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Topic: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?  (Read 4076 times)

Offline thakahn

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New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
on: January 24, 2016, 03:30:51 PM
Hi! I've just started playing the piano. Whilst I'm currently working on the basics with the intent of completing ABRSM grades, I've been looking at a few pieces that I'd really like to play in the future. In particular, the ''Final Fantasy Opera'' pieces by Nobuo Uematsu have caught my ear.

Whilst I guess these pieces are not for beginners, I was wondering what kind of difficulty you would consider them? With practice, would I be able to pick up some of these pieces in the near future? I was looking mainly at ''Fight On!'' :
=6310

But also ''Festival of the Hunt'' :
=7533
Also, what grade would you consider these pieces to be equivalent to, roughly?
Thanks for the help! :)

Offline pianocat3

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #1 on: January 24, 2016, 08:25:09 PM
Hopefully someone will pipe in, but I wanted to plug the university of Iowa piano pedagogy program on YouTube. Once you figure out your level , you can hear an excellent pianist play dozens of piano pieces correctly and with feeling. Good luck!
Currently working on:

Beethoven Pastoral Sonata (Andante)
Debussy Prelude from Suite Bergamasque
Accompaniment music for cello and piano
Summer project is improvisation

Offline thakahn

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #2 on: January 27, 2016, 10:02:22 AM
Anyone able to give a rough idea of the difficulty of these pieces?

I can't play them yet having just started piano, but it'd be great if I knew the standard that I should aim for before these pieces are somewhat easy to play :)

Offline adodd81802

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #3 on: January 27, 2016, 11:41:14 AM
I'd say you're quite some time off playing them yet.

I think they look around grade 5-6? I could be wrong there, I'm not a teacher. I wouldn't say that grading is consistent throughout the whole of the pieces but I definitely think some of those sections may take a little work for the average hobby-piano player.

He's my thoughts. if you do ABRSM, you take exams what once a year? twice a year?

And so on paper doing 1-2 grades a year would suggest waiting a couple of years before giving these pieces a proper go especially as you said to what level you need to be at to find these pieces somewhat "easy".. I assume you mean within your skill range.

Two things you will learn by learning the piano - especially through grades.

1- It will appear at first to be a while before you are playing pieces you REALLY want to play. I wouldn't concern yourself with anything that's way out of your skill set for a while or pieces that you want to learn because you "like the sound of them".

2- You will quickly learn there's 1000000000's of other pieces that you can keep preoccupied with that when you really expand your repertoire, you probably won't even remember to pick up these Final Fantasy pieces in the end.

It is true you can have a preference in your style, eg playing mostly anime, classical, jazz etc, but again for a while, it is unlikely that you will be playing anything you initially want to play.

You are new, and so inevitably curious, but If you have had no professional input from a teacher as of yet, take comments on a piano forum with a pinch of salt, as they can easily be misleading from the fact of piano playing.
"England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere."

Offline coda_colossale

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #4 on: January 27, 2016, 12:49:46 PM
 I'd say both look well beyond Grade 8, even though they seem pianistically comfortable, but then I'm no expert on grades. Maybe there are simpler arrangements of these pieces out there?

 I have to say, though adodd is right. I started playing the piano wishing to one day play Chopin's Revolutionary Etude and Fantaisie Impromptu, though believing that I never will be able to. I can now play the Etude and really don't want to hear the Impromptu ever again ;D

Offline reiyza

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #5 on: January 28, 2016, 06:03:23 PM
See if my opinion helps you,

I have been able to learn some of nobuo uematsu's pieces such as the midnigt city treno, slideshow part 2 of ff8, unfathomed reminiscene of ffix, frontier village dali in the past(I forgot all of them now), except for the one I still remember up to now is ahead on our way, ffvii.

I have found these pieces very beutiful in their way, as for their difficulty in general, some of the transcriptions may seem easy, but they each have their own individual technical differences.

I'd say, if you really want to play pieces like these, at least start with the easy ones that you can manage. Or then again, through proper learning(may take some time) will eventually lead you to the piece(s) you like if you have the patience.

I started to learn this pieces on my own unsupervised(which I think is a bad thing since the only thing that I can play at that time was für elise), so I may have formed bad habits for myself(since I was very impatient at my teen years). Now as I am currently learning classical music, then looking back at my old final fantasy sheet music, I can't believe it looks more like simplified versions of classical pieces(I may have said that but as with all pieces, it needs time to learn).

Off topic, since you mentioned FInal fantasy, man, i began to really miss those pieces, but as addod mentioned about a million other pieces available, I haven't got the time to learn some, (since I'm following a strict practicing schedule.).
Yup.. still a beginner. Up til now..

When will a teacher accept me? :/

Offline feddera

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #6 on: January 30, 2016, 11:56:13 AM
When I started playing, I also had as a goal to learn pieces from Final Fantasy. My favorite was the "fighting theme" from FF7. I finally played it almost exactly 5 years after starting from scratch:



As for grade level, it's hard to say. At the time of playing this I also worked on the Pathetique Sonata by Beethoven, which was about as challenging, so I guess around grade 8? I'd say the pieces you posted are a bit harder than this one though, but not by a whole lot.

I think those are very reasonable long-term goals, but expect it to take a few years to get there. Also, as the poster above pointed out, there are lots of easier pieces from Final Fantasy you could start with.

Good luck!

Offline dcstudio

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Re: New Pianist / Difficulty of these Pieces?
Reply #7 on: January 31, 2016, 06:11:40 PM

hey nice playing Feddera :)

it took him 5 years...  I would say that's about right... but who knows you may be able to sooner.   I would say this is grade 7 or 8..  pretty darn difficult for a beginner.
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