jportela

Because in August I'll have more free time for the piano and music theory than the rest of the year, I decided to create a list of the pieces I want to learn this month:

Piano:

Chopin - Preludes nº 4, 7 and 20. The easiest preludes by Chopin. Number 4 and 7 are almost memorized.

Bach - Inventions nº 1, 4, 14. These two voice inventions are really fun to play and the easiest from the set of 15, although my teacher said I could tackle anyone of them, if I don't exaggerate on the speed

Bach - Some pieces from the Anna Magdalena Notebook, mainly to train sight reading and keyboard technique

Beethoven - Sonata nº 20, op. 49 nº 2. Considered the easiest sonata by Beethoven, but still challenging enough for me.

Schumann - Some pieces from Kinderscenen and Album for the Young, because they are very beautiful and not very difficult

Tchaikovsky - Some pieces from the Album for the Young, same reason as above

Mozart - Variations on Ah, Vous Dirai-je Maman (Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star). They are so beautiful and impressive, although I feel they are somewhat above my technical level.

Czerny - Some studies from Op. 849. I normally don't like studies, but Czerny's are actually pretty good musically and I feel they really help articulating the fingers, plus I'll sight read through them.

Music Theory:

Mostly I want to improve my sight-reading on all clefs, by solfeging from a book I had from the time I was in the Conservatory (Principles of Elementary Rhythm by Fontaine). I'll also do ear training (interval and chord recognition) with the EarMaster software and try to learn counterpoint.

I'll also try to learn improvisation from the Definitive Piano Improvisation Guide by Yoke Wong.


Pheww, that's a lot and I'll surely won't be able to do half of that, but I'll try :)

I usually don't buy CD records of classical music (mostly because they are very expensive in Portugal).

Last Friday JN (the largest portuguese newspaper) started publishing a collection of piano records. The selection of composers and interpreters is actually very good! The first volume is about Glenn Gould and Bach, including the Goldberg Variations and more music from Bach. 2 CDs with a book introducing the composer, interpreters and a listening guide for the pieces, just for 2.95€ (apart from the newspaper cost - about 1€). The next volumes are more expensive - 7.95€, but still worth it.

I'm happy to live in Portugal :)

http://jn.sapo.pt/grandepiano/