Posts tagged as:

baroque

Piano Music – A Guide To Finding A Perfect Fit

by Tania Gleaves on August 4, 2010

Finding piano music isn’t difficult at all. The problem with finding it however is finding appropriate pieces to play. The music that you want to play should reflect your current skills so that you don’t feel overwhelmed or unchallenged. Good music should not only encourage growth in your playing ability, but also confidence as well. Here are some tips that should make the process a little less difficult.

Click Here And Learn How To Pick The Best Piano Music!

1. Buy a book that addresses all stages of piano lessons. Look for a single source that provides beginner sections, intermediate sections, and advanced sections all in one. Not only will this save you from having to spend money on three separate music books, it will offer a few advanced skills to encourage growth to while enabling you to play the more simpler pieces right now.

2. Peruse musical instruments stores for music. Musical instrument stores are great resources for finding music books and single sheet piano music for all skills including beginning levels. If you can’t locate what you’re looking for, ask a store clerk for help. Store clerks not only have great leads on learning material, they can also point to some wonderful tutors.

3. Find music that sticks to the classics and better-known musicians. You’ll be able to learn faster by playing piano music that you recognize. Attempting to play music that you’ve never heard before will make it more difficult to recognize a mistake — especially at the beginning stages.

4. You can also of course, expose yourself to a wider variety of music and music that is outside the popular classical realm. This will help alleviate the problem introduced in Step 3. Listen to music of all periods (baroque, classical, contemporary, impressionistic, romantic, etc.) and listen to music composed by lesser-known musicians or even those who you’ve never heard of before.

5. Look over the material before you purchase it and select a design that fits your playing style. Although at first glance all piano music may look the same, it isn’t. Some of it displays bigger type on short pages while other types display fine type on large pages. To create a perfect fit, you’ll need to examine the quality of the print and select music that you can easily see from your position at the piano and that you can easily turn while playing!

If you had to choose between sheet music and a music book, what choice would you make? On the one hand, sheet music can be arranged atop a piano in a way that makes playing it a simple matter of moving your eyes. On the other hand, sheet music can be difficult to keep up with because they’re loose and easily misplaced. Music books are certainly easier to maintain, but its pages can be difficult to turn while playing.

There is of course no one way to experience or enjoy playing piano music other than to try different methods and select a format that works for you. This is because the final format that you choose should allow for easy and beautiful music making.

Click Here And Learn How To Pick The Best Piano Music!

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Bach Piano Music – The Beauty of Baroque

by Tania Gleaves on July 3, 2010

Bach piano pieces capture the heart of anyone who hears them. (By the way, I wonder what Johann Sebastian Bach would think of the Internet? Isn’t it cool to think that the master of the Baroque style of  music would have an official page on the World Wide Web?)

Anyway, Bach was born in 1685 in Thuringia, which is a state in the nation of Germany. Both of his parents died during the year that he was nine.

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The whole family was musical.  In those days people belonged to “guilds” which designated what kind of work they were to do. The Bachs served as town musicians and cantors, who were men who led the church worship chants and music.

Bach lived with a brother until 1700, when he and a school buddy  went to a Latin school for poor children. Here he learned much about music, learned to play the organ, and became quite good at it.

As he grew into a man, he held positions as church organist in several towns around Germany but his complex musical stylings bothered the religious people of the day.

That’s curious! Now we hear baroque music and think of it as rich and traditional, and certainly nothing to which people in church could object. Changing the worship music in a church always takes a bit of a rebel or pioneer, but sacred music continues to grow and change.

Be that as it may, Johann Sebastian continued to develop as a musician and as a composer. Among the famous pieces he wrote are many Bach piano pieces, and many other pieces that have since been adapted for piano.

Some of the most familiar of his works are…

  • Sheep May Safely Graze
  • Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
  • Sleepers, Awake
  • The Brandenburg Concertos
  • Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
  • Minuet in G from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach

An overview of Bach piano music would not be complete without a few words about the Baroque style of music. This form of music was in vogue from about 1600 to 1750.  It followed the music of the Renaissance, and preceded the of music of the  “Classical Period.”

Baroque music is characterized by a complexity of parts, counter melodies, and harmony. Opera became a musical entity during the Baroque period.  If you’ve ever sung Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in a Christmas concert, you know something about counter melodies and the intricate arrangement of different parts.

Baroque music has been found to stimulate the brain for increased learning capabilities in children, particularly when they are learning math skills.

It has also been used for relaxation training with people of all sorts, including those with mental handicaps.

Click Here To Learn More About Bach Piano And How To Play Them!

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