My first piece

I just played Intonazione, written by Giovanni Gabrieli. Don't worry, i'm not done practicing it just yet. I still have a few more days to practice and get it mastered. Just thought you would want to see me practicing it. I'm doing Intonazione,  Pavana, and Galiardo until Tuesday, but I just recorded Intonazione. Hope you enjoyed watching!

Day 1
I played through the first three songs today: Intonazione, Pavana, and Galiardo. The first one seemed to be a little off key and clashed a little. The timing on that one should be very accurate, because if you go off the timing, it  will mess you up and change that part of the piece. When I played Pavana and Galiardo for the first time, for some reason I can definitely tell this is part of the baroque period. I don't know if I like the baroque period or not yet, but they seemed fun and "cheery" to play through. If you are playing through the Anthology of Music, too, then I'm sure you can see these things too.

My piano lesson is on Tuesday so I've got only a few days to master these. I looked through this first volume and saw that, in the beginning, most of it is really easy. That's why I decided to do three, instead of one or two.

I'll post a video tomorrow of maybe one of those songs, just for you to get an idea of how these ought to be played. Usually, when I listen to a difficult piece and I just can't seem to get an idea of how to play them, I have to look for forever before I can find a good  player to listen and watch.

So, thanks for reading. Please leave any comments.

-Lauren

Getting Started

Hello, my name is Lauren. I'm so excited about starting this blog and hope you enjoy reading it. I am thirteen years old and have played the piano for nine years, since I was four. At first, I HATED playing the piano, but over time I began to love it. Now, I can hardly walk by our piano without having the urge to play it because I love it so much. I hope I can teach piano someday and hopefully major in music during college. This blog is going to challenge me to complete 306 difficult classical piano pieces in the time until I graduate high school. I'm in eighth grade right now, so I will have four years to finish my goal.

The books I will play through are called An Anthology of Piano Music, volumes one thru four. This series of books is used constantly by colleges around the world. Each volume is composed of solo piano pieces from the different "piano eras". In order, it begins with the baroque period, then the classical period, the romantic period, and ends with the twentieth century. I will take one year to play through each volume. Two to three songs must be played and completed each week to finish my goal.

This blog's purpose is to teach and challenge me, first off, with these new classical pieces, and to write about my opinion of each of them. It is written to anyone who loves the piano and wants to learn as much as they can about it with me.

I think that the difficulty of this is not just about how hard these books are, but the fact that I am doing this on top of my normal forty-five minute piano practice. I also play sports,  have to do homework, go to youth activities at church,  do chores, and pretty much do anything that most eighth graders have to do or worry about.     

So I guess I'd better get started. Maybe, I should first learn what anthology even means. :)

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and please leave any comments you have. Thanks! 

-Lauren