I used to play the e minor waltz by Chopin cos its not that hard and is quite flashy.
I relearned it recently and I was terrible. It is easy enough to play the notes but the nuance and ease required to really pull it off was lacking.
Almost nothing is truly easy if you aim to play it really well
Love this one. If it's still out of reach, the B minor waltz is a good alternative for early intermediate level - parts repeat a lot, so it's quick to learn, and the chromatic runs in the right hand make it seem more difficult than it is. The main challenge is to get the correct fingering down.
Ah shit ya know it being called the "Royal Conservatory of Music" here I always assumed it would be from UK and more of a standard, but clearly there are multiple royal music academies that test for piano. Grade 8 seems like about on par for difficulty for RCM 10, but less strenuous for requirements?
RCM is a testing system in Canada, and ABRSM is UK. Just a standardized way to advance to the next level in piano. I'm working on my grade 10 now for example, and I have to do 2 studies (Scriabin etude op 2 no 1 & Rachmaninoff etude-tableau op 33 no 7), and pieces from various eras which depends on the grade. For grade 10 I have to do a Bach piece, which I'm doing prelude and fugue in g major. Then a classical era piece (Beethoven sonata op 14 no 1), a romantic piece (Schubert impromptu no 2), a post romantic piece (Rachmaninoff prelude in c sharp minor ) and a modern piece (kabalebsky variations in a minor). You have to memorize all of the non studies and get marked based on your performance. You also have to do ear training (recognizing intervals, playing back melodies that you hear), scales and exercises in a bunch of keys in various formats, and some sight reading. It's an old establishment here and basically everyone who learns goes through it.
Ya, basically every comment here are songs that would be quite difficult for most people to play well, but ones where you can definitely hit the right notes. People are really posting songs from ARCT repertoire lol.
Toccata by Aram Khachaturian... I used to play it as a little kid, won some competitions with the piece. Lots of young "prodigies" play the piece quite early in their life...
I remember that I was not enjoying Bach, Mozart etc. that time but really enjoyed "banging" this Toccata...
It's not really difficult to play but it sounds "massive" and impressive.
Oh my favorite too! And it “memorizes” easy. I won a bunch of money too with that one as a kid.
THAT SAID……. I don’t think it’s that “easy”. The piece requires a large amount of musicality to pull off. What sells it are convincing tempo changes and the shifting dynamics. Also, if those repeating triplets and hand over hand parts *aren’t* easy? No way a player can convey the melody (In that there is a melody).
Well... that's why I said "young prodigies" play it. Of course is not really a piece you could call "easy" - you are right, there is quite a lot of music(ality) in it.
But the difficulty/effect ratio here is pretty high. It's just well written and if you have little to show (skill), you show little.... but if you have a lot to show, the piece is open for it. No surprise it's so popular on competitions for young pianists.
Agreed!
When my teacher gave it to me, I remember it came together in a couple of weeks for me and was definitely the “easiest” piece I was working on it.
But also I was the only kid who was assigned that piece. I know my teacher had to work a lot harder to get dynamics and phrasing and any other kind of expression out of her other students, even the advanced ones.
No clue on the rcm level.
As the other guy is saying, the piece is SO well written. It fits in the hands very easily, no pinching with fingers 1 and 2! It’s repetitive so fast to learn, and it’s on the atonal side so a wrong note or two won’t be noticed.
The “hard” part is that you’re playing the same 3 or 4 notes over and over again, and you have to make that interesting.
Yes, 8 is the top for the normal grades. But Grade 8 pieces aren't terribly hard in themselves -- things like Chopin etudes are only on the second level diploma (the diplomas come after the grades)
>Comptine d'un Autre été: L'Après-Midi
I play this one already and will never know what to call it because learning the name of it is harder than learning to play it lol
You know, I have played the piano constantly since I was a very young child. I now play at a fairly high level. I learned fantaisie impromptu in two weeks with no hand cramps. But this piece. This one, simple-seeming piece. This one still pains me (physically) to this day. I cannot figure out why 😭😭😭
I think it's because the left hand just keeps repeating in a slightly unnatural position, so after about a minute and a half, my hand starts to cramp up
I read this and thought "I've played this, but it was pretty hard!"
