I've just got Mikrokosmos Book 1 as a result of recommendations on here, but I'm not sure how to use it.

For each set of technical exercises, is it best to perfect each exercise before moving on to the next set, or is it best to treat each exercise as a sightreading exercise - ie play it once or twice only so that you don't learn it, and come back to it occasionally to see if you can sightread it any better? Or some other way?

Thank you

Since these are technical exercises, they have a technical purpose.
I think you should practise them as such and not as sight reading. They will prepare you for technical difficulties in the 36 main pieces.
Perhaps you can identify which exercise prepares for which piece, and then practise the exercise until it is mastered and then proceed to learn the piece in which this difficulty appears.
Hope you enjoy the Mikrokosmos. In Volume 1 I especially like the piece: Canon at the lower fifth, because of the polyphonic 2-part writing. Imagine you are playing a Bach fugue while you learn it. ..

Sorry, I wanted to edit my previous post. not make a new one.

What kind of book is it? Could you point me to the thread that gave you recommendations?

Is it anything like the Hanon book? I have the Hanon book for finger exercises.

Thanks for your advice, Prins

When you say "36 pieces", are they in a different book - I can only see 5 pieces at the end of the book...





It cropped up in this thread that I started on Hanon and Czerny exercises, and I've seen it mentioned quite a number of other times. If you do a search you'll find lots of posts about it, and from what I can remember, they're all enthusiastic



I've come across a few odd key signatures in my edition of Mikrokosmos (Boosey & Hawkes). I'd be amazed if B&H had made mistakes and because the book is published in 4 languagues, I'm wondering if it's a European way of writing key sigs:

Exercise 8, 15 - treble clef - one sharp, written an octave below the normal one

Exercise 10 - treble clef - one flat, written on the A space
- bass clef - one flat, written on the top line

Exercise 25 - treble clef - one sharp, written on the C space
- bass clef - one sharp, written on the C space

What's going on...

Hi Skylark,
I meant: Mikrokosmos I has 36 pieces, starting with the 6 unison melodies, etc. AND some technical exercises at the end. So the exercises prepare you technically for the pieces that are the main body of the book. But maybe you meant that all the pieces in Mikrokosmos are exercises. I do not agree with that, they are pieces of repertoire (I do find the music in the higher volumes much more interesting than volumes 1 and 2 though). The rather famous Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm come from volume VI. But if you are not a beginner at the piano, than of course you can use the lower volumes entirely as sightreading material, it is not so easy if you use them like that, because his music, harmonic language and notation is a bit unusual sometimes, as you noted yourself.

These unusual key signatures are not typically European but perhaps more typical for Bartok, in fact I have only ever seen this in his music. Maybe he put the F-sharp low on the stave, because of the range of the music in that particular piece, where a high F-sharp never occurs. And Bartok used other keys and modes as well, not just the normal major and minor keys. Normally you would expect this to be written as accidentals, but Bartok put it in the key signature. I cannot be more specific, I am in the office and do not have the book in front of me.
In higher volumes of Mikrokosmos (III and/or IV I believe) you will come across - among other things - a piece that has several sharps or flats in one stave and none in the other stave. So that both hands are playing in different keys. And more unusual things.
All 6 volumes (or most, not 100% sure) have technical exercises at the end, that are related to and prepare you for the pieces, sometimes specific, sometimes more general.

I think he is using these unfamiliar key signatures because he doesn't want to force his music into standard diatonic frameworks. Eg. the key with just one sharp, a C - he could have put an F sharp in the key signature too just to be normal, but it is not in D major or B minor. He could have kept the key signature blank and used accidentals but accidentals suggest that a note is altered or that the key is changing, and Bartok wants to show that the C sharp (or whatever) is a regular feature of that key.

My first teacher (years ago!) used them for me to purely sightread i.e. she would open a page at random and point at the piece I should play (I think I only ever "learned" some pieces in book 6.) I still use them as "warm-up" sightreading sometimes these days

My teacher once lent me books 2 to 5, and I mostly used them for sight reading, but I did learn a few pieces properly. I found the strange key signatures and modes quite refreshing after my exam pieces (?Grade 5)!

I also tried transposing the very easiest pieces, which sort of failed because of the weird key signatures! I have since decided that I can only transpose up a 2nd on the clarinet, and up or down a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th, very slowly, in major keys, on the piano.

Bartok makes great use of Eastern European folk styles and they certainly don't fit into our cosy major/minor system. Many years ago I looked at the 44 Duos for violin (transposed for viola) and if memory serves me correctly the same weird key signatures appear there. Being duos there are also bitonal pieces - each part in a different key.

I've learnt a lot from this thread that I didn't expect to learn - I've never come across these odd keysigs before so thanks for all the explanations

Not...... is the short answer...... No. change that, I'm being unfair.... there are several of the individual pieces which are quite good fun and I like the ones in irregular time signatures best (although the harmonics piece, and the fly one are also pretty good...)

I just bought Mikrokosmos Book 3 from the Oxfam book shop.
What sort of grade do you think this is roughly?

Hi EllieBongo, and welcome to the forums

I'm not a teacher so I'm not sure... does anyone else know

Look forward to chatting about piano with you sometime, EllieBongo