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Welcome to Einaudi-addiction, Mohan! If you give us an idea of how long you've been playing and the kind of pieces you're playing now, we can probably give you better recommendations. Somewhere in this 44 page thread are some posts giving people's ranking of the difficulty of various Einaudi pieces. I think there's clear agreement that "Limbo" is the easiest. Nefeli is actually not that bad, with the exception of one 3-4 measure stretch that presents some hand independence challenges. I always recommend "I due fiumi" as one of the easier pieces that it also one of Einaudi's most beautiful compositions.

Glad to know that I've managed to inspire somebody.

The good part about Einaudi pieces (and sometimes bad) is that there is quite a bit of repeating going on. This makes most of the pieces easier to learn.

I'll agree with Monica that the hardest parts of Nefeli to learn are towards the bottom of page one. It's the part where the thumb is an alternating note on a C. Then you've got a jump right after that section where both hands move away from each other (left goes down and right goes up) that can take some practice to get used to. Heck, even I still miss that one from time to time.

The only way to see if you can play a piece is to try it and see where you need improvement. I don't think it ever hurts to give it a try even if you do manage to hurt your ego a bit.

Hey Monica and Anthony. Thanks for the replies .

Ok I'll listen to Limbo and I due fiumi and see if I like it!

@Monica: For the question on what kind of pieces I'm playing. Well I was playing a lot of piano about 8 years ago in school. Then had a long break. Now i'm starting again at Alfred's Book 1. But I have been attempting to play tougher songs. I've been working on Hes a Pirate for quite some time and have got it running at 70% tempo without making any mistakes. I'm also working on My heart will go on!

@Anthony: Hehe.. Dont worry.. My Egos already been battered and bruised! It can survive a little more . And I can see what you mean by the jump. Somehow Monica makes it look simple on her vid! I'm somehow scared of picking up Nefeli and starting it. Because I dont give up on the song and I might just spend another 2 months banging away at it without a result! Anyway, I'll look at your suggestions first and then go ahead from there.

Thanks for the suggestions . And keep posting your awesome videos. Its our source of inspiration!

Here's another new performance I've just uploaded to YouTube.

Tracce from the album Le Onde.



I had started on this one quite a long time ago but never worked on the 2nd half of the piece. So this time around when I picked up the piece I worked from the ending towards the middle part. It isn't a terribly long piece at only 63 measures so it didn't take all that long to finish up memorizing either.

I actually enjoy this piece quite a lot now as it is somewhat different than many of the other pieces by Einaudi.

Enjoy!

Amazing stuff Anthony!!
- SC

Sounded like the man playing it himself. Excellent job.

Beautiful performance, Anthony. I'm amazed at how little time it took you to polish that.

Can someone let me know if the book The Best of Ludovico Einaudi: Piano Solo from Amazon is spiral bound? If not is it suitable for use on a music stand without pages turning by themselves?!

Sorry to say it is not spiral bound. Not a single Einaudi music book that I own is spiral bound either.

I've worked around the problem two ways. Either one does some photo copy work or I've also been known to typeset the pieces from the book into a music notation program to print out again. I did this process commonly in my early days of music which greatly helped me with my note reading skills anyways.

I think there might even be some people that had the book cut apart and spiral bound that way.

Personally, I never had much luck getting the book to stay open on the proper page while on my digital piano music rest. Of course, I do tend to memorize so that having the sheet music up is only an issue while learning a piece.

AnthonyB that was sweet, so good with the dynamics...

Mine doesn't stay open nicely on my music desk, either, 20thCenturyBoy. I photocopy the pieces I work on and deal with it that way. I have heard the same thing as Anthony of people who take their music books to Kinko's and have the binding cut off and spiral bound. I don't know how successful that is.

I have had very good luck with Kinkos. I did it (had it spiral bound by them) with my Classics to Moderns because it wouldn't stay open and after practicing a few pieces I was beginning to crack the binding. If I remember correctly, it was about 3-4 dollars to do it.

Has anyone tried "La profondita del buio". Here's a version on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HFRQQ4qsdI&feature=related

It has nice ethereal quality and some interesting dissonance.
Is this on one of his solo albums?

I think I'm going to learn Canzone popolare first.

I know he didn't write it, but it's on Le Onde and it's only one page long

I haven't tried "La profondita del buio," 20thCenturyBoy, but it is pretty indeed. (Of course, I think they're ALL pretty!) It's on Le Onde, by the way. So you can learn Canzone popolare first and then fade directly into La profondita.

Still working on Le Onde here. In fact, most of the time I am sitting at the piano, I am working on Le Onde. I bet the family is tired of it by now, but they've got another 7 weeks of it before Public Recital Time.

It is where my ABF Recital pieces usually are when I turn them in... not the point where I can (or even have, once) played through error-free. But it is memorized, I am working on dynamics, and in particular, trying to attack the descending arpeggios, and build the ascending ones, to create that wavelike feel. I am finding the sheet music to be remarkably well annotated, and he seems to closely follow the dynamic and tempo markings in the studio version (IE, the one on the Le Onde CD). Or perhaps the other way 'round: maybe he played the piece, then added the dynamics to correspond with what he did. Either way, if I pay attention to what is written, and attack / build as I mentioned before, I am about 90% of the way there.

Question to y'all: what does "poco tratt." mean? In listening, it is hard to distinguish that from an "allargando", which, to my ears, is difficult to distinguish from your plain ole everyday ritardando.

Google tells me that 'poco tratt' means "holding back with a sustained quality, similar to ritartando." Not sure that illuminates things any more.

Ritardando it is. Just like allargando (which is supposed to indicate that I play "broadly", just not sure how to manage that).

Truth be told, I just ignore the Italian and try to make it sound like the recording. [looks around guiltily ]

Hey,

I have been considering giving new age music a try. I've only played classical thus far, so I'm ignorant with how one goes about selecting a piece to learn. Generally, I would choose a classical piece based on a combination of something I wanted to learn from it (technique etc.), and also from liking how it sounds. Is that how you guys approach Einaudi music? Thanks,