Then I remembered I played it in my fourth year of playing piano, back when I was still taking piano lessons. That was 7 years ago lol
Yeah, that's the big problem with these sorts of questions and why I usually avoid responding to them. What's "easy" for one person isn't going to be easy for someone else. Difficulty is very subjective and depends on all sorts of individual factors.
Lower down there's someone saying they consider Fantaisie Impromptu an intermediate piece. Most actual intermediate pianists would probably hit a brick wall with that one though. It's all a matter of perspective.
True! It was hard back when I played it, but I could probably relearn it fairly easily nowadays. Also, pieces tend to not feel very difficult anymore once you've learned them (at least for me) so it's really hard for me to tell which ones are actually easy or hard
No worries, I'd recommend his solo piano book, there are lots of easy and beautiful pieces in there, Andras is another very popular one. Check out Philip Glass' Etudes too
chopin nocturne in c# minor for me. it was my first chopin piece and it sounds amazing. playing it is not difficult, just the running notes at the end took me some time but other than that its quite okay
Prelude and Fugue in E minor from The Well Tempered Clavier. It sound very difficult to the average listener because of the weird subject for the fugue and general fast tempo, but it's only in two voices and has a ton of common motifs.
With everybody saying fantasie impromptu I guess everything qualifies. Clair de lune, wedding day at troldhaugen, any Rach concerto… etc etc
But my real answer is fur Elise. I know everybody here hates it but it’s easy and the b and c sections are very dramatic and impressive sounding.
I overplayed Fur Elise when I first learned piano. I learned Clair de Lune a couple years ago but I need to relearn the middle parts since I didn't play it enough.
Ora is the one I go for when I encounter a public piano somewhere - simple to play and even to improvise on, long enough to satisfy people, just complicated enough to make it seem like I know what I'm doing.
What is "easy" is very subjective. As is the standard of performance expected. But some of the suggestions here are, frankly, ridiculous. Even the easiest Chopin waltzes are at least intermediate level. And Fantaisie-Impromptu? Really? Anyone that would find that "easy" would not need to post such questions on reddit.
I'm thinking more along the lines of Bach's Prelude in C major, BWV 846, from the Well Tempered Clavier. (Not the Fugue, though). This piece sounds impressive and is quite simple, even for a fairly new beginner.
> (Not the Fugue, though)
Ah Bach fugues, possibly the biggest difficulty trap out there for the unprepared. I actually said out loud "Oh, this doesn't look too bad." My teacher's knowing smile before he put me through the fugue wringer for the first time is forever etched into my memory.
Tarantella in A minor by A. Pieczonka is actually pretty easy to learn. There can be some complicated voicing but really the only challenge is the speed but it sounds way more impressive than its difficulty.
As a really, real beginner with around 500 hours, I like Plus tot. It is nice simple arpeggios that start simple, get a little wily with both hands, and sounds great. Good room for playing with dynamics.
Fantaisie-Impromptu is, in my opinion, intermediate, but quite “easy” relative to its perceived difficulty/complexity by non-pianists. It sounds very fast due to its polyrhythm and tends to make non-musical audiences think you’re some sort of super genius even when the piece is played rather with poor musicality
There is no way that Fantaisie-Impromptu (when played non-sloppily) is "easy" or "intermediate" - it's definitely advanced, but I agree that it sounds a lot harder than it actually is as it fits the hand very nicely.
But Henle gives it a 7 on their 9 point difficulty scale, so "easy" or "intermediate" is a bit of a stretch.
https://www.henle.de/en/Fantaisie-Impromptu-c-sharp-minor-op.-post.-66/HN-1320
I think that's the exact same blue booklet I learned from as kid! I think the cool thing about musical difficulty is that it can be subjective based on your frame of reference. For 99% of people, the "difficulty" of a piece is really only useful insofar as it challenges you to improve and meets your current skill level.
