I’ve been teaching myself to play the piano for a couple of months now and starting to get my head round it. But, I haven’t listened to a lot of piano music so I’m kind of stuck for pieces to learn.
Has anyone got any suggestions for stuff that is not too hard/ too long, sounds good and preferably in the public domain ( so I can find it on www.sheetmusicarchive.net ). Stuff that will improve my technique would be a bonus.
At the moment I’m learning “fur elise” by beethoven; something of similar difficulty / length would be nice.
Mozart has a lot of easier pieces that are popular with beginners. Rondo alla Turca and his Sonata in C major, k. 545, are both pretty recognizable. Also, his variations of “Ah vous dirais-je, Maman,” aka Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, aren’t too terribly difficult.
Try Bach’s Prelude #1 in C-Major. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Charles Gounod wrote a melody line on top of it and called it Ave Maria.
That one prelude will teach you oodles about harmony and voice-leading; don’t be put off by the notation with all those tied notes. The whole thing is just a series of 5-note chords (played with 2 hands), arpeggiated or “strummed” twice in each measure. It’s quite easy.
mansonite , the Prelude in C was actually the last piece I learned…I liked it a lot. I’m not familiar with the Charles Gounod piece though, I’ll have to check it out.
I had a look at the fugue which goes with it, but it seemed to have some stretches in it that were (for me ) impossible. Maybe some more practice will change my opinion.
Just off the top of my head, I came up with plenty of Bach stuff:
Two- and Three-Part Inventions (though the three-part are tricky)
Goldberg Variations
6 French Suites/English Suites/Partitas for Keyboard
the Anna Magdalena Notebook