I'm currently working on Tchaikowsky's Old French Song. It's truly beautiful. And it sounds, well 'French'. How does he do that?

Had my lesson tonight and teacher has introduced the sustaining pedal for the first time, so currently trying to get to grips with it in this piece.

I am meant to Start the 'Italian song' by Tchaikowsky at some point. Will go and have a listen on You tube to The 'Old French song'.

Good luck for using the pedal. I found it a shock to begin with (yet something else to think about )

Am trying to polish Allegro Grazioso and the first part of Sonatina in G by Beethoven and also working on Marzuka by Delibes from Coppelia and the second movement from Sonatina in G. Plus I did start Indaco by Einaudi but stopped, why did I do that? I really want to learn some Einaudi pieces but I seem always to get absorbed by the classic stuff.

Yes, I can feel some Frenchiness to it too! (note: I am French... )

Tchaikovsky's piano music is excellent. I recently bought a CD set by Postnikova of his complete works and there are many very beautiful pieces amongst them (but some very difficult ones too). I have a vague intention to learn June and October from the (misnamed!) "The Seasons" .... some day.

Very rarely will I post here, but I'm working on making sure I play most of the right notes in 2childmum's Pepusch accompaniment for Saturday...

Liszt - Hymn to the awakening child. coming along nicely at the moment.

Scarlatti Sonata in F minor, Kp 466. I heard the young pianist Benjamin Grosvenor playing this on R3 on Monday, and thanks to the wonders of the Internet, printed a lovely copy from the Werner Icking archive an hour later. It's improving my 3v2 no end.

Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem

Grieg - Op.12 No.1 - Arietta - 3 part harmony and voicing seems to be my weakness. Not hard to hit the right notes, very hard to get the 3 parts at the right volumes...

Chopin - Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Almost done with this now, I just trip up sometimes at a few specific points.

Various Einaudi for light relief.
Various pieces from the Anna Magdalena book.

I've recently been going over the Raindrop prelude I learnt when I was 15, about 2 years ago to play in a compeition, and realised how much of it I forgot!

I've also got a Bach piece to perform in a month, and it still sounds awful, but it's half term, so I have no excuse to not have lots of practise time!

I've also got the Haydn piano concerto coming together gradually, it's not very hard at all, I just keep falling into that all too familiar trap of playing it with bad fingering, not correcting it each time, and then when I realise it doesn't work, I have to re-teach myself the right fingering, but keep playing what you've learnt perviously!

I'm learning Ravel's Menuet sur le nom de Haydn for Grade 7. There's a bit in the middle in 3 staves that has lovely chords, but is impossible to play! That will need LOTS of practice - it isn't going very well!!

My piano teacher's choir has a concert in a fortnight where I have to accompany them for 3 pieces. I have learnt 2 but the 3rd is proving quite difficult! 3 flats, so not too bad, but it's still hard.

Scales/arpeggios....

I heard this too! I was still tidying up breakfast stuff and settling my three children down to some serious painting, cutting and sticking they 'needed' to do.
I wrote down K466 on the side of the cereal flap, the only thing I had to hand.
Off to dabble on the internet and find the music now! Thanks for the internet tip off.

I heard young Benjamin Grosvenor play it live, during his recital at the Ribble Valley piano week, two years ago. It's one of my favourite pieces from that era.

What a coincidence: This must have been the Breakfast show (about 10 past 9 ish): Later on Monday I was in the audience at the Wigmore Hall for the Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (broadcast live) where none other than Ben Grosvenor stepped in at short notice. He played 3 pieces by Kapustin, The Liszt B minor Sonata, the Chopin C sharp, Op posth Nocturne, the 3rd Chopin Scherzo and an encore I didn't recognise . . . but no Scarlatti.

(Edit - the encore is on the BBC iplayer on listen again, from about 56 minutes in and is apparently a transcription by Liszt of Chopin's song "My Joys").


I also heard him play it at Ribble Valley, presumably the same recital, where I thought most of his program was overly morbid for a pianist who, though brilliant, was still only 14. His encore that day was the (solo piano arrangement of the) finale from the Carnival of Animals: It was the first time that he really came alive. I must say he has improved with age!!

