Writer needs help assigning level to pieces

[tommytownsen]

Hi,
 
I am a writer with a decent background in music theory. I also compose orchestral music as a hobby. However, I have no experience with regards to piano lessons. I'm in the planning stages for a novel where one story concerns itself with two characters, one teaching the other piano, and I have selected pieces that interest me but I need to know if they would be appropriate for their level. I am thus calling upon piano teachers to tell me if I'm way off or not.

One of the characters is a high school senior. He is not a genius when it comes to the piano, but he should follow the average. I'm not sure when he would have started piano lessons, probably relatively young (around 6 or 7, maybe later). I would like him to be preparing "Reverie" by Claude Debussy for a recital. Too hard? Too easy? Just right?

Another character is a freshman at university. He is a gifted pianist. He started lessons at a young age and I'd like him to have played "Piano Sonata No.1 in Bb minor, Op. 74" by Alexander Glazunov probably one or two year(s) ago. Is it too easy or would it be of the right caliber?

The paths that these two characters have taken to get where they are is flexible. If you tell me "Reverie" would be too easy for someone who had had regular piano lessons from the age of 7 onwards, then it's possible he didn't have regular lessons and he stopped for a few years. I'm flexible on that end. I just need to make these pieces of music believable as concert pieces for these characters.

Any help you guys can provide will be appreciated.

[pianistimo]

personally, i think the debussy reverie is spot on for the one student who is not so gifted - but why glazunov for the other one?  why not the sonata #1 in Bb minor by sergei rachmaninov?  i don't think glazunov was first and foremost a pianist (was he?).  perhaps i am limited by my own knowledge of glazunov.  ok.  i am going to check right now.

one or two years ago?  what kind of teacher was trashing him?  a theory teacher?  ok.  probably good thing to have some glazunov to think orchestrally.

if it helps at all - i started around age 8 and remember starting with a neighbor.  then a series of teachers with all types of personalities and temperaments.  when i started with the neighbor - john thompson was the 'in' book.  at that time -it really mattered what the teacher's handwriting looked like - so a good deal of the lesson was writing notes on the sides and dating the lesson.  i would go home and look at the handwriting.  then, i later went to a woman who had an enormously long greek name.  she made me work very hard - but gave my brother improvisatory stuff.  rather unfair, if you ask me.  anyways - she never made him learn to sightread and i never learned to improvise.  if only she had done it the other way around.  anyways - she wore these 'mother earth' kind of shoes where the toes stick out - and you're incredibly comfortable.  it was the piano teacher 'look.'  full flowy dress - mother earth shoes.  then, i went to a liberace look-alike.  he had very thick white carpet in his house - and the first thrill was walking across the carpet.  the piano wasn't bad.  in fact, it was my first introduction to a 'real' piano.  all the others had been fakes.  i just wanted to cry at my cable nelson at home.  he also rewarded students with candy.  since my mother was a health nut - i gorged on candy and sorta liked this type of incentive.  candy on the piano in a bowl.  finally - finally in seventh grade - i get  a'normal' teacher.  one who taught at the community college and was not inclined to go off on 'example' teaching - but forced each student to spend the majority of time at the keyboard and not the other way around.  not that the others didn't do that - or did do that - it's just that - well, it's what i remember.  he was nice and you could tell it by the health of his two cats.  i assumed from then on that pianists should have two pianos and two cats.  the two pianos were for duets and things.  also, he introduced me to humidifiers as well as js bach.  in alaska the air is very very dry.  so, we go home and apologize to our - by then- dried out prune of a piano. 

this isn't the end of my story - but perhaps in some small way it will make you see the progressions of a pianist.

[tommytownsen]

Thanks a lot for the comment and for the story. I'll be reading this forum quite intensely to get a good feel for the atmosphere and to accumulate a few anecdotes. I studied acoustic guitar many years ago and I went through a few teachers myself, so the whole concept isn't completely alien to me.

