I've been trying to prop up printouts of downloaded music on the piano, and the floppiness is annoying, so I've just bought a big book of easy classical pieces, which includes a few pieces I'd like to learn. I figured a nice book (comb binding, so it opens flat) would make life easier. Problem is, some of the tunes seem to have been transposed or otherwise altered.
For instance, Moonlight Sonata is shown with one sharp and starts with a single bass note - an E, while the freebie version (from 8notes.com) has four sharps and a C# octave pairing for the bass note. Another one I noticed is Fur Elise - timing is shown as 6/8 in the freebie, and 3/4 in the book (but the bar lines seem to land in the same places), and the book sometimes plays the bass line an octave higher in the freebie.
This is a bit disconcerting. If I'm going to spend the time learning pieces like these, I'd like to at least play them in the correct key, and in the correct positions on the keyboard. The book's title is "The Piano Treasury Of Easy Classical Music", but doesn't seem to say anywhere that the pieces have been transposed, simplified, or otherwise changed from the 'proper' version. (I'm assuming the 8notes version are closer to the correct versions - Moonlight is in the right key, at least.)
Am I missing something? Is this sort changing around of pieces normal? I thought the phrase 'easy classical music' meant classical music that is easy to play, rather than classical music that has been 'made easy' by means of what look like arbitrary changes. Does 'easy' mean something else when it's on the cover of a classical music compilation for piano? (If so, how is a beginner expected to know this, never mind spot that as-yet-unlearned pieces have been transcribed differently?)
Am I just being uptight about what key I play the piece in? I'm not able to transpose on the fly - my sight reading is dreadful. I'm more at the stage of using the music as a guide while I try to memorise a piece - memorising the sounds and the finger movements is what I'm doing, I guess.
My thinking is that, if I want to learn something like Moonlight, I should learn it correctly because I can then play along with recordings of it 'done correctly', or maybe jam with another musician who already knows the tune. So, I don't see how learning to finger it three semitones sharp is going to help. I also believe that the key and octaves used is important - you change the feel if you start playing half of the bassline an octave out. I suspect that versions like that aren't what we hear in recordings by professional players. If I'm gonna build a repertiore of 'piano favourites', then they have to actually sound like the favourites, and not some half-assed version. The only thing that should make the tunes sound half-assed is my own lack of ability.
What sort of market is the book I bought aimed at? It doesn't seem to suit my needs at all.
Any suggestions for a more suitable book/publisher of classical pieces that are just easy to play, rather than 'harder' pieces pushed through a simplification filter?
-- Wally www.wally.myby.co.uk I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, but it keeps them on the knife. (Spike Milligan)
I would say the market for that book is beginners who want to play
recognizable pieces for their own enjoyment as well as that of friends
and family (or so they hope). They can play something that sounds near
the original without as much time & effort. For some, that's good
enough.
Yeah, makes sense. Seems a bit like a blind alley to me - I don't have any great plans as a piano player, but I'd rather avoid building in what could be a restriction.
I'm not sure how common it is to learn Moonlight Sonata with
the intent of playing along with a recording or even jamming with
other musicians. No doubt it can be done, but I wouldn't think it to
be a very common goal.
I'm a beginning pianist, but played guitar for nearly 30 years (self taught, all own material / improvised / played by ear). Playing along with a recording seems a reasonable way of assessing whether I've got a piece on the right track (not an end in itself, in other words).
I think a lot of piano methods have corresponding repertoire books.
You could just look for those at the appropriate level -- though I
guess it's possible that some of those could be simplified versions.
I gather this simplified thing isn't readily identifiable, then? Maybe books for those doing the grades are worth looking at - I'd imagine they'd have to have the correct versions.
Personally, I've been playing from _The Festival Collection_, Compiled
& edited by Helen Marlais from FJH Music Company. Each has pieces from
the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods along with the 20th/21st
centuries. ...
I'll try and check them out. Do the books open, and stay, flat for frustration-free piano perching?
I'd imagine there are many similar series from other companies/
editors.
I think I'll see if the shop will exchange the book for something more suitable - I'm sure they'll be happy to advise.
-- Wally www.wally.myby.co.uk Call me a saint, call me a sinner - just don't call me... late for dinner.
I think a lot of piano methods have corresponding repertoire books.
You could just look for those at the appropriate level -- though I
guess it's possible that some of those could be simplified versions.
