The classic first pieces after a method book
After a method book, most people's next step is "real" pieces - and in Japan and the US alike, the first few are much the same: the minuets of the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, the collections Schumann and Tchaikovsky wrote for children, and Clementi's sonatinas.
This path puts those staples in an order where each piece adds roughly one new thing: separating tune from accompaniment, triple time, a minor key, staccato, an independent left hand - finishing with movements of a sonatina.
For every piece, the same order works well: listen through once with the falling notes, slow it down and learn each hand alone, and only then put the hands together.
- Who it is for
- For anyone who has worked through a first method book, or is coming back to the piano after years away.
- Where it takes you
- A routine for learning a piece hands separately and putting it together - and movements of Clementi's Sonatina Op. 36 No. 1.
The pieces, in order
What this piece teaches
Melody in the right hand, accompaniment in the left - the most basic shape a piano piece takes. The lesson here is making the two hands sound at different levels.
How to practise it
- The hands arrive in different colours. Follow only the left-hand colour first, and learn to play the accompaniment quietly.
- In the right hand, join each note to the next with no gap (legato).
- Once the hands are together, listen for whether the melody is still on top of the accompaniment.
What this piece teaches
The minuet from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach that learners everywhere meet early on (it is now attributed to Christian Petzold). It brings triple time, and a left hand that moves as a second melody rather than an accompaniment.
How to practise it
- In triple time the weight falls on the first beat, with the second and third lighter - think of the step of a dance.
- Join the left-hand notes as a melody of their own. This is a piece where practising hands separately pays off most.
- Switch to the score view to see the two hands written as two independent lines.
What this piece teaches
From the same Notebook, a minuet in G minor. The form is the one you just learned; what is new is the sound of a minor key, and its accidentals.
How to practise it
- Listen to it straight after the G major minuet and notice what the minor key does to the mood.
- Accidentals land on black keys in the falling notes. Find where the black keys come before you start, and they will not catch you out.
What this piece teaches
The opposite of the previous piece: a march built on short, detached notes and a bouncing dotted rhythm.
How to practise it
- Staccato means letting the key go quickly, not striking it - flick it lightly with the fingertip.
- The dotted rhythm tends to blur. At 0.75x, say the rhythm aloud before you play it.
- The length of each falling note shows the short and long values at a glance.
- STEP 5
Musette
What this piece teaches
Another staple of the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach: a bright dance that recalls the bagpipe, with the left hand leaping in octaves - practice in treating the left hand as an independent part with its own rhythm.
How to practise it
- Keep the hand open at the octave as it moves. Repeat the left hand alone at 0.6x.
- It is short; loop the whole piece and play it through many times.
What this piece teaches
From Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young, a short piece with a wistful melody to sing out. It is practice in shaping a phrase with changes of volume.
How to practise it
- Grow a little towards the top of each phrase and fall away at its end, as if singing it in one breath.
- The left-hand chords are support. Keep them a level below the melody throughout.
- Loop a phrase you like and try it with slightly different dynamics each time.
What this piece teaches
"The Wild Rider." A short gallop in A minor and 6/8, and an early-grade exam favourite, drawn in sharp staccato and accents.
How to practise it
- The tune moves between the hands; the colours show which one has it.
- Placing the accents exactly matters more than speed.
What this piece teaches
Clementi's Sonatina Op. 36 No. 1 is a fixture of the Japanese Sonatina Album and of graded exam syllabi alike. Its slow middle movement, an Andante in F major, is a singing tune over a supporting left-hand figure.
How to practise it
- Slow movements are where the beat most easily stalls. Turn on beat lines and keep the tempo steady.
- Decide in advance where each long phrase takes its breath.
What this piece teaches
The goal of this path: the finale of the same sonatina, a Vivace in C major in 3/8. Scales and broken chords, evenly, at a lively pace - your first sonatina movement finished.
How to practise it
- Start at 0.6x and creep the speed up only as far as the notes stay even.
- Feel each bar of 3/8 as a single beat and the quick tempo will not get heavy.
- From here, the Burgmüller path takes you through more techniques, one piece at a time.
The routine every path shares
- Listen through once with the falling notes to get the shape of the whole piece.
- Slow it to around 0.5x and learn the notes and fingering one hand at a time.
- Cut out the hard spots with the A-B loop and repeat them until they run without a stop.
- Put the hands together and bring the speed back up a little at a time.
- Log the time and what you noticed in the practice journal - it is where you pick up next time.
Other paths
From Burgmüller's 25 Etudes to Für Elise
One technique per piece: twelve numbers from a collection Japanese piano teachers swear by, ending with Für Elise.
- No.1 La Candeur
- No.2 L'Arabesque
- No.3 La Pastorale
- No.4 La Petite Réunion
- …
Sonatinas and Inventions, on to a Mozart sonata
Kuhlau, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin: the intermediate standards, leading to every movement of Mozart's K. 545.
- Sonatine Op.20 No.1: I. Allegro
- Piano Sonata No.20 Op.49-2 - II. Tempo di Menuetto
- Piano Sonata No.20 Op.49-2 - I. Allegro ma non troppo
- Invention No.1 in C major
- …