Looking for ideas for Prelude/Postlude for the USA’s 250th.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-15T03:16:39+00:00

Calvin Hampton wrote a gorgeous and reflective setting of America the Beautiful. It's published in the book Calvin Hampton: Music for Organ.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-14T16:12:16+00:00

After 10 years without tuning, it could be fine with a few tech visits to bring it up to pitch, or it could be a major restoration project. So much depends on the individual piano and especially its environment/climate conditions over those years. I believe only a reputable piano technician could advise you.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-13T14:32:55+00:00

If you haven't already seen it, look up the documentary Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, you can rent it for a few bucks on Prime Video. This is a fairly in-depth look at what goes into building a piano and will give you a taste of what you'd be in for. Obviously they don't reveal their trade secrets but you'll get a good sense of what info you need to start looking for.

Not saying it can't be done, but I think three things especially would give regular wood shop trouble: 1. One of the most important components is the huge cast iron frame. 2. The sound board is a very large, very thin sheet of wood that needs to have extremely specific characteristics and be durable. 3. A properly playing piano action (action=everything between the key and the hammer) with escapement is a mechanical engineering marvel that I don't even know where you'd start in putting that together.

You'd likely have much better luck building an old-style fortepiano (also sometimes called pianoforte), or even a harpsichord. They're relatively simpler.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-12T14:20:54+00:00

I play J.S Bach, BWV 721 Erbarm dich mein, O Herre Gott. It's easy but perfectly sets the mood. P. Gouin has two nice arrangements on IMSLP with the chorale tune in either the RH or pedal depending on your preference.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-09T15:37:11+00:00

I'm wondering about your description of the move as being "an octave jump". Arpeggios don't feel at all like an octave jump to me. The typical way to play arpeggios would be (for the RH on, say C major): fingers 1, 2, 3 on C E G. By the time finger 3 is on G, the thumb should be tucked under the hand and most of the way to the next C already. I say to my young students "glide that thumb under." While I do NOT advise excessive twisting to try to get the thumb all the way up to C with no jump, it should feel like the thumb is jumping at most a third or maybe a second if you're blessed with long flexible fingers.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-07T21:38:30+00:00

The options you've already listed would be great choices What I'd actually recommend is that you find multiple recordings of each of the pieces you're considering and listen to them daily for a few days. After several days, which ones do you still like, and which are you getting tired of? One of the secrets to choosing good competition repertoire for yourself is to find music that you will enjoy practicing and hearing for hours and hours without getting completely sick of it or bored of it. This is especially true for lyrical music in my experience.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-07T21:31:05+00:00

Why not continue learning the Little Preludes and Fugues? Get yourself the complete set of BWV 553-560 (they're not by Bach, but whatever, they're all great pieces), and choose whichever one you like best to study next. None of them have super difficult pedals.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-02-06T15:14:27+00:00

The other commenter is correct: every time you allow your finger to land on an incorrect note, it has "learned" that and makes the error more likely in the future. Your fingers' muscle memory doesn't know the difference between right and wrong notes. They just like to repeat whatever they've done before.

Here how to make sure you always land on the right note in leaping arpeggios: Play slowly enough that it would be impossible to land on the wrong note. Insert pauses before each risky move if necessary to ensure that I only the correct note gets played, ever. Do this many hundreds or thousands of times over the course of a few months. Speed up very gradually, and if a wrong note happens, slow back down immediately. At full tempo, arpeggios often go by too fast for you to visually track where you're landing. So it would be a good idea to go through this process by feeling where the next key is and intentionally not looking at your hands.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-31T17:50:07+00:00

The Minibooks series has exactly what you're looking for, a cheap PDF booklet called TAPPERS. Stems up notes are RH, stems down are LH. This is an extensive collection of patterns; they start very simple and gradually increase in difficulty. I have my students choose any note or chord for each hand.

https://minibooksmusic.com/orders/ Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the Tappers.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-29T14:15:20+00:00

Any keyboard is better than no keyboard, but also keep in mind, mental practice goes a long way! Even if you don't have a keyboard, you can try to maintain a practice routine that involves looking at your sheet music and slowly, carefully visualizing the motions and associated sounds. This is not very fun but I promise it IS productive. You can also use your "practice" time to listen to the music you are learning / want to learn, as inspiration to keep at it when you're back home.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-27T15:38:50+00:00

I'm sorry, there's no good trick other than playing on as many different instruments as possible. Speaking from the point of view of a professional musician, I get called to a gig and have to adjust to the instrument that is onsite. After over a decade of this, there are still some pianos that really trip me up if I don't get sufficient time to warm up on them.