I have just started playing Clementi Sonata in F#Minor (!) Op25 No5. I might play the first movement at the next 'event' I attend.
Most young pianists are introduced in the middle Grades to his Six Sonatinas Op36, but he wrote quite a few proper Sonatas as well. One or two are of dubious quality, but there are perhaps half a dozen well worth an airing and similar to Haydn in style. Beside the one above, there is the B flat one in this years Grade 8 list (first movement, though in 1984 my daughter played it complete for Gr8) . But my favourite is the one in C (Op33 No3), which Sofia Gulyak played in the semi final before winning the Leeds International competition last year. I recommend these to anyone wanting a change from Mozart and Haydn sonatas

Chopin Prelude No.4 in E Minor ("Suffocation") - about 98% there!
Field - Nocturne in E Minor - about 80% there!
Joplin - Maple Leaf Rag - A and B sections are fine, the TRIO and D Section need some SERIOUS work.

And of course all my Grade 5 pieces
It's going well!

Satie's Sonatine Bureaucratique based on Clementi's Sonatina No. 1 is also fun to play, especially when you know the original piece.

Back on thread, I spent an enjoyable two hours this morning on Bach's P & F in D major (Bk2), gradually raising the metronome from crotchet = 40 up to 69 - fingering, distinguishing between legato semiquavers and staccato quaver triplets simultaneously in the same hand. Often rather 'aggrannoying' - my cross between aggravating and annoying, but rewarding when efforts bear fruition.

Clementi's Sonatina in C major op.36 N.3. I know it's nowhere near as advanced as what others are learning but I consider it my first proper piece of "real" music and it's certainly challenging enough for me!

Never be put off or dismayed by what others are learning. I know so many people who regret never having taken up or continued with playing an instrument at all. So we are the lucky ones! If I compared my progress to that of some others on the Forums I too might be inclined to keep quiet about it. It's not a competition, we all continue to learn, we all face musical challenges at whatever level, however far we have reached.

I bought the Clementi Sonatinas for my niece, a couple of years ago, having enjoyed learning them myself. For many they're almost a rite of passage!

Best of luck!

I bought that book Must get around to having a go!

what a lovely, inspiring post

What about when people pre grade 5 are playing things that I'd barely manage at post grade 8?

I bought that book a couple of years ago, it has some lovely pieces in it.

On July 15th last year I had grade 2 piano to my name. On July 16th I had grade 8.

I recall having played many pieces over the intervening years at various school functions (as a member of staff) including six different half-hour programmes preceding Prize Giving Evenings. However, in the light of my newfound attention to dynamics, articulation and fingering, I would now baulk at the idea of playing many of those pieces (at least in the same way as I did then). For sure I played the notes correctly (most of them) but the level of what I would now deem acceptable to foist upon an audience has altered dramatically.

I always thought that as an adult much more would be expected of a performance, whilst students had leeway and bags more sympathy.

So, perhaps your pre grade 5s just haven't taken any higher grades yet or maybe they have the fearlessness of youth on their side. Of course you could just be paranoid but I'll leave that diagnosis to the likes of Robodoc!

I think Robodoc may have been witness to a pretty comprehensive butchering of my 'easy option' piece in one of the workshops sessions at last year's summer school.

Schumann piano quartet (piano part ). It stands as the only piece to date that has managed to physically injure me.

I've been learning this piece for 2 years now and I still can't play the trio!

Is it the left hand that's causing the problem? The right hand is relatively static and lies well under the fingers.

Its just two bars that I have trouble with, I don't really have a problem with the left hand (I assume your talking about the massive 2 octave leaps). Also I fall to pieces trying to play the trio without the music. As I've been playing it for so long I can actually play the first bit with my eyes closed, but I really struggle to play the last page without music.

Matyas Seiber
jazz - etudiette

It's killing me.
Piano teacher suggested it weeks and weeks ago and I've been battling it ever since. I then learned a few other things and thought (hoped) she had forgotten about this piece. Sadly not, "how's that jazz piece going" she asked the other night.
Grrrrrrr

I'll get it if the last thing I do!!!!!!

Although, like you, I had mastered the outer movements first, it was the trio that dictated the overall tempo. I am of an age that saw the resurgence of Ragtime music in the 1970s, following the film The Sting where Marvin Hamlisch arranged Scott Joplin Rags as background music throughout the film. It was The Entertainer that everyone wanted to play, me included (or rather my dad wanted me to learn it). When I first tried it I couldn't manage the left hand leaps or thirds within octaves in the RH.