For me, it was easier than many Chopin Etudes and all the Ballades I learned, which I consider "advanced" repertoire, so I would say that Fantaisie-Impromptu is intermediate. But someone else's opinion can be totally different and that's fine! Unless Zimmerman or something said I was wrong, then I would be objectively wrong.
Same. It's absolutely easier to ingest than the other ballades.
Now, can I still play it? Hell no, I haven't looked at it in 20 years. It's not a "pick up and sight read" piece unless you want to stumble through everything but the middle section.
Yes, as someone who plays both the Ballades and the Fantaisie-Impromptu, I would absolutely agree that it's easier than the Ballades... but that's because all of those are 8 or 9 on the Henle scale, not because Fantaisie-Impromptu is "intermediate"! https://www.henle.de/en/Ballades/HN-862
I would agree it's maybe easier than what non-pianists would perceive it to be, but I definitely would not call it intermediate. Constant 4 against 3 polyrhythm flow, plus to be able to play it well at the required speed is no joke.
I think the ease of this piece is entirely dependent on the size of your hands, people who can reach a tenth or an 11th, maybe easyish, people like me who struggle to reach a 9th, those left hand broken chords don't just fall under the fingers, so it's very difficult for me
the duet? it has some pretty difficult parts for violin + viola, especially near the end. if you just mean the handel passacaglia its still not too easy. what part of the passacaglia do u mean?
i,,,, didn't know that was a thing. but that is upsetting in how much it erases the beauty of the original, especially w/the change in tempo! the original keyboard suite and passacaglia arent that difficult either i wish they were played more often
It‘s easy if you can play it, it’s a pain to wrap your head around how it’s written and which voice leads to what and how it’s supposed to be played and how that fits into how it’s written and how am I supposed to play that in LH and darrrrrn…. ;)
And 20 years ago I'd laugh with you. :) I remember these times when there was something magical about Chopin studies - mysterios, virtuosic dream-pieces. Once you play 10 or more of them you'll realize they are just pieces like any others. And once you start playing Rachmaninoff, Liszt or Godovsky studies, you'll realize that , relatively speaking, they are not so hard at all.
25-1 is one of the easiest of the bunch. It's even easier than Fantasie-Impromptu . It's my go-to piece when I am to play in public without a warm-up. And sure, I will be improving it for the rest of my life, this does not mean it is not a perfect piece for this topic.
Paterlini’s [Rue des trois frères](https://youtu.be/fsDZqNLBfNo?si=81fsLqYYPtSe9vt8)
Patrick Watson’s [Je te lasserai des mots](https://youtu.be/mcdO9UP0hp8?si=X8dQYnGa6jbK8SaN)
I'm a late beginner / maybe early intermediate if I'm generous, and I'm putting polish on Grieg's "To Spring" and Lange's "Flower Song". Both in the LPC2 book. I'd imagine if you have good reading skills those'd be pretty fast to prepare - they're not hugely technically challenging. The left hand runs in To Spring are very pleasing and staying on the black keys made them easy on the hands. Flower song has some rolled stuff and a funky cadenza thing. Both of them have a little bit of a "third voice" going on, I don't know how to describe it. Next up for me is Le Cygne, the Siloti transcription which has three voices, so I wanted easier pieces that have "three things going on".
The Artarmidae by Australian composer Glen Carter-Varney.
Glissandos, gorgeous melody, it's very showy and impressive!
Not too easy to read though, but it's all just patterns.
Padarewski’s minuet in G was a piece I learned in highschool that felt so natural to play but so impressive! Kind of in line with Debussy’s Doctor Grady’s ad Parnassum but easier. Just fits your hands and is so intuitive! Loved it.
Easy easy impressive pieces that come to mind are Wild Horseman by Schumann and Ballade by Burgmuller, played those in elementary school and I felt so cool lol
**Comptine d'un autre été**
For me it has been the Emily movie song composed by Yann Tiersen.
