Jodi, I found this contemporary composer, Ola Gjeilo, he has a bunch of pieces for solo piano, one which I found he also did a recording with piano and strings. I wonder if my friend and I could pull if off with just piano and violin... See what you think:

Polar:


I can order the piano solo arrangement of Polar from SheetMusicDirect, which I may do...

There was also this, which I like

Aeon:

It’s very nice.

OTOH it sounds like what Kim plays when she sits down to freestyle. The strings make it more serious but I don’t know.

I think it’s patterns like boogie woogie, and I think I could learn it. Might be a good place to start because it’s slower.

That is really pretty!

quote:

I think it’s patterns like boogie woogie, and I think I could learn it. Might be a good place to start because it’s slower.

On the one hand (har), yes, a lot of patterned music like this is easy to learn because you can (often) put one hand (usually the left) on autopilot.

On the other hand, some of these pieces are deceptive.... I've come across a fair number of pieces by Einaudi which I think should be easy to play and then I get the sheet music and it's a nightmare!

Re the two pieces in the videos above, I think the solo version for Polar probably isn't very hard, but the solo score for Aeon has 6 flats, which for me would make it a little bit hard to sightread. I don't know why but I find sharps easier to read, so up to 5 sharps is no problem, although 6 sharps can be trickier. But with flats, I prefer there to be 3 or less. It's not logical really.

Also, from what I can tell just from the score previews, Aeon is more involved than Polar....

I think I'm going to buy a collection with these two pieces in it.

Don't tell Mr. SK that I'm still not recovered from my sheet music addiction

One more, this is very pretty and calming, and has a lush sound to it.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
the solo score for Aeon has 6 flats,

One advantage of playing by ear is you don't have to play anything in a key with six flats if you don't want to.

quote:

playing by ear

I have never been able to play by ear. This is fine because the flip side of that is, my reading skills are very strong (usually!) and that gives me access to soooo much music!

Steve, remind me, do you play? For some reason, I'm thinking I remember that you don't, but maybe that's wrong??

Anyway, I ended up getting the digital score for Aeon, Polar and Still, so I'll report back tomorrow on how these pieces feel in the fingers.

Have you ever stumbled across Eydis Evenden on youtube?

Interesting to me that she played with a muted piano to get the sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhY7mVCIU6Q

Thanks for posting that Ron, I've never heard of that pianist. I'll have to listen to it more closely when I'm not multitasking, but my first impression was, hey, that's not horrible!



Please forgive me, what I mean by that is, when you said she played with the practice mute in place, I was ready for it to really sound horrible!! That's because I've owned two uprights with a practice mute like that, and I always hate.hate.hated it! I actually removed the entire apparatus from my Petrof because it was rattling when not engaged.

I wonder what the piano tech did to ensure the consistent sound which manages to sound muted but not muffed, soft but not cloudy....

Anyway, that's my first impression, but I will definitely listen more later, thank you!