Personally, I've been playing from _The Festival Collection_, Compiled
& edited by Helen Marlais from FJH Music Company. Each has pieces from
the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods along with the 20th/21st
centuries. It's an eight volume set, graded in difficulty from 1 to 8
starting with "Elementary to Mid-Elementary". Each book comes with a
CD recording of all that book's pieces with books 7 & 8 including
recordings from three different players for each piece.
I have Book 3 (Early Intermediate) and it includes pieces by Bach,
Telemann, Beethoven, Haydn, Burgmuller, Czerny, Bartok, Kabalevsky and
many others.
I'd imagine there are many similar series from other companies/
editors.
Jeremy
One I like is Keith Snell Piano Library: Repertoire Series: 10 levels graded from beginner to advanced and includes Baroque & Classical, Romantic & 20th Century, and Etudes. CDs are available separately. Each level includes three books. I think a newer version combines the three books for each level into one book and includes the CD. Haven't tried thes yet... Tfras
Radu Focshaner 16 March 2008 04:21:15 [ permanent link ]
"Wally" <atdot@dotat.atdot> wrote in message news:m5ednf6fwfKsikHanZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@giganews.com...
I've been trying to prop up printouts of downloaded music on the piano,
and
the floppiness is annoying,
You can buy from AVERY books with plastic sheet protectors and put your printed sheet music pages in those books. Or you could buy single sheet protectors, put your pages in them and store them in a two-rings binder.
music: all classical music must be original unabridged keyboard music.
I agree. I usually play only original, and non-dummied down music. Even the easiest pieces written by the masters are little gems.
John Brimhall: My Favorite Classics
Level One - Easy Keyboard Masterworks
Level Two - Intermediate Keyboard Masterworks
Hansen House
I recommend the "Classics to Moderns" series, compiled by Denes Agay, which are in three volumns: easy, imtermediate grade, and early advanced grades.
I recently bought the "Easy Classics to Moderns" for practicing sight reading. It contains 142 selections in their original form, and are neither re-arranged nor simplified. It contains keyboard literature from three centuries. It retails for $13.95 and I got it for about $10 at the Amazon.com "Marketplace".
I had purchased the Intermediate and Early Advanced Classics to Moderns in 1972 and have always been impressed with this series. (so I recently went back and got the Easy Classics to Moderns, to practice sight reading)
I really wish you'd stop doing this. In a discussion forum, the idea is to *converse*, not to continually recite passages from 'the good book'. You can't even be bothered to reformat it so that the line lengths are fixed. Minimum effort, huh?
One of the main things I have accomplished as a teacher, and it
appears I'm accomplishing with THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK, is showing
piano students that it's easy to play music in any key once they
understand the systematic way the Circle of 5ths works, and other
relationships.
My thinking is that I should learn the correct version first. If I later want to transpose it, then that's fine, but there is something counterintuitive about learning an incorrect version and then transposing it to get to the right version (missing notes notwithstanding).
You mention that you'd like to learn Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata (you're probably referring just to the first
movement) and Fur Elise, -- take a look at these, and see if they will
help you -- go to Amazon.com and put in the search: "neil miller
analyzed moonlight sonata" and "neil miller analyzed fur elise."
I will, on principle, buy nothing that you have published. You should take a look at your service provider's terms and conditions - you might find that they don't allow activities such as your continual promotion of your wares.
-- Wally www.wally.myby.co.uk Call me a saint, call me a sinner - just don't call me... late for dinner.
I hope that without irritating you, I think this chap is making a point that you could benefit from....
You clearly have written a book that relates, but this is not a forum for promoting books, it is a forum for exchanging ideas and in a few cases probably making friendships. It is mildly irritating to read about your book every time I log on. If you want to do something useful in that context why not put your book on the web like Dr Chen?
You seem like a really nice chap and very helpful to those who know less about piano than you do, so thank you when you do make a useful comment, however I think you do yourself an injustice to promote your book here.
This column is read by many - perhaps thousands or even tens of thousands - included in that number are clearly many very competent musicians who patiently comment from their experience of life. Many are competent performers, teachers, authors of books, but their interaction is generally more on the helpful side than on that of self-aggrandisement.
Best wishes
GR
"Wally" <atdot@dotat.atdot> wrote in message news:e4ydnQnLua43wXzaRVnygwA@giganews.com...
Neil wrote:
from THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK
I really wish you'd stop doing this. In a discussion forum, the idea is to
*converse*, not to continually recite passages from 'the good book'. You
can't even be bothered to reformat it so that the line lengths are fixed.
