The music catalogue

Sonatina Opus 36, No. by Clementi

I have been in the process, of creating an excel spread sheet of all of the music, I currently possess.  I have a two shelf black book case next to the piano that contains, in essence all of the piano music I have ever played, or dreamed of playing.  I'm not taking lessons right now, and decided, this would be a good project.  When I take lessons again, I will have a comprehensive list of all of the music I have.

I divided the categories of all of my music as follows:  lessons, classical, Christmas/holiday and jazz/popular.  When I was organizing all of it, I even found my "Junior Note Speller" from second grade, and I found my duet book that I played at the Grinnell's Piano Festival in Detroit, with pencil remarks about the conductor the of 100 plus piano recital.  I add it was basically a marketing ploy for Grinnells to sell their pianos to unsuspecting parents.

I also found my Schirmer Library, Sonatina Album.  I can only say this, I thought I would really be somebody in terms of piano playing if I had a Schirmer library edition.  It meant that I wasn't playing from anymore books that were different colors, based upon the level of your playing.  A Schirmer Library edition said to the world (or at least it did in 7th grade) that you were going somewhere.  The book also has my 7th grade handwriting on it ,,,,,,,Rosemary Ebner.  Take that all men of the future.  In the olden days I was Rosemary Ebner, and I was going to be a famous pianist.

I laughed in high school because I had several classmates, who took lessons from teachers at my high school and they walked around the school with their Schirmer editions of whatever, like they were some major pianist.  I would look at their books and think, I've been playing from Schirmer editions since 7th grade.

Now, after years of piano playing and input from various teachers, I no longer think Schirmer is the be all and end all of classical editions.  In fact my Faber Bach two part inventions, has bigger measures and notations about ornaments which I think is quite helpful actually.  But I digress.

In looking through my Sonatina Album, I came to Clement's G Major Sonatina, opus 36, No. 2.  I always loved the simple melody, and particularly loved the 2nd movement which is a little Allegretto.
When I started playing this piece, I decided because of melody and the fact that it was more complicated than past pieces I had been playing, that I was finally getting somewhere with my piano study.  It sounded like a real classical piece, and a piece I could play with out screaming my usual Charlie Brown "AAAARGH."

Now when I sat down to play it, I realized that it never hurts to sight read a prior piece you have learned.  If nothing else, it proves you learned something, and it helps to sight read, so you continually build on that skill.  It also gives you time to go back and work on the physical aspects fo playing the piano, your posture, how you phrase measures etc.  Yes, I will add that piano playing can make you crazy or alternatively, it can give you something constructive to work on every day whether it is 15 minutes or even a precious hour.

Also when you go back to a piece you used to play, you see comments from your teacher.  You can compare that with today.  Is your current teacher still making the same kinds of comments, or can you look at the old comments and say "I conquered that!"  I have to admit, I am still rhythmically challenged and I still play with tension from my elbows down to my fingers, not really using the forward motion of my entire upper body.

So I would suggest that you look at your old music and play it, and also take time to review it, to see if you can bring that teacher back into your circle of life.  My high school piano teacher is deceased now, but when I read her comments I am strengthened to keep playing, no matter what.

And it never hurts to make a list of all of your music...you might be surprised about what you actually can play and what is part of our dreams!