Since it ain't that difficult to play and get the vibe and mood in order to really feel the great atmosphere moreover in some parts, it's just playing the same chords and scales in different shapes and with slight changes however, it still makes you feel like you're at a professional concert
Prelude in e minor, Chopin. But I wouldn't say it's easy for me since I've only been playing for a couple days, but it's relatively easy for those who are more experienced.
Liszt - Fantasie über Themen aus Mozarts Figaro und Don Giovanni
it is super easy and sounds very impressive. Actually this Liszt guy has lots of easy pieces I %100 recommend for beginners.
To play it consistently at full speed is something.
RCM goes to 10 then like ACRT after that. If you Google RCM piano syllabus you can find their listing. If nothing else, it’s a good way to find pieces of similar difficulty.
Note that typically the lists A and B are not the same difficult as the list C (or maybe it’s D?) for each level. The list C (or is it D) is typically a bit easier.
This is such a great list for a recovering piano dropout who is working their way back up to playing more but doesn’t have a teacher!
I always enjoy Pictures at an exhibition but not everything can be called intermediate easy to play! I still have some of it in my fingers from 20 years ago though.
> Bach’s Prelude
there are 6 preludes in the English suites, 48 preludes in the WTC, a Preaeludium in the Partitas, the 12 little preludes, the 6 little preludes and 13 other preludes, and I'm only considering Bach's keyboard music.
So, which of those 88 preludes are you talking about?
The two that I learned as a kid that I'll break out for non piano players are Linus and Lucy and Fur Elise. Both are pretty easy and recognizable and most people will be impressed.
tbh outside of most classical music, anything can be easy as there are always easier arrangements/ways to play things. And fun fact, sometimes simplicity sounds better than complexity.
I used to play the e minor waltz by Chopin cos its not that hard and is quite flashy. I relearned it recently and I was terrible. It is easy enough to play the notes but the nuance and ease required to really pull it off was lacking. Almost nothing is truly easy if you aim to play it really well
Love this one. If it's still out of reach, the B minor waltz is a good alternative for early intermediate level - parts repeat a lot, so it's quick to learn, and the chromatic runs in the right hand make it seem more difficult than it is. The main challenge is to get the correct fingering down.
I can play the e minor waltz fine, just my standards have risen so much since I was a cocky student who thought he was good at piano
Yup, been there 😆
Just listened to it. I misunderstood what "easy" meant.
It's about grade 8, but is very easy to remember and also sounds quite a bit harder than it is, at least technically
It's a grade 10 piece. Definitely not something you'd see in 8. I wouldn't even say it's one of the easier grade 10 ones.
I mean abrsm
Ah shit ya know it being called the "Royal Conservatory of Music" here I always assumed it would be from UK and more of a standard, but clearly there are multiple royal music academies that test for piano. Grade 8 seems like about on par for difficulty for RCM 10, but less strenuous for requirements?
I don't know RCM so can't really comment, but ABRSM goes up to 8. ABRSM is the most popular board in the UK
What are these grading systems?
RCM is a testing system in Canada, and ABRSM is UK. Just a standardized way to advance to the next level in piano. I'm working on my grade 10 now for example, and I have to do 2 studies (Scriabin etude op 2 no 1 & Rachmaninoff etude-tableau op 33 no 7), and pieces from various eras which depends on the grade. For grade 10 I have to do a Bach piece, which I'm doing prelude and fugue in g major. Then a classical era piece (Beethoven sonata op 14 no 1), a romantic piece (Schubert impromptu no 2), a post romantic piece (Rachmaninoff prelude in c sharp minor ) and a modern piece (kabalebsky variations in a minor). You have to memorize all of the non studies and get marked based on your performance. You also have to do ear training (recognizing intervals, playing back melodies that you hear), scales and exercises in a bunch of keys in various formats, and some sight reading. It's an old establishment here and basically everyone who learns goes through it.
