What Piece(s) Are You Working on Right Now?

BartK Agreed, she could have definitely been mentioned along with Stravinsky or Poulenc had she lived longer. I don't like her piano pieces but her orchestral writing is exceptional.

BartK Just from the two pieces I listened to, she reminds me of the impressionist composers.

Recently an early Mozart piece came up duing my piano lesson.

The last piece recorded was a version of "Happy Birthday" in F for somebody's special day in October. We all sing the song a dozen times a year. When playing it on piano, every rendition of the song is supposed to be different & original... even if you're following the sheet music you'd add in embellishments the last minute to sound improvised.

thepianoplayer416 The last piece recorded was a version of "Happy Birthday" in F for somebody's special day in October. We all sing the song a dozen times a year. When playing it on piano, every rendition of the song is supposed to be different & original... even if you're following the sheet music you'd add in embellishments the last minute to sound improvised.

I recently watched a YouTube video listing "Happy Birthday" as the 6th piece in "6 Famous & Essential Pieces Every Pianist Should Learn".

My latest batch -

New pieces:
Quick study - Jeremiah Clarke "King William's March" - I thought I'd knock this one out in 2 days max, but it's been giving me fits.
Piano Adventures lesson piece - Clementi Sonatina, Op. 36, No. 1, 3rd movement.
Heller - Study in E minor, Op. 47 No. 5

Relearning:
Vince Guaraldi's "Great Pumpkin Waltz"

Still working on:
Michael Giacchino's "Married Life"
Arthur Herzog Jr. & Billie Holliday "God Bless the Child" (relearning)

Pallas I get to study the first piece in Schumann's Album for the Young - Melody. This will be my first bucket list item, and I'm thrilled.

I think it's really great to have bucket list pieces at all levels. Mine used to be all grade 8's and it was very discouraging, like I'd never get there. Now I have probably a dozen for each grade. I'm trying to go through a grade a year with a variety of pieces similar to yours.

Working on the last piece in Faber Classics Book 1. This beautiful aria by Giacomo Puccini

There is an upcoming peace concert in 2 weeks as a fundraising event for a humanitarian organization. A chance for amateur pianists (piano students) to play 1 or more pieces. If I do attend I'd probably include a piece like "What a Wonderful World" that I worked on last year. Haven't decided yet.

Faber did a great job on that arrangement. I sounds very authentic. Your recording does it justice even at the slower tempo.

I tend to get too obsessed with tempo at the cost of a piece not sounding as good as it should.

Pallas Would love to! It may be a while yet. The "band" is me (bass / keys), the missuz (drums), and our pal Steve who just started playing guitar this year. As such, he's still learning a lot of new chords and it can take a while for us to get up to speed on things -- which is just fine since this is all in fun. I'll be sure to share when it's ready, thanks for asking!

2 weeks ago played 2 pieces at a piano meetup across town including a Bach chorale and "Sarabande" from French Suite 3.

There is an upcoming piano meetup on the weekend with the theme "peace". I'm working on an arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" for the event in additon to the 2 pieces I'm already playing. Probably a simplified version of Bob Dylan "Blowin' in the Wind" which is a song written for the anti-war movement during the Vietnam war.

Pallas Melody is a lovely piece, very rewarding. I’m sure you will play it beautifully

Pallas Oh no, I'm NEVER going to get this one! It's over for me!

I know that feeling only too well. My teacher used to tell me in moments like these: “I know you can do it, believe me”, and I believed him and did my best…
Now, since I don’t have a teacher, I tend to give up too quickly. That’s what happened a few weeks ago when I tried to learn Olafur Arnalds’ “Saman”. But maybe it was really too difficult for me, I don’t know. The constant changes of metre from 4/4 to 6/4 were intimidating and I couldn’t quite figure out the rhythm, which added to the overall difficulty of the piece. But I still love it and will get back to it sometime in the future.
Then I found a new piece, which I really liked, and it turned out that I could play it even in a shorter time than expected. Oh, what a wonderful feeling, what a comfort! It was “Pigalle” by Virginio Aiello - well, evidently the piece was a more reasonable choice for my current set of skills

Now I’m working on:
Patrick Doyle “My Father’s Favourite” from Sense and Sensibility (from the book “Jane Austen’s World” for piano),
"Down by the Salley Gardens" (from the book “Irish Folk Songs Collection” arranged by June Armstrong),
“Wild Horses” from Martha Mier “Keyboard Kaleidoscope 2”,
“Van Gogh” - another piece by Virginio Aiello,
each of them in a different stage of learning.

I have also fallen in love with the music of another Italian composer, Andrea Vanzo, and would like to learn his “Spring” and “Valzer d’Inverno”, but maybe in a year’s time, as both are still too difficult. Or maybe when I have a teacher again.

Pallas please tell me that "Minuet in G" is not an early beginner piece as opposed to what some part of the internet thinks. I've recently gave that version a go instead of the simplified version in my method book. And found myself saying "I will never be able to grok this". My hands are refusing to play together, even after disregarding the trills. I really like how it sounds though. So I'm not going to give up. But the progress is sloooow .

hebele please tell me that "Minuet in G" is not an early beginner piece as opposed to what some part of the internet thinks

The internet is stupid (except this forum of course ). The adjective "early" means that you have just started that level and "late" means you have been at that level for a while and are close to moving to the next level. So, "early beginner" means you just started playing piano. That piece is not something a raw beginner who just started is expected to play.

Pallas The local community college had this piece as part of a Piano III class. The teacher also taught it in his Piano II class that I took years ago. My guess is that it was either too difficult for some of the Piano II class students or he was teaching it again to add more layers to the onion.

As far as the internet and piece levels go, I recently watched a YouTube video where a concert pianist was recommending pieces for intermediate pianists. They sounded pretty advanced to me and when I looked them up on the Piano Street syllabus they were grade 10!

Baroque music seems to take up a lot more bandwidth for me than other eras. I generally have to learn in much smaller chunks. I've had good luck with just adding a new note each time I repeat a passage. I also discovered a close to painless way of adding "onion layers" of articulation or dynamics. When I do "X times perfect" repetitions I work on adding in whatever I can manage at a time with each repetition.