Don’t you just love it when your students come into lessons saying, “I want to play this really cool piano piece by J.C. Bach that I heard over the weekend?” OK, really, when was the last time you heard such a comment? 🙂 It’s much more likely that they want to play the theme song from Pride and Prejudice, or an arrangement of the latest pop song, or maybe a Jim Brickman piano solo. But the students who are exposed to beautiful Classical music tend to be fewer and further between. CDs like, Sonatinas and Little Sonatas, by Allen Reiser go a long way to remedy this malady.
It’s always challenging to find recordings of early level piano literature. While YouTube has helped us make great strides in familiarizing students with such selections, nothing beats having a truly beautiful performance for them to listen to and appreciate. This is the kind of CD I might give to an advancing student and ask them to listen to it and then label each piece in numerical order according to which piece they liked the most to which they liked the least. In addition to giving us insight into what type of pieces capture their interest, it also plants new seeds of appreciation for a genre of music that would otherwise go largely unexplored by the student. In addition, the liner notes provide brief, but helpful, background information on each of the eight Sonatinas and Little Sonatas (including an explanation distinguishing the two from each other).
If you would like to win a copy of Sonatinas and Little Sonatas for yourself or for a student, just leave a comment on this post. In fact, if you’d like to put the word out to your students, they are welcome to come and leave a comment for a chance to win, too! And, as usual, for double entry, just post about this giveaway and link back here on your blog or Facebook and then leave a second comment indicating that you did so. The drawing will close on Thursday, September 30, at noon (CST). Sonatinas and Little Sonatas is available at Amazon.com or directly through Allen Reiser’s website.
Tina lu says
Beautiful music, love it.