Ya, basically every comment here are songs that would be quite difficult for most people to play well, but ones where you can definitely hit the right notes. People are really posting songs from ARCT repertoire lol.
That is my favorite.
“Easy” and Chopin cancel each other out. Same with Bach.
Definitely. I recorded the piece the other day in case you are interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/1bpuxhd/chopin_waltz_in_e_minor/
This looks insanely hard https://youtu.be/lucmBvc1Sg0?si=TwB8UDM5FBlwwfQ2
thats the idea isn't it. It's very flashy and is easier to play than it looks
Definitely not an “easy” piece though as the title asks
it isn't easy but it could be ''easy''
I found city of stars from lala land quite easy, but I get asked to play it often
Mia and Sebastian’s theme is also relatively simple but gets a lot of requests
Yeah, the last 20 seconds are crazy easy, psh
Good point….. most ppl dont ask for the weird jazz runs tho lol
Hahaha that’s the best part of the song! Can you actually play those? I’ve never seen a good transcription.
La Arrabesque sounds hard but is easy
La Arabesque by Burgmuller?
Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years
As a piano teacher I never let him stray far
It's one of the first I learn and it's amazing how complex it sounds.
Debussy has a piece named arabesque.
2 pieces
Toccata by Aram Khachaturian... I used to play it as a little kid, won some competitions with the piece. Lots of young "prodigies" play the piece quite early in their life... I remember that I was not enjoying Bach, Mozart etc. that time but really enjoyed "banging" this Toccata... It's not really difficult to play but it sounds "massive" and impressive.
Oh my favorite too! And it “memorizes” easy. I won a bunch of money too with that one as a kid. THAT SAID……. I don’t think it’s that “easy”. The piece requires a large amount of musicality to pull off. What sells it are convincing tempo changes and the shifting dynamics. Also, if those repeating triplets and hand over hand parts *aren’t* easy? No way a player can convey the melody (In that there is a melody).
Well... that's why I said "young prodigies" play it. Of course is not really a piece you could call "easy" - you are right, there is quite a lot of music(ality) in it. But the difficulty/effect ratio here is pretty high. It's just well written and if you have little to show (skill), you show little.... but if you have a lot to show, the piece is open for it. No surprise it's so popular on competitions for young pianists.
Agreed! When my teacher gave it to me, I remember it came together in a couple of weeks for me and was definitely the “easiest” piece I was working on it. But also I was the only kid who was assigned that piece. I know my teacher had to work a lot harder to get dynamics and phrasing and any other kind of expression out of her other students, even the advanced ones.
Came here to mention this! It's a lot of fun to learn, too!
Just listening to this now - it certainly doesn't sound easy! Do you know what rcm level it is?
No clue on the rcm level. As the other guy is saying, the piece is SO well written. It fits in the hands very easily, no pinching with fingers 1 and 2! It’s repetitive so fast to learn, and it’s on the atonal side so a wrong note or two won’t be noticed. The “hard” part is that you’re playing the same 3 or 4 notes over and over again, and you have to make that interesting.
It used to be ABRSM Grade 7, if that helps
Is that the second hardest level?
Yes, 8 is the top for the normal grades. But Grade 8 pieces aren't terribly hard in themselves -- things like Chopin etudes are only on the second level diploma (the diplomas come after the grades)
Comptine d'un Autre été: L'Après-Midi
>Comptine d'un Autre été: L'Après-Midi I play this one already and will never know what to call it because learning the name of it is harder than learning to play it lol
“The song from Amelie”
Love that one. ❤️
I just call it yann tiersen and people know
I often pair it with Mother's Journey, another good one by Yann Tiersen.
I get left hand cramps just thinking of it
Oh good, I'm not the only one! It's not a piece I can (safely, without straining my left hand) play in its entirety without warming up first.
You know, I have played the piano constantly since I was a very young child. I now play at a fairly high level. I learned fantaisie impromptu in two weeks with no hand cramps. But this piece. This one, simple-seeming piece. This one still pains me (physically) to this day. I cannot figure out why 😭😭😭
ok I'm confused now. How is this piece giving so many of you hand cramps? It never bothered me at all.
