Very eager student wishes to acquire the relative difficulties of these pieces!

[dtmowns]

Hello, I am a 17 year old who started playing about 4 months ago, first just learning scales and what not. I have learned about half of Scarlatti's K13 and half of Bach's Minuet 1 from the Partita in B flat major. I have recently begun reading Bernhard's comments regarding practice and what not, and I would love it if I could see a list of the relative difficulty of the pieces I am about to list so that I can formulate a  plan using Bernhard's methods.

Pieces:

Bach:

The 6 Partitas : Every Piece 

WTC B1: 3rd Prelude, 17th Prelude

WTCB2: 2nd Prelude, 3rd Prelude & Fugue, 8th Prelude, 13th Prelude, 19th Prelude, 24th Prelude

Little Preludes: C Minor BMV934,

Goldberg Variations: Every Piece

English Suites:

No.2: Bouree/Bouree de capo

No3: Gavotte/Gavotte de Capo

No4: Menuet/Menuet de capo and Gigue

Inventions/Sinfonias: Inventions 2, 5, 8   Sinfonia 12


SCARLATTI:

K70, K322, K1, K2, K21, K430, K9


Beethoven sonata no.19 op.49 no.1



That's all for now! (As you can tell I love Bach)

[scottmcc]

I suggest you check the piano music section of this site and look up each of those pieces.  I think most of them will be listed, and most of them will be given the unhelpful grade of 8 or 8+, meaning they're not really the best for a pure beginner.

best of luck with the bernhard method--you'll have to let us know in a few months if it actually worked.  check some of bernhard's many, many threads about pieces appropriate for a beginner if you need some suggestions.

[indianajo]

I started with the Bach Invention's about 3rd year.  I suppose a serious student could go faster, but I did a lot of Czerny keyboard exercises and belwin finger exercise books even earlier to improve my coordination and build up my 4th and 5th fingers.  Don't forget your romantic side, Bach is great for the right side of the brain and great for developing absolutely metrical timing, but there is a point to speeding up and slowing down, playing louder and softer, for example Beethoven and Chopin.  Everybody does "Fur Elise" about 2nd year, there is some real easy Chopin stuff too to be emotional about.  Everybody I knew of my generation did the John Thompson books 1-5, they were not very intellectual but very organized.  By the time I was in book 3 I had done my first Bach invention, #8, not too many black keys.  about 5th year I did some Bach French suites, didn't learn much from them, dropped piano lessons at 6th year.  I have jumped right to Passacaglia and Fugue Cm after a long detour through Romanticism that reflected my teacher's personality more than mine.