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Hello everybody,

I'm fairly new to playing the piano - I've been practising for about two months now, for perhaps an hour a day.

I've just finished learning how to play Mendehlsohn's Op 30 #6 from Songs without Words (The Venetian Gondola song).

I wondered if you could suggest a piece of a similar difficulty level (no harder please - I think the Mendehlsohn was perhaps slightly above my ability!).

Something from the Romantic period would be great, but I'm not too fussy. Anything from a famous composer would be fine.

Thanks for any help,

Robin

Hi Robin,

Well maybe you should look outside "classical" for a second and check out some New Age music. There are many to choose from (David Lanz, Wayne Gratz etc etc) However some of those are more advanced..

A favorite (and he's even on these forums) is David Nevue and you can see his stuff here at www.davidnevue.com. He has the pieces available to listen to (MP3) and arranged in beginner, inter and advanced. If you see something you like (I recently did Wonderland) you can download individual sheet music for around $4 each.

Just suggesting something out of maybe the norm..

Welcome to the forum.

Op. 30 no. 6 is quite an accomplishment if you've only been playing for a couple of months. Congratulations. It's rated grade 6 (PDF source, so I'd rate it about garde 7 to 7.5 on the other sources) in the graded pieces list in my signature. The graded pieces are in excel format here if that is more convenient for you.

I'd suggest some options out of Schumann op. 68 (album for the young). Don't totally forget the Baroque and Classical eras as there is some really great stuff through all of the eras of piano music. And all styles as Ttigg suggested. You could maybe check out the recital post that is stickied for some examples from other composers.

Thanks for the responses.

- wow, that spreadsheet is brilliant.

I'm glad you suggested Schumann - he's one of my favourite composers. I'll definitely have a look at that piece.

A big reason I've decided to start playing piano is that in the past two or three years I've got into listening to 'classical' music in a big way, to the extent I listen to more classical music than pop music.

I don't have a musical background, and I've always though I might be able to get a bit more out of listening if I understood and could play some of the pieces I like to listen to.

I mainly listen to music from the Romantic period, but recently I've been really enjoying some Bach. I'd like to be able to enjoy Mozart more and I've wondered if I became more closely acquainted with some of his pieces I might like them more and better understand his genius. So at some point I'd like to learn pieces by both Mozart and Bach. For instance, I know the basics of what a fugue is, but I think by learning to play one I'd appreciate how clever they are a lot more!

Yep - I felt pretty proud of myself when I managed to play the Mendehlsohn through at (well, close to!) full speed with only a few minor errors. I've always liked the Songs without Words, even before I started learning piano, so it was an amazing feeling to be able to play something I like to listen to :-)

To get the flavor of Bach's music - before starting on one of his fugues - you might like to look at the music in Anna Magdalena's Notebook - lovely short pieces by the master Johann Sebastian Bach.

Dr. J - "The More you Play the Better Your Day."

Since you said you wanted more of Mozart, try his K397 and the Rondo alla Turca (though since it's marked Allegretto, it's not actually necessary to play it as fast as everyone else thinks it should be played). It strains my hand a bit though because I have small hands, and there are quite a few octaves in it.

Edvard Greig Lyrical pieces may also interest you. They range in difficulty.

Thank you for your kind responses.

I think I'll have a look at the Bach (for which I've found the sheet music already) the Mozart and the Schumann.

Over the past few days I've just finished learning Comptine D'un Autre Été: L'apres Midi from Amelie, but it hurts my hands. Should I stop playing when my hands start hurting or is it a case of "No pain no gain"?

^Stop playing in my books. I would also suggest playing things a little further down the list technically to develop your hands slowly at first. Taking things that are larger stretches, more physically demanding and uncomfortable for the hands at this point can lead to lots of pain and potential damage. In the end you want to play piano and starting out slower will help later.

I downloaded that XLS file, then downloaded the Microsoft Excel 97 Viewer. Boy, does this program hog memory! I found that many other programs ran slowly or froze while the spreadsheet was loaded. As soon as I unloaded the spreadsheet/viewer, everything ran normally again.