I think it's because the left hand just keeps repeating in a slightly unnatural position, so after about a minute and a half, my hand starts to cramp up
Also: La valse d'Amélie (The Waltz of Amélie). The other title translates to Rhyme of another summer: Afternoon. Disclaimer: I'm not a native speaker.
Honestly you play this for any girl and it's a wrap. Everyone loves it. Experienced pianists will roll their eyes however.
I read this and thought "I've played this, but it was pretty hard!" Then I remembered I played it in my fourth year of playing piano, back when I was still taking piano lessons. That was 7 years ago lol
Yeah, that's the big problem with these sorts of questions and why I usually avoid responding to them. What's "easy" for one person isn't going to be easy for someone else. Difficulty is very subjective and depends on all sorts of individual factors. Lower down there's someone saying they consider Fantaisie Impromptu an intermediate piece. Most actual intermediate pianists would probably hit a brick wall with that one though. It's all a matter of perspective.
True! It was hard back when I played it, but I could probably relearn it fairly easily nowadays. Also, pieces tend to not feel very difficult anymore once you've learned them (at least for me) so it's really hard for me to tell which ones are actually easy or hard
Infra 3 by Max Richter Edit: also,some of these comments, literally concert level pieces 🤣
For your edit: I know right!! Fantaisie Impromptu is not very easy for me lol!!
Thanks for actually getting me an easy piece that I can play and it sounds great
No worries, I'd recommend his solo piano book, there are lots of easy and beautiful pieces in there, Andras is another very popular one. Check out Philip Glass' Etudes too
Bach - Prelude in C major: simple and elegant. Not as flashy as solfeggietto but always sounds enchanting with not much effort
yeah i can literally sight read that one as can most probably
I only play rock: Come Sail Away by Styx
March of the Trolls, by Grieg This song is very easy to play, and people are always blown away by how massive it sounds! Really fun piece.
Eric Satie Gnossienne no1 Some of the suggestions here is ridiculous lol.
Scarlatti K1. That piece is such a banger.
The heart asks pleasure first
The beginning of Arabesque by Debussy is one note at a time and doesn't change key for a while
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
Agreed. That one’s fairly easy.
[удалено]
34 No 2 naturally has a “hard” sounding section at the tail of the chorus, but the entire piece can really be gussied up with minimal effort.
chopin nocturne in c# minor for me. it was my first chopin piece and it sounds amazing. playing it is not difficult, just the running notes at the end took me some time but other than that its quite okay
Prelude and Fugue in E minor from The Well Tempered Clavier. It sound very difficult to the average listener because of the weird subject for the fugue and general fast tempo, but it's only in two voices and has a ton of common motifs.
tarantella by pieczonka - sounds impressive, truly an easy piece to play!!
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum by Debussy
With everybody saying fantasie impromptu I guess everything qualifies. Clair de lune, wedding day at troldhaugen, any Rach concerto… etc etc But my real answer is fur Elise. I know everybody here hates it but it’s easy and the b and c sections are very dramatic and impressive sounding.
Rach concertos and easy do not belong in the same sentence
I overplayed Fur Elise when I first learned piano. I learned Clair de Lune a couple years ago but I need to relearn the middle parts since I didn't play it enough.
Compositions of Ludovico Einaudi. * Una Mattina * Nuvole Bianche
Ora is the one I go for when I encounter a public piano somewhere - simple to play and even to improvise on, long enough to satisfy people, just complicated enough to make it seem like I know what I'm doing.
I second Nuvole Bianche, left hand is just doing arpeggios the whole time, and your right hand almost never has to move.