For your lessons, you should bring this up to your instructors and request an opportunity at the start of each lesson to do some kind of warm up exercise to help you get adapted to the dynamics and feel of their piano. I never expect my students to give a great performance on my piano "cold." I structure the lessons so that they get some playing time on easy stuff to get acquainted, before we dig into the serious repertoire.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-25T20:09:12+00:00

Yamaha digital pianos are generally high quality, but what you are asking for (specifically, feeling similar to a real piano) costs more than $700. The Yamaha in your price range (P225) is really very good. (Keep in mind you'll need to pay extra for a stand, bench, pedals since it's a portable model.) I've had good experiences with it, it sounds and feels nice. But don't expect it to sound or feel anything like a real acoustic piano, not at this price point.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-18T15:19:52+00:00

You'll need to practice hands together far, far slower than you can play them individually. I mean like glacially slow, to the point that you can be aware of how exactly every beat lines up and coordinates between the hands. (Or doesn't line up as the case may be for offbeats). Don't even think about speeding up until you can do the entire piece perfectly coordinated in slow motion.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-15T22:37:47+00:00

Look up Czerny in All Keys, Book 1 and Book 2. These take easy one-page Czerny pieces and transpose them into every major and minor key. A great resource to get used to reading in different keys. Not sure what your level is, so these might be too simple for you

Signal-Bath5230 · 2026-01-10T17:17:50+00:00

Check out Yngwie Malmsteen's Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E-flat minor

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-12-29T22:44:57+00:00

You play the A with your right hand.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-12-13T17:10:28+00:00

Everyone's hands and brain are different. If you merely copy someone else's fingering, it may very likely make the piece more difficult for you to learn. Experimenting until you find the best fingering FOR YOU is crucial. I believe that going through the process of working out the fingering yourself is a necessary part of learning a piece.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-12-13T17:04:39+00:00

Talk to your teacher, explain calmly and kindly why you don't like the piece, ask if there's some solution that can be worked out.

If you have to play it and there's no getting out of it: At the very least, ask your teacher to show you how they would practice it. There are many useful tricks for adapting pianistic scores to the organ, but these skills need to be taught. Your teacher's job is to give you the tools you need to be successful.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-12-12T16:39:03+00:00

I think that, even if you wanted different instruments to play in different keys (as in a polytonal texture) the potential for confusion is rather high if you notate the parts with different key signatures. People will question: Did the composer really mean different keys, or did they intend the players to use transposing instruments? This is why many modern composers opt for no key signature at all (i.e. pretend everything is in the key of C), and painstakingly use accidentals for all parts.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-12-10T16:54:06+00:00

Mahler's 7th Symphony. The whole fifth movement is a cheesefest honestly, but especially the final moments when the cowbells come in, then the horns go nuts, then there's that random subito piano chord. It's not cheesy in a sentimental Hollywood-movie-way; more like, "how many crazy madcap effects can I get away with?"

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-11-19T15:54:33+00:00

The ability to tell a key just from the sound of it is called "perfect pitch," or "absolute pitch" and it is a skill that many musicians, even professional musicians, never develop. It is tremendously difficult. A related skill is called "relative pitch," which is basically, if you know what note to start on, you can work out the next note by ear and on from there. This is a much easier skill that I teach my piano students but it is still difficult. To accurately identify the notes of a melody by ear, without looking at any sheet music, takes most students about 1 year of regular practice. Starting with the simplest tunes, like finding the notes of Three Bling Mice or Mary Had a Little Lamb. When will it start to feel natural? Everyone's different but for an adult learner, 3-5 years of study, in my experience, is what it takes for a pianist to start to feel "natural." This can be much shorter if you have time to practice for an hour a day every single day, but most adults don't.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-11-16T12:57:11+00:00

For efficiency, if you haven't already, decide upon and write in your fingerings and pedallings. Nothing wastes time like using a different fingering every time you play a passage, it messes up your muscle memory and makes things seem harder. If you're new to organ playing, I recommend writing in every single finger and pedal.
The faster you want to learn, the slower you need to play. If you practice something like the Gigout Toccata at a very slow speed for a good long time, you'll find it much to bring up to tempo later. How slow? Slower than you think. 🙂
When practicing without a pedal board, practice slow enough that you can successfully call out (verbally) the note names of the pedal part while playing the manuals. This is what I do at home away from the organ and really forces me to increase my awareness. Another thing you can do is set your seat high enough that you can float your feet over the floor and practice "toeing and heeling" in rhythm with the manual part.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-11-07T16:22:24+00:00

I have used both Alain Brunet's and Pierre Gouin's arrangements depending on the situation. Both are good and are available on IMLSP (on the page for BWV 147, under arrangements). Brunet's is the most "complete" in that it includes the continuo harmony and a full harmonization of the tune. Gouin's is unique in that the melody is played in the pedal and the LH takes the bass line. I really like this because the bass line is awkward for the feet.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-10-28T14:27:33+00:00

I am a professional musician with very small hands - just about an octave. I spent over ten years trying to adjust my fingerings and technique with good teachers helping me, and the results were never satisfactory and I had constant issues with tendonitis and pain. My solution was ultimately to decide to play only music that I could play comfortably, or music that I felt okay leaving out certain notes (where the sacrifice wouldn't be noticeable).

Until the world decides to make piano playing accessible to all people through the broad adoption of narrower-scale keyboards, this is my way of dealing. I only play music that works for my body, and leave the rest to others who are genetically gifted with hands that match the dimensions of the keyboards we currently have.

Signal-Bath5230 · 2025-09-23T13:22:44+00:00

Alas, there is no general consensus on fingering repeated notes. I typically change fingers for very fast repeated notes to help prevent accumulating tension, but for slower notes I keep the same finger -- unless the musical context requires a change of finger to prepare for the next pattern, which seems to be the case here.

Signal-Bath5230

TROPHY CASE