The Glazunov... well, indeed, why Glazunov? I kinda fell in love with that particular sonata, especially the second movement, a third of the way into it, when the dynamics change and it becomes very passionate. I want that character to have a passion for Glazunov... a little offbeat and weird, perhaps, I know Glazunov isn't particularly popular, but there it is. If you tell me that this piece, though, wouldn't be "difficult" enough for a brilliant piano player of about 18-19 years of age who got into a music program at university, then I will have the piece be something he played when he was younger and with which he's still in love. A kind of guilty pleasure, if you will.

[pianistimo]

ok.  i've got it.  the uni freshman wasn't only a pianist.  secretly, he was a sax player on the side.  his first thrill was playing glazunov's saxophone concerto.  then, he begged his piano teacher to let him play glazunov - but he could not reveal his tendencies to take glazunov's piano pieces and transcribe them for his saxophone.

one day, he thought - i want to play piano and sax at the same time.  so, he built a contraption that allowed him to hold the sax at a sideways angle and still play the piano.  this way he could play the accompaniment and solo at the same time.  he could transcribe either to be the soloist.  so when someone asked him if it was a piano concerto or sax concerto - it really only depended upon his mood and which transcription he used.

[tommytownsen]

Uh huh... O-K

Looks to me like you're the one who should be writing a novel In-teresting ideas there

But to get an idea... at what level would Glazunov's Piano Sonata No. 1 be considered an interesting challenge?

I bought and am listening to Rachmaninov (or Rachmaninoff)'s Piano Sonata No.2 in Bb minor (the first is in another key, so I'm not sure which one you were referring to, but I opted for the second!)... thanks to iTunes, it's so easy to gain immediate access to music. Very good and, yeah, I clearly see the difference. I think you're right: at that level, that's probably the kind of piece he'd be working on mastering. So the Glazunov will have to be a guilty pleasure from his past....

Here's another question: any suggestion for a cool and breezy piece for four hands that the two could play, that would be at the level of someone mastering Debussy's "Reverie" (i.e., no wild rhythms or crazy finger patterns)?

Thanks again for the help!

[pianistimo]

cool and breezy?  i feel like i must read your mind.  we must have a few more exchanges before i know exactly what that means.  all i remember playing duet form so many years ago were brahms hungarian dances.  they are far from cool and breezy. 

let me think on this for a while.  perhaps the teacher could arrange in duet form liapunov's 'canon in d' by pachabel.  that is what i am attempting to do as we speak. 

[tommytownsen]

Well, short of a Vulcan mind meld, "cool and breezy" as in not too complex, major mode, fun to play. Not a cerebral piece that's cold and detached, but something perhaps a bit more on the lighter side of things.

Am I making more sense?

[amanfang]

Mozart, Schubert or Brahms 4 hand pieces.

[pianistimo]

yes.  what amanfang said.  no paganini variations.  although - granados spanish dances is cool too.  has anyone arranged those for duet?  perhaps i will attempt that tommorrow. 

there are so many pieces that would be cool for duet.  some aren't arranged yet.  it's a sort of 'must-do' - i think - so that students will have some music they can play with the teacher.  good sightreading music.

scarlatti sonatas could easily be made into duets.

freshman year - czerny out the ears.  five-finger patterns in every key going from  major chord to minor chord to V/v to the next chromatic key up.  we had to know our keys inside and out.  and, the chords that went with them.  basically the chords that go with the scales in hanon's 'the virtuoso pianist.'  we'd practice scales in patterns of 2 for 2 octaves, patterns of 3 for 3, and so on.  five octaves are possible.  that is where we'd go from octave to octave as fast as possible.  i learned that the faster one plays - the lighter and softer one plays.

first year repertoire was probably bartok's suite opus 14, a beethoven sonata (G major),  saint-saens allegro appasionata, and hmm.  what else?  i have to remember.

[keyofc]

Pianimisto,

I love your post - and think you would do well as a writer.  Are you a writer too?

I can really picture those teachers -

[pianistimo]

thanks, key of c.  i feel inspired by other people who ARE writers.  i would need someone to spell check and do grammar checks.  but, yes - i love to write.  perhaps the best writing is unworried about these things - and then refining it 10-15 times.  a friend of mine wanted to get a book published and they sent back the copy for revision more times than she cares to repeat - but it's much closer than it was.  perhaps the secret is never giving up.  just as with piano.  you wait until you are really inspired for the long chapters.