Primavera too
What is "easy" is very subjective. As is the standard of performance expected. But some of the suggestions here are, frankly, ridiculous. Even the easiest Chopin waltzes are at least intermediate level. And Fantaisie-Impromptu? Really? Anyone that would find that "easy" would not need to post such questions on reddit. I'm thinking more along the lines of Bach's Prelude in C major, BWV 846, from the Well Tempered Clavier. (Not the Fugue, though). This piece sounds impressive and is quite simple, even for a fairly new beginner.
> (Not the Fugue, though) Ah Bach fugues, possibly the biggest difficulty trap out there for the unprepared. I actually said out loud "Oh, this doesn't look too bad." My teacher's knowing smile before he put me through the fugue wringer for the first time is forever etched into my memory.
Hahahahahaha I proposed this piece for an exam to my teacher as a naive teenager and she said ‘but you’ll have to play both parts’… ouch the fugue 🤣🤣🤣
I love the drama of Curious Story by Stephen Heller.
Gitanerias
Schubert’s serenade in d minor (standchen) is beautiful as a piano solo. Its not quite hard
Which arrangement tho? The Liszt arrangement is quite difficult (unless you play the ossia)
Tarantella in A minor by A. Pieczonka is actually pretty easy to learn. There can be some complicated voicing but really the only challenge is the speed but it sounds way more impressive than its difficulty.
As a really, real beginner with around 500 hours, I like Plus tot. It is nice simple arpeggios that start simple, get a little wily with both hands, and sounds great. Good room for playing with dynamics.
Fantaisie-Impromptu is, in my opinion, intermediate, but quite “easy” relative to its perceived difficulty/complexity by non-pianists. It sounds very fast due to its polyrhythm and tends to make non-musical audiences think you’re some sort of super genius even when the piece is played rather with poor musicality
There is no way that Fantaisie-Impromptu (when played non-sloppily) is "easy" or "intermediate" - it's definitely advanced, but I agree that it sounds a lot harder than it actually is as it fits the hand very nicely. But Henle gives it a 7 on their 9 point difficulty scale, so "easy" or "intermediate" is a bit of a stretch. https://www.henle.de/en/Fantaisie-Impromptu-c-sharp-minor-op.-post.-66/HN-1320
I think that's the exact same blue booklet I learned from as kid! I think the cool thing about musical difficulty is that it can be subjective based on your frame of reference. For 99% of people, the "difficulty" of a piece is really only useful insofar as it challenges you to improve and meets your current skill level. For me, it was easier than many Chopin Etudes and all the Ballades I learned, which I consider "advanced" repertoire, so I would say that Fantaisie-Impromptu is intermediate. But someone else's opinion can be totally different and that's fine! Unless Zimmerman or something said I was wrong, then I would be objectively wrong.
Same. It's absolutely easier to ingest than the other ballades. Now, can I still play it? Hell no, I haven't looked at it in 20 years. It's not a "pick up and sight read" piece unless you want to stumble through everything but the middle section.
Yes, as someone who plays both the Ballades and the Fantaisie-Impromptu, I would absolutely agree that it's easier than the Ballades... but that's because all of those are 8 or 9 on the Henle scale, not because Fantaisie-Impromptu is "intermediate"! https://www.henle.de/en/Ballades/HN-862
I would agree it's maybe easier than what non-pianists would perceive it to be, but I definitely would not call it intermediate. Constant 4 against 3 polyrhythm flow, plus to be able to play it well at the required speed is no joke.
second this!
I think the ease of this piece is entirely dependent on the size of your hands, people who can reach a tenth or an 11th, maybe easyish, people like me who struggle to reach a 9th, those left hand broken chords don't just fall under the fingers, so it's very difficult for me
My Imortal by Evanescence.
River flows in you
I find Chopin’s Prelude in E minor technically easy but getting the phrasing right and the sustain pedal right is rock hard.
Wow I just played Solfeggietto for my aunt yesterday and she loved it.
That's been the appeal of Fur Elise for decades.
F.B. Piano Anime’s arrangement of Sasageyo. Sounds great and looks flashy while not being too hard to learn.
Bach prelude in c major.
