How to Practice the Piano: Selecting Repertoire

Posted by MaryO on August 5, 2015

Great blog post! Thanks, Andrea 🙂

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📘 The Very Interesting Life of Ludwig van Beethoven
Written by a friend: Learners of all ages will enjoy discovering the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. From birth, family life, meeting famous composers to strange dinner parties, you're sure to learn some new and interesting facts about this amazing composer.
🎄Local Holiday Concert
A free concert of holiday music on December 3 at Pender UMC Usher in the holidays with the sounds of the Harp, Flute, Piano, Organ, Soprano vocalist, Handbells, Jazz duo and an Irish session! The concert will conclude with everyone joining in singing some traditional carols. A reception will follow.
🦃 Giving Thanks
I’m thankful for my piano studio, my students, and my piano 🙂 This year, I’m especially thankful for the Internet! When I was growing up, my dad was a minister, meaning we lived in whatever parsonage the church chose to let us live in. The one we had in Pawcatuck, CT had an upright piano […]
🦃 Over the River and Through the Woods
“The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day”, also known as “Over the River and Through the Wood”, is a Thanksgiving poem by Lydia Maria Child originally published in Flowers for Children, Volume 2. Although many people sing “to grandmother’s house we go,” the original edition shows that the author’s words were “to grandfather’s house.”
🦃 Happy Thanksgiving!
🎄Holiday Listening and Coloring Pages
The Shades of Sound Listening and Coloring Books are a great way to encourage students to listen to great piano and orchestral repertoire. Students of all ages will love coloring the fun pictures while listening to and learning from the music of the great composers.
🖤 In Memory of Dr. Maurice Hinson
2015 ~ Dr. Maurice Hinson died. He was one of America’s most respected authorities on piano literature. Many of the books in the OCMS library were edited by Dr. Hinson. Mrs. O’Connor took a piano pedagogy class with him several years ago and learned so much from him.
🇺🇸 Veterans Day
his is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day or Veterans Day or Victory Day or World War I Memorial Day. The name of this special day may be different in different places throughout many nations; but its significance is the same. It was on this day, at 11 a.m., that World War I ceased. The Allied […]
🎃 Blog Posts: It’s Halloween: Toccata and Fugue in d minor by J.S Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach’s towering monument of organ music, with its deep sense of foreboding, will forever be associated with Halloween.
🎃 Halloween Music 2022
A listing of the Halloween Music posted this year.
🎃 Blog Posts Halloween Music: Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky
Night on Bald Mountain refers to a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky composed a “musical picture”, St. John’s Eve on Bald Mountain on the theme of a witches’ sabbath occurring on St. John’s Eve, which he completed on that very night, June 23, in 1867.
🎃 Halloween Music: Funeral March of a Marionette
This advanced piano piece by the 19th-century French composer is one of his most popular concert works. The program music describes a funeral procession, relieved by a lively middle section where the mourners stop for refreshment. The main theme was used as the signature music for the Alfred Hitchcock mystery television series.
🎃 Blog Posts Halloween Music: In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg
The translation of the title of this piece from Norwegian isn’t quite literally “mountain king”. The “king” in this instance is actually a troll that Peer Gynt invents in a fantasy. The introduction of this movement is, “There is a great crowd of troll courtiers, gnomes and goblins. Dovregubben sits on his throne, with crown […]
🎃 Halloween Music: Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns
Danse macabre, Op. 40, is a tone poem for orchestra, written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. It started out in 1872 as an art song for voice and piano with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis, which is based on an old French superstition. In 1874, the composer expanded and reworked […]
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Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated every year in autumn in the northern hemisphere (spring in southern hemisphere). One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, it spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair. Diwali falls in either October or November each […]
🎃 Blog Posts Halloween Music: Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath
The final movement is the best known part of the symphony, thanks to its use in the Julia Roberts movie, Sleeping With The Enemy. It features a four-part structure, which Hector Berlioz described in his own program notes from 1845 as follows: “He sees himself at a witches’ Sabbath, in the midst of a hideous […]
🎂 It’s Franz Liszt’s Birthday!
…Liszt was wildly handsome and hugely talented. He was extremely popular in Paris during the 1830’s. It is said that women actually fainted at his piano recitals. He was the first to position the piano so that its lid reflected the sound and the audience could see his profile as he performed….
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Parents might remember this one – or their grandparents! No one else has captured a monster quite so groovy as the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.
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Although not technically a “halloween piece” this very old Gregorian Chant (from the 300s!) is used in a lot of music that sounds spooky. Dies Irae is a Latin term that means “Day of Wrath”.
🎃 Blog Posts Halloween Music: “Catacombs”
Modest Mussorgsky composed this multi-movement work in memory of his friend, artist Viktor Hartmann. Each movement corresponds to a picture in Hartmann’s gallery, with one pairing with Hartmann’s Paris catacombs.

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How to Practice the Piano: Selecting Repertoire

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