Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Easy but elegant etudes?

Any suggestions? Most of the easy things I see are like Row, Row, Row Your boat, Clementine, Down in the Valley.

Are there any real etudes for beginners on-line?

Welcome, Shakuhachi,

Check out Sydney Smith's method in this thread:

Sydney Smith


Mel

Plenty.
Pretty decent set of beginners etudes is Czerny's op 599. You can find it here (courtesy of Mel):
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/5164.html

Names to look for:

Burgmuller (opus 100)
Cramer
Heller
Gurlitt
Schumann (Album for the Young)
Tchaicofksy (Album for the Young)
Kablevsky (Opus 27 and 30)
Loeschhorn
Concone (mostly vocal music, but he did right some good piano etudes)
Bertini
Czerny (as recommended above, there are others such as They Young Pianist and the studies without octaves)

Sorry if I don't have links. You can also get a Piano Studies CD from www.cdsheetmusic.com . I believe they are on sale at sheetmusicplus.com at this time of year.

Rich

Bartok's Mikrokosmos is a set of 153 progressive piano pieces in 6 volumes. Volume 1 starts out at the earliest level and is suitable for beginners just starting. The pieces are easy and unusual and take practice to perfect, but are playable immediately. The first pieces were written as teaching exercises for his son.

Keith Snell' Piano Repertoire, published by Neil A. Kjos, is also an excellent anthology. It comes in 3 series of 11 levels, starting at "preparatory." The 3 series are Baroque & Classical, Romantic & 20th Century, and Etudes. Each volume is slim, making them relatively inexpensive, and easy to keep open on the piano desk!

I am working through the Keith Snell series and it is great. You feel like you are making great progress, but there is more than enough material at each level to really be ready for the next.

However, I wish it were edited better. There seems to be too little support information for ornamentation, for example. I've also heard some complaints from the teachers forum regarding the editing.

Overall, it is a good series to use.

Rich

I think the assumption is that the Keith Snell series will be used with a teacher who will augment the material. That's the way we use it. My teacher has contradicted some of the editing of the same pieces in Denis Agay anthologies but find the Snell versions more closely follow my teacher's (Peabody trained)inclinations. Also, I think they are probably designed for young people with small hands - I don't always follow the fingerings.

Many thanks. Just what I'm looking for.

I have been trying to adapt Fernando Sor's guitar etudes for paino. Your sources are better suited for piano, of course.

The following Free sheet music website, although not necessarily etudes, contains some very nice easy songs and with fingering.

Free Sheet Music

If your comfortable with playing a one octave C major scale with thumb under 3 fingering might I suggest "Sonatina in C" by Latour, it's under the heading of "Keyboard Classics".