Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Please recommend a classical piece for me

I'd like to learn a soft classical piece but I am a beginner - I'm almost through Alfred's All-In-One book 1. I'd like one in the key of C,G or F majors or A minor (as these are the only ones I've learnt so far!)

If you could recommend one I could get from the site that you get 5 free sheet music downloads per day (the name escapes me at the moment!) I would be grateful. Thankyou!!

Erin

Bach's Minuet in G? (actually it's by Petzold, but that might be too much information).

Keith

Try this site Erin...

http://gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies.html

Page down to "Keyboard Classics" for three versions of Minuet in G, plus quite a few other pieces that should be in your reach. Fur Elise is always a good choice, and there is a beginner's version as well as the complete.

Have fun.

from Bach AM Notebook: Musette in D would be a good one for you:

http://www.gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies.html
(down to "Keyboard Classics")

Alfred Publishing (the same folks who publish your method book) has a fine series called "Essential Keyboard Repertoire". The complete series is 8 volumes and includes pieces at a number of different difficulty levels.

But Volume 1 might be a good place for you to start. It includes some of the easiest pieces in the series and they are all original (no simplified versions). All periods from Baroque to Modern are represented (including the aforementioned Minuet and Musette from Bach's AM Notebook).

It's not free, of course. But it's inexpensive, well edited, clearly printed, and contains over 140 pages of music so you should be able to find something that appeals. You can even get a companion CD with professional recordings of all the pieces.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone! I went down to my local music shop and ended up coming home with a book called "Top 10 Classical Favourites". It says it's for Intermediate pianists, but I think it's not quite as hard as that.

It has:
- Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (Bach)
- Moonlight Sonata First Movement (Beethoven)
- Ode To Joy (Beethoven)
- Marche Funebre (Chopin.. not terribly excited about this one)
- Clair de lune (Debussy)
- The Entertainer (Joplin)
- Allegro from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart)
- Pachelbel's Canon in D
- Nessun Dorma (Puccini)
- Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Rachmaninoff)

I've started Mozart's Allegro and it's very exciting! :-)

Chopin's Prelude (28-4) is a good one to try

I'm also a relative beginner. I'd recommend learning Bach's Prelude in C Major. It's beautiful and very respectable, part of even many an advanced pianist's repertoire but playable by us mortal adult beginners. It looks harder to play when you look at the score than it really is. It has a regular structure and easy fingering. It took me a while to learn it by heart but now it's one of my favorites. There's a free copy with full fingering (and lots of other free sheet music and midi files) at Gilbert DeBenedetti's site: http://gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies.html
I also really like the Masterwork Classics series. They all come with CDs and IMHO really lead the student gently and progressively into some beautiful Classical and Romantic music.

Hi: Erin J:

A word of warning about that book you chose. Those pieces are DIFFICULT in the original. They are at a grade level of 8 plus, at least.

So I am thinking that these pieces have been "rearranged" for the "intermediate" pianist. Sometimes, we refer to them as "dumbed-down," which is a terrible expression, but one that really means they are not the true version of the composition.

However, depending on the arrangement, many compositions can be watered-down and still sound pretty good. Again, depending on the arrangement.

Some people will not play these types of arrangements. They are the "purists." While others realize that they may never possess the skills required to play the "real thing," so they very happily settle for something that still retains an acceptable and even lovely "clone," if you will.

I was always the purist, but in recent months decided to go the other route on some pieces. Again...the arrangement is everything!!

Kathleen

I second Kathleen. You can play "easy arrangements," if you really like it, but I wouldn't do it. Really, there are so many wonderful pieces at any level, you can certainly find some original music you'll like. Here are some examples (you can see I tend to swing to Romantics):

Chopin: Prelude #4 (already mentioned)
Schuman: First Loss Op.68.16
Schuman: Traumerei, as well as almost all other pieces from Kinderszenen (Op. 15)
Liszt: Theme from 8 Variations

There is also tons of music from Classical and Baroque periods such as already mentioned pieces from Anna Magdalen Bach's notebook, etc.