Essentially, I came back to it a couple of years later and practically sight-read the work. I then became a fan of ragtime and learnt most of the S-J rags, aided by recordings by Joshua Rofkin that accompanied the books published by Paxton in three volumes. I still enjoy them and, as I said on a thread some time ago, went on to try some stride piano. That still requires a good deal of practice!

Do persevere though!

Don't worry... at this rate it will be more than 2 years till I master the Trio
The RH is absoloutley fine... it's the large leaps between Ocatves and Chords. It's also trying to form the chord shapes with your hands quick enough.

I'm learning mozart sonata k. 283. 1st mvm. Its really unique, as it has energetic to lullaby bits, but it all goes so smoothly!

I'm currently learning Chopin's Grande valse brillante in E-flat major Op. 1. 3 pages out of 10 learnt. Love playing Chopin's waltzes...

This week I've been looking at Painful Struggle which is the second piece in Bartok's Ten Easy Pieces (B&H)...the left hand seems to sound like painful struggle and the right hand comes in mavellously musically. Its a grade 1 stroke 2 if not a full 2 piece and though I hope I can get it its definitely a borderline at the moment...I didn't get Giles Swayne's Whistling last month.

Learning Mozart Fantasy in D minor. I've been practising for like a month and still simply cannot get it to sound "properly" like Mozart (in my teacher's view) even though I could sightread the piece 100% from day one. I'm tearing my hair out! (Maybe this should have gone into the scream thread instead... )

I'm going back to learning this after a break (and also now that I have the nice Henle edition!)

This seems to be one of those pieces that can be interpreted a million different ways so I wouldn't get too frustrated

No, interpretation is the least of the problem; my major issue is touch/tone/pedalling to get the "right" sound (e.g. last lesson I lifted my feet off the pedal about a tenth of a second too quick )

Is your teacher siting there with a stopwatch or something?

Wish me luck getting those runs up to speed... ick!

I had a go of the first Bagatelle in Beethoven's Op.119 last night. Methinks I shall put the effort into learning that one

Some Faure, which for too long i've left unfinished, five of the 8 pieces breve, Nocturne No3, and Impromptu No2...I fear the impromtu will take an age, and the first two pages will have to be memorised...for me a very slow process. Just managed to memorise Griegs Hommage a Chopin, but i still find it difficult to play through... even without the repeat, and it's lethal on the forearms.

New piece! La sarabande from Grovlez' L'almanach aux images (from the G7 syllabus)

Just starting on Schumann's Arabesque opus 18. It's exquisite! (in my imagination only as yet...) With a following wind I might get it up to scratch in time for his birthday....

Ooh, I just started learning this too! But then this morning I had a quick go at Des Abends from Fantasiestucke op.12 and loved it too, so now I'm torn!

I'm learning a reasonably simple piano duet version of "Sheep May Safely graze" this week. I am getting a little frustrated at turning up to my piano lesson and feeling incapable of playing anything so I thought that it would both 1, force me to keep going instead of stopping when it gets to the difficult bits and also 2, mean my teacher hasn't got his beady eyes on me so much as he'll be concentrating on his part

Fighting with beginner violin accompaniments for piano my sight-reading is horrendous, so I've been trying to learn-ish them to avoid making a fool of myself! Aside from that, Faure's Pavane (the D minor version ) and starting to look at Debussy's Arabesque No.1-it's gorgeous, but it terrifies me!

I would love to be able to play that one day... I agree when you watch it being played it looks more than terrifying! How can it be grade 8?!

Good luck with this! It does easily fall into place once you get the hang of the two against three rhythms

Just started working on the Chopin Prelude in E Major (No. 9). Quite easy really!

It didn't for me when I was preparing for grade 8 and I've never had trouble with two against three.
We abandoned it after about 6 weeks when it still wasn't going anywhere.
Maybe I'll have another go some time.

Well I had a productive lesson, playing the piece I'm focusing on to the metronome, to my teacher and trying to fix the shaky parts... Times like this remind me why I do lessons, she pushes me into ironing things out that I'd probably be too lazy to fix on my own.