Minimum effort, huh?
One of the main things I have accomplished as a teacher, and it
appears I'm accomplishing with THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK, is showing
piano students that it's easy to play music in any key once they
understand the systematic way the Circle of 5ths works, and other
relationships.
My thinking is that I should learn the correct version first. If I later
want to transpose it, then that's fine, but there is something
counterintuitive about learning an incorrect version and then transposing
it
to get to the right version (missing notes notwithstanding).
You mention that you'd like to learn Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata (you're probably referring just to the first
movement) and Fur Elise, -- take a look at these, and see if they will
help you -- go to Amazon.com and put in the search: "neil miller
analyzed moonlight sonata" and "neil miller analyzed fur elise."
I will, on principle, buy nothing that you have published. You should take
a
look at your service provider's terms and conditions - you might find that
they don't allow activities such as your continual promotion of your
But, I have to figure out what to do about the proper protocol here.
If I have already addressed an issue in my book, do I really have to
write a new piece to answer someone's question?
Of course - that's the whole point! The purpose of the group is to provide a means of having *conversations* on the subject. In face-to-face conversations, people don't whip out their tape machines to play back standard phrases, rather than actually speaking them, do they?
What you're doing is like visiting a piano club, where folks are sitting around various tables, chatting about piano-related subjects - while you're walking around the tables, finding out what a group is talking about, and then reading out selected passages from your book, before closing with, "...and buy my book on Amazon!".
I thought it was OK to
make no mention of my book except in my signature, which I thought is
what I've done in my last several posts. But I see I preceded some of
them with "from THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK." I slipped up -- I won't let
it happen again.
Standard ettiquette, or nettiquette as it's known, is to avoid any sort of self-promotion (in a commercial sense) in the body of your posts. It's considered okay to put a link to something like your business or whatever in your signature.
The fact that you write the title in block capitals is also considered a no-no. In this sort of written communication, all-caps is considered shouting and is usually unwelcome. Your use of full caps makes it pretty clear that you want the text to be noticed - which, given the context, smacks of self-seeking promotion for financial gain. It almost looks like you're trying to hijack the group for your own ends - it comes across as rather blatant, in-your-face commercialism.
Oh, and just turning up and posting blatant advertising without at least enquiring about how things happen in this particular corner of usenet is yet another no-no. If that sort of thing was okay, newsgroups would be riddled with spam - completely gridlocked with it, to the extent that nobody can see the wheat from the chaff.
Such an image doesn't really do your credibility much good. If you want people to buy your book, stop shoving it in their faces. About two days after I posted my feelings on what you've been doing, you went and did the same thing in a reply to me. That's pretty damned annoying. People know you wrote a book, and you're perfectly entitled to put a link to the buy-it page in your sig. They don't need to be constantly reminded of it, and be fed yet more promotional samples, just because clicking 'next message' happened to open a post by you.
A quick Google on 'newsgroup nettiquette' unearthed...
There is *plenty* of documentation out there that will tell you how things work on usenet. Usenet is the 'system' that makes it possible for newsgroups like this one to propagate throughout the world - I'm not on Google Groups, I'm using a completely different service provider, different software, and connecting to a different kind of server. The only thing that's the same is the data - the messages that people post.
-- Wally www.wally.myby.co.uk Things are always clearer in the cold, post-upload light.
On Mar 20, 4:18?pm, "Wally" <at...@dotat.atdot> wrote:
Usenet is the 'system' that makes it possible for newsgroups
like this one to propagate throughout the world
Wally, for years I've been telling people about how great newsgroups
are. Usually, when I need an answer or help on any subject, the
question and answer are already there! And if I post a question, an
answer comes quickly. The last thing I want to do is abuse the
privilege of participating. I'll follow your advice and instructions.
I really thought I was helping other pianists with the way I was
replying, so please forgive me for inadvertently breaking the rules.
They aren't rules, as such - more like conventions. Many newsgroups have a charter that states what's okay for that particular group. This is usually drawn up when the group is created, and often includes the basic nettiquette things like no commercialism. Although most groups are unmoderated, news service providers will, on receiving a complaint, deal with users that transcend the boundaries for that group. Hence, the oft-seen advice to lurk and find out a bit about a group before posting. (The subject of complaining to a user's service provider is a whole other debate - there are strong views both for and against.)
As for forgiveness, it isn't a factor. I also didn't 'instruct' you to do anything. What you do is up to you.
