Description
My goal in creating this curriculum is to help piano students gain an interest in and a love and appreciation for great classical music.
Aspiring pianists need to know the literature, hear the greats perform, and be inspired and excited by the great music that is available! Just as writers need to read, read, read, pianists need to listen! Through this fun curriculum, students will learn about the musical periods and the great composers and their works. Listening repertoire selected includes selections from the standard solo piano literature, as well as solo piano and orchestra literature and orchestral works.
My hope is that students can add just 5-10 minutes of listening per day to their normal practicing. Listening to great music will change their understanding of music and will vastly increase their music history knowledge. It will excite and inspire them, encourage further study and listening, give them new pieces to add to their own repertoire wish list, infuse more great music into their lives, homes and families, and will boost their musicianship and expression to the next level.
The Halloween Shades of Sound book includes 13 different pieces, including:
- Totentanz by Liszt
- Le Cimetiere, from Clairs de Lune by Abel Decaux
- Graceful Ghost Rag by William Bolcom
- Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov
- Tarantelle, from Music for Children Op. 65 No. 4 by Prokofiev
- Tarantella by Albert Pieczonka
- In the Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg
- Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 by Bach
- Funeral March, from Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor by Chopin
- Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens
- The Banshee by Henry Cowell
- Scarbo, from Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel
- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas
Students may use The Playful Piano – Halloween Listening YouTube playlist to listen along with their book using quality recordings. The playlist is ordered to go right along with the book, and also includes 5 extra pieces (some pages include optional “Further Listening” examples students may listen to).
