all wrote rubbish. Their output was uniformly drivel. I am lucky to not have been exposed to much of Einaudi's rubbish; what I have heard has left me unimpressed.

As unimpressed as the stuff inflicted on unsuspecting exam candidates written by R,G, and K. They all belong in the same stable, MT. The 5th rate hacks stable.

Back to your point, Helen. In my experience, attach the Einaudi name to a piece of drivel and the kids will play it happily.

Hey, here is a plan. How about tippexing out the real name and calling the 48 the Einaudi 48?

Einaudi may not be the greatest musical genius to have written for piano, but it is quite clear from the posts who actually has experience teaching average teenagers and who lives in an ivory tower. Bach et al are certainly better composers and did amazing works, but do not motivate teens to practise, however much we teachers admire them.

I find it really interesting that so many of you disparage Einaudi, when John Cage seems to be genuinely admired by quite a few judging by the thread a few months back. How anyone can think that a cheap trick like 4' 33" is better than an actual tune beats me!

OK, so Einaudi isn't Bach, but then the Beatles aren't Richard Strauss, yet children love "Yellow Submarine". I'm not too thrilled with Einaudi, but my son enjoys playing it when he's in a certain mood. It's a good de-stresser and very useful for unwinding before bed. I think the fact that piano teachers hate it is part of the reason that teenagers like it!

No, BerkshireMum, the reason we piano teachers hate it is because it is rubbish. When our pupils play it, we have to listen to the damn stuff.

What we love is the fact that our pupils like it and will practise it. Like the music of Pam Wedgewood, Mike Cornick and Martha Mier.

Just don't expect us to enjoy listening to it, ok?

Unless our pupils are playing it with huge enthusiasm and musical understanding. In which case, we love it.

Confused, BerkshireMum? Good. Join the teachers here. Confused is how we spend our professional lives.

Aye!

Thank you so much to all who responded with such great suggestions. I treated myself to a volume y'day ( best part of £18!!) and had a quick flick last night. Pretty much as I'd thought - and if a GCSE student presented me with any page of this as their composition, I would Have Serious Words - along the lines of..'Rhythmic interest? Harmonic, melodic, textural ditto?' etc. Musical wallpaper. Yet apparently the man's made a fortune from this stuff. Such is life.

Now Tom, if you or I wanted to relax and unwind, Bach, Haydn and Grieg might do it for us. And don't worry, we'll come on to them soon enough. But post-exam I think the most important thing is to keep them playing - anything! and avoid that lull when they're too tired to get started on anything too demanding. I'm aiming for them to maintain their newfound increased technical fluency (with 24 scales and 24 arps now at their fingertips )

Best I can say about the Einaudi - and they still sound all the same - is the zen-like hypnotic trance-inducing quality. That, and that it'll sound quite fluent relatively soon. The girl in question has an excellent feel for Romantic music, and I'm looking forward to tackling some Mendelssohn etc next term. But in the mean-time..

Thanks again to all who replied.

I wish!

Mea culpa

Hey - I never said they were great - just much superior to Einaudi

I actually wouldn't touch Einaudi's music if you payed me! (I'm 16) I much prefer Bach, Haydn, Mozart Beethoven, Grieg etc! or am I just weird!?!?

Jacob.

Well....! Probably not weird at all. People's tastes aren't really limited by their age.

I think school music may be partly responsible actually. Pupils have to listen to so many different types of music for GCSE now, whereas in my day Stravinsky was probably the most modern composer on the syllabus. By the time you've lived on a diet of garage, African drumming, minimalist, electronic, etc, etc, Einaudi must seem like a bit of light relief!

How did you get on with GCSE music, Jacob? It must have been a struggle for someone with such traditional tastes.

Hehe. Only if being a serious music student is weird. Were I your teacher, I would not inflict on you, any of the composers I have mentioned here. They are for kids who need encouragement to practise, not for us Proper Musicians.

Keep going with the list you quote - they offer everything you need.

[quote name='PianoDoodler' date='Mar 27 2009, 12:22 AM' post='807752']
[quote name='Mad Tom' post='807521' date='Mar 26 2009, 12:05 PM'] If it is relief from hard technical work you are after then Bach, Haydn, Mozart Beethoven, Grieg and others major composers all wrote some pleasant, technically undemanding pieces with more musical content per bar than Einaudi's lifetime output.[/quote]
Sorry to deviate from your original post, Helen, but I cannot let this pass without comment.

Mad Tom, you may be a brilliant pianist but this post shows a lack of understanding of the teenage musical mind. Everything you say here is true; the teenies dont care.

[quote]There are many less well know composers whose easy-to-play works are much superior to Einaudi's. Alex Rowley's (e.g. Scaramouche) is worth seeking out. Going further back, Gurlitt also wrote much simple but attractive stuff, or further still Kuhnau. [/quote]

Rowley, Gurlitt and Kuhnau all wrote rubbish. Their output was uniformly drivel. I am lucky to not have been exposed to much of Einaudi's rubbish; what I have heard has left me unimpressed.