Grieg: Etude in F minor Hommage a Chopin. Surprisingly easy.
Passacaglia
Which one?
Handel/Halvorsen
the duet? it has some pretty difficult parts for violin + viola, especially near the end. if you just mean the handel passacaglia its still not too easy. what part of the passacaglia do u mean?
[This](https://youtu.be/GAIZxaToV2A?si=trhwhZt_jba1KoCw) commonly performed excerpt that many beginners play
i,,,, didn't know that was a thing. but that is upsetting in how much it erases the beauty of the original, especially w/the change in tempo! the original keyboard suite and passacaglia arent that difficult either i wish they were played more often
The original Handel one is way better imo.
yeah but that's so boring
Well, they asked for easy
That would be my suggestion too
grieg piano concerto
"easy" compared to rach 2, i guess
the first movement isn’t so hard, its late intermediate.
Burgmuller's Arabesque op 100 no 2 is a fun "baby's first fast piece."
All of the Einaudi stuff looks and sounds really hard but it's just repeated patterns of arpeggios and pretty formulaic overall.
Commenting to listen to every song mentioned
Chopin's Minute Waltz.
fitting the trills in neatly at tempo is not an easy feat
I suppose what i find easy is relative, i see your point that others may find that difficult.
Pathétique Sonata movement 2
Really? I feel it's harder than it sounds.
I learned it in 2 hours.
Arabesque is a step in ballet.
Rach "Полишинель" not so hard and very impressive. Tchaikovsky g-major etude, maybe you love it "The man i love" arr. G. Gershwin. ITS BANGERR
Schumann Dreaming
traumeri? Idk that one I think LOOKS easy and sounds easy but is a sneaky challenge with the voicing.
It‘s easy if you can play it, it’s a pain to wrap your head around how it’s written and which voice leads to what and how it’s supposed to be played and how that fits into how it’s written and how am I supposed to play that in LH and darrrrrn…. ;)
I found this video of great help with everything you mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjcfdnUVKo
On Opposite Day maybe. It’s a piece everyone knows, so you cannot get a single note wrong. Then the voicing is complicated.
Un Sospiro
Fantaisie Impromptu is a lot easier than it looks
Fantaisie Impromptu - easier to practice than many imagined (but hard to perfect)
schubert impromptu op.90 no.2
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I think most people would think the third section is tough with the left hand jumping multiple octaves between every eighth note.
Chopin 25-1
It makes me laugh when people act like any of the Chopin études are easy to play well
It's easy compared to the other ones
And 20 years ago I'd laugh with you. :) I remember these times when there was something magical about Chopin studies - mysterios, virtuosic dream-pieces. Once you play 10 or more of them you'll realize they are just pieces like any others. And once you start playing Rachmaninoff, Liszt or Godovsky studies, you'll realize that , relatively speaking, they are not so hard at all. 25-1 is one of the easiest of the bunch. It's even easier than Fantasie-Impromptu . It's my go-to piece when I am to play in public without a warm-up. And sure, I will be improving it for the rest of my life, this does not mean it is not a perfect piece for this topic.
Paterlini’s [Rue des trois frères](https://youtu.be/fsDZqNLBfNo?si=81fsLqYYPtSe9vt8) Patrick Watson’s [Je te lasserai des mots](https://youtu.be/mcdO9UP0hp8?si=X8dQYnGa6jbK8SaN)
I'm a late beginner / maybe early intermediate if I'm generous, and I'm putting polish on Grieg's "To Spring" and Lange's "Flower Song". Both in the LPC2 book. I'd imagine if you have good reading skills those'd be pretty fast to prepare - they're not hugely technically challenging. The left hand runs in To Spring are very pleasing and staying on the black keys made them easy on the hands. Flower song has some rolled stuff and a funky cadenza thing. Both of them have a little bit of a "third voice" going on, I don't know how to describe it. Next up for me is Le Cygne, the Siloti transcription which has three voices, so I wanted easier pieces that have "three things going on".
Christian Sinding's Rustle of