Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Do you play works for 4 hands with your students?

I've had various ideas to work on a few piano - 4 hands works.

But I was wondering if you teachers, students, etc, would welcome a collection of such works.

Any comments are most welcome, please!

EDIT: I'm talking about works for 2 people in a single piano (quatre-mains)

Do you mean four hands - 1 piano (quatre-mains) or 4 hands - 2 pianos?

Sorry... 4 hands - 1 piano (quatre-mains). I wasn't sure of the right term...

No worries.

I recorded and produced a 4 hands - 1 piano Cd last year (not me and myself, but two of Sweden's foremost pianists) it's a mix of classical as well as jazz tunes (featuring hand switching during solos . . !), the two pianists (husband and wife) have toured extensively and have noticed a growing interest in á quatre mains so yes, I think there would be a market at least for good, original tunes, not just arrangements, maybe with a sort of central theme . . .



The Cd "Fingers Unlimited": http://itunes.apple.com/se/album/fingers-unlimited/id427464787

Nikolas, I'd say there is always a market for interesting duet materials, especially if their level of difficulty is fairly low.

One major choice for you will be whether to have the two parts at the same level of difficulty, or one obviously intended for the student and one obviously intended for the teacher.

Each has merits. Perhaps other teachers can comment.

Nikolas, here in the USA, there's a very large amount of elementary level works for 4 hds; some for the early intermediate grades, then it seems to dry up, until you get to advanced levels.

My general criticism of most pedagogical works for students is that, 1, it's too short, and 2, it's not interesting. In re too short: it's like there's this mental barrier which publishers face; anything over two pages long is verboten. Perhaps they feel that students are not serious enough to tackle 8, 12, or 16 more measures, most of what would be repeated material, or very similar to what they've already learned.

Teens, who normally are short-changed in the duet department, have simple emotional needs. The music must be dramatic. It can be very, very dark, or very brilliant and dazzling. Nuance is, for the most part, unnecessary.

Just a few thoughts for you to ponder.

John