As unimpressed as the stuff inflicted on unsuspecting exam candidates written by R,G, and K. They all belong in the same stable, MT. The 5th rate hacks stable.

How much of Kuhlau, Gurlitt and Rowleys work are you familiar with ? Major composers they may not be, but Gurlitt wrote, amongst other things, many character pieces for piano which are very attractive, Kuhlaus sonatinas are brilliant, and Rowley also has his merits. To dismiss these composers as belonging in the same category is Einaudi is ridiculous.

I can see why Einaudi is not not to many people's liking, to be honest, I think anyone who criticises it on the basis of 'lack of rhythmic interest' etc has rather missed the point. IMO, the beauty of Einaudi's music is in its simplicity. Why is it always important to tick all the boxes for a so-called 'interesting' compostition? If you have fewer notes and fewer 'interesting' features, it allows you to really appreciate each note and the piano's tone. (I don't think i put that very well, but hopefully you get what I mean )

Quite apart from that, listening to or playing Einaudi's music is a great antidote to a stressful day. Having said that though, if you listen to too much in one go, it can get annoying, but in relatively small doses, it is beautiful.

Yes, indeed.


I can see your point, Sarah, and wouldn't object to a bit of it as background music at a restaurant or similar. But I think it would drive me to distraction if a pupil were to turn up with it.

Its not a cheap trick! Cage's work cannot be approached in the same was as most 'music', it's more practical philosophy, but its definitely not rubbish.

Sorry v. off topic.

I haven't really found GCSE music hard at all(although I haven't taken the final listening exam yet, so i could be wrong and come out with an awful mark!), despite not really listening to more modern music. I know enough to answer all of the popular song since the 1960's questions (this is AQA music GCSE), and have passed all of my mock papers with over 80% (the pass mark for A* being 71%).

I don't really have a problem with modern composers, and am quite fond of Shostakovich and Stravinksy etc (Not sure I've spelt them right though!), it's just people like Einaudi who annoy me!

Jacob.

Taught them for years. Found them uniformly bad. Just because I think they are rubbish doesn't mean I expect anybody else to. Just don't expect me to suddenly accept them as mini-masterpieces. Since I regard their output as rubbish, I can quite cheerfully dump them in the same bin as the stuff written by Einaudi. I do not particularly care about gradations of rubbish.

71% is an A*??? What do you have to do to get a C? Draw a treble clef?? I remember getting over 80% for the mock GCSE paper, having already got 30/30 for composition, and still being told by my music teacher that that didn't guarantee an A.

Btw, I'm not criticising your ability, Jacob, just commenting on the ridiculously low mark bands (imo).

Until reading on the forums I had never heard of Einaudi. So I clicked around and listened a bit. I can see that this music might go down well with some teenagers though I doubt if any of my teenage pupils would like it much. I found it nondescript - but that is only my personal reaction.

My question is - How do you pronounce his name?

ein (as in german for one), audi (as in the car)

Being driven to distaraction by students is just part of being a teacher.

Taught them for years. Found them uniformly bad. Just because I think they are rubbish doesn't mean I expect anybody else to. Just don't expect me to suddenly accept them as mini-masterpieces. Since I regard their output as rubbish, I can quite cheerfully dump them in the same bin as the stuff written by Einaudi. I do not particularly care about gradations of rubbish.
[/quote]

It's surprising somebody would teach music they regarded as rubbish...for years !

A friend bought me a book of Einaudi over a year ago - had a quick flick through it and dumped it at the back of a box for sight-reading practice material. Teenage daughter has discovered it this weekend and has been playing it incessantly. I am going quietly mad. Have managed not to comment so far, but the book may find it's way back into another box tomorrow.....

I do sympathise with this, SueHM. An Einaudi book was on my son's Christmas list for 2007, so I duly bought it - to be driven quietly mad by the end of the Christmas holidays! Maybe your daughter could be induced to play it when you're out...?

[quote name='Chopinzee' date='Mar 29 2009, 10:36 PM' post='808898']
Taught them for years. Found them uniformly bad. Just because I think they are rubbish doesn't mean I expect anybody else to. Just don't expect me to suddenly accept them as mini-masterpieces. Since I regard their output as rubbish, I can quite cheerfully dump them in the same bin as the stuff written by Einaudi. I do not particularly care about gradations of rubbish.
[/quote]

It's surprising somebody would teach music they regarded as rubbish...for years ! [/quote]
Ok, I will come clean. These pieces were always a part of AB exam lists\publications. I was younger then, and less experienced, so I felt I had to teach them. I was trying to avoid admitting such weakness and stupidity. Ah well.

After nearly four decades as a piano teacher, I now recognise them as the rubbish they are and have the confidence to dismiss them as such. Experience is such a great benefit. Pity that such experience brings age with it, but life is never perfect.

To get a C in the listening AQA paper, you need 44%. The boundries seem very low, i've just looked them up on the AQA website.
I got 30/30 for composition too! and 29/30 for solo and ensemble performance. I don't know what i've got for the integrated assignment, but my teacher reckons full marks.
I think the papers are too easy to be honest. The theory is no harder than about grade 2 at the most, when I know the O level music before they changed were about grade 5, and at my mum's school they wouldnt except you onto the course unless you had at least grade 5 practical and theory.
I hate my music classes because everything has to be twice as slow due to the amount of people who can't read music or answer basic theory questions. I realise everyone learns at their own rate, but about half of the class got onto the course and can't even read music. I'm sorry, but who choses GCSE music when they can't even read it!
I'm desperate to start A level music in September where it is aimed more towards my sort of standard, and there is a pre-requisite of grade 5+ theory and practical or a GCSE in music at B grade or higher.

I know this may sound A little arrogant being selective, because I know music is for everyone, it's just very frustrating how easy the course is, and how anybody who can play a note on an instrument can get on the course!

Sorry, this post is supposed to be about Einaudi and i've completely gone off topic!

Jacob.

Einaudi? Einaudi who? His music is PANTS. Boring repetitive rubbish but extolled by those banal presenters on Classic FM. Now wait for the backlash

Don't worry Roger - we expect you to be rude

(PANTS is an interesting choice of word though )

mmm - the kind of expression my daughter used when she was 15.

It is indeed! I thought it stood for Pianos Are Not Terribly Simple on this forum

Mole

I don't see the fuss about Einaudi, myself. Personally, I don't like his music - it's not my cup of tea, I wouldn't ever choose to listen to it, and I can understand why people say it's repetitive and boring extremely well. But surely that's just the style it's written in? I consider that Einaudi does what it's meant to do, very well. It's minimalist music. It doesn't have great melodies, complex harmonic sequences, rhythmic interest - no. But it isn't meant to.

And as for the (justified) comment that Einaudi has one style and rewrites it for all his pieces - well, that never did Vivaldi any harm!

I feel the same way when people revile Harry Potter. No, it's not great literature, on a par with Dickens or Tolstoy. But the point that people often seem to miss - it was never meant to be.

I kind of like Einaudi - especially Le Onde. It's may be everything that everyone says it is but so what? It's a lot better that a lot of the trash you hear on commercial radio these days (Rap music anyone?) and that has got to be something.

I think the thing is that if you're at a certain level and you suddenly find after months of strugling that you're linking broken chords into a piece of music that flows nicely and is evocative (Le Onde is very evocative of the sea for me) then it's such a buzz that you just end up liking that piece of music even if it is simple and there's not a lt to it.

I also think he's very skillfully writen music that appeals to a certain target audience - teenagers (particularly girls) who are a bit arty and playing at around grade 5 standard. Lots of people write books, plays, films and TV shows targeted at certain audiences - most creative work is basically commercial and hitting you target is generally a good thing. Not many people make a living out of art and music, anyone who does has got something going for them (even rap singerts I must admit grudgingly)

I still play Le Onde a lot, and I think its a very good study in broken chords. I've learned a couple of his other pieces (and played them at forum concerts) and I must admit that there's nothing that makes me want to go back and play them again. It's Le Onde for me and that's more or less it!

Always looking for more members, Moley!

I can't say his music appeals to me but my brother seems to like it and if it helps to promote the piano as a whole... Well you know what they say about an incoming tide...

That having been said, it's always fun to tease him when I'm on a visit by improvising an "Einaudiesque" left hand whilst playing a barely disguised version of "Merrily we roll along", "London Bridge" or the like in the right hand, all the time keeping a Classic FM style commentary (slow, respectful and incredibly posh and RELAXED) going about "Einaudi's latest Masterpiece" etc.



Try it. Fun for all the family in guessing the piece you've "Einaudi-ized"... Until a shoe gets thrown at your head that is.

Cheers,

Matt.

To be honest I am just a teeny bit jealous of Einaudi, because for about 40 years I've been able to improvise stuff that sounds a lot like his compositions - but he packaged it smartly and became rich and famous ...

and I didn't!

I feel the same about John Cage - particularly the 4' 33"!

There is a lot of musical snobbery in this forum.
Personally I agree that Einaudi is simplistic, but I think it is well judged and I enjoy listening to it.
To condemn an entire genre of music (rap) is just narrow minded.

I have no problem with people not liking music but to claim that it is without value in some absolute way is supremely arrogant.

I know how you feel.

Ah well, there is always the next really-badly-paid concerto to play. Hey-ho.