Piano Street's Classical Piano News

Super Mario – The Czerny Studies of Our Time?

Are there any pianists out there who have never played studies by Czerny as part of their training? Probably not many. It is a fact that the technical and stylistic formulas necessary for playing the masterpieces of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and other classical composers can be developed by playing Czerny’s studies.

It is, however, a controversial issue, since many teachers argue that valuable practice time should not be wasted on such mechanical and artistically dry pieces when the same results can be achieved by practicing real music.

From another point of view, we do not only play music from the classical period these days. If you want to equip yourself with sufficient technical and musical skills to play, for example, Fanfares, one of the more frequently played études by György Ligeti, old Czerny may not be exactly what you need.

"Fanfares" from Studies Book 1 by György Ligeti

The main problems in the étude are:
1. Playing quick series of double-notes of various intervals in irregular patterns,
2. Synchronizing the irregular “melody” with a syncopated accompaniment,
3. Delivering a constant stream of eighth notes in such syncopated patterns for 11 pages without losing focus and “falling off the rope”.

Instead of Czerny, a better preparatory exercise for this piece could be the well-known Overworld Main Theme from the video game Super Mario Bros, composed by Koji Kondo. It contains the first two of the above-mentioned problems but in a more accessible format, while the third issue (focus/sustained attention) could possibly be practiced by playing the actual video game, aiming to go all the way through and beat Bowser without making a single mistake.

The Overworld Main Theme from the legendary video game Super Mario Bros.

The New Super Mario Series by Alfred Music Publishing

Last week, Alfred Music Publishing released officially licensed piano scores for the popular Super Mario Bros.™ video game series. This collection of 34 pieces contains the instantly recognizable melodies beloved by generations of gamers around the world, and is available in two versions: original transcriptions and easy piano arrangements.
From Koji Kondo’s iconic Super Mario “Ground” background music to the new Super Mario Wii™ themes, the dozens of pieces in these books represent two and a half decades of Nintendo video game favorites.

The easy piano arrangements are simplified to make them enjoyable for novice pianists, although the rhythmic complexity as well as the often un-pianistic melodic patterns makes them quite a challenge even for the intermediate level pianist. The “Intermediate-Advanced Piano Solos” book features note-by-note transcriptions for solo piano performance. Many of these are technically demanding, which makes them suitable exercises for both “serious” contemporary music as well as for various pop music styles.

Samples pages of the sheet music:
Easy piano: Ground, Underwater, Battle and Desert background music
Original arrangement: Ground background music
Read more on Alfred Music Publishing

Mariopiano.com

Another source of Super Mario piano scores is the website mariopiano.com which offers “didactic arrangements” of all themes and sound effects from the original Super Mario Bros (1985).
These are also note-by-note transcriptions of the original 8-bit NES music where the didactic merits are in the form of well-crafted fingerings and that all pieces are notated in alla breve in order to facilitate rhythmic reading.

Examples: Overworld Main Theme & Underwater Theme

…and from Mariomayhem.com: Super Mario Brothers for the piano

Let’s now look 100 years ahead. Will this be the typical opening phrase of a lesson with the 22th century piano teacher?
“Let’s begin with the scales and then I would like to hear your Mario Studies.”

The sheet music of Burgmüller’s opus 109, 18 Characteristic Studies, has been published as Piano Street Editions together with recordings by Henrik Sandback.
This collection may be used as a sequel to the studies opus 100.
Each study challenges the player with a specific technical problem, inseparable from the main idea of the composition.
Like the earlier pieces, the Characteristic Studies are not concerned solely with technique – Burgmüller’s melodious and charming works always have a distinct musical appeal, and are also studies of character and mood.

UPDATE: THE RECORDINGS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR FREE.

Burgmüller: Opus 109, no 5 “The Spring”

Burgmüller: Opus 109, no 7 “Lullaby”

Burgmüller: Opus 109, no 8 “Agitato”

Burgmüller: Opus 109, no 13 “The Storm”

Burgmüller: Opus 109, no 17 “March”

Burgmüller: Opus 109, No 18 “Spinning Song”

See all 18 Characteristic Studies

One plus one equals three?
Synergy.
It’s a word most of us are familiar with, but sometimes difficult to grasp.
Synergies arise when the combination of energies, resources, talents and efforts add up to more than the sum of their parts.
The idea of combining challenging principles in the Études of Chopin (Opp. 10 and 25) was tested at an early stage by Leopold Godowsky in his 48 Studies on Chopin´s Études (and recorded by Marc-André Hamelin in 2000).

This is Tiempo’s own two Chopin études mix-arrangement of the ”Revolutionary” Op. 10/12 and the ”Thirds” Op. 25/6.

Heralded by critics and fellow musicians as one of the outstanding pianists of his generation, Argentine-Venezuelan pianist Sergio Tiempo has quickly risen to international prominence since his debut in 1986 at age 14 as part of the “Great Pianists” series at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
He now appears regularly in recitals and with orchestras in the great concert halls of Europe, North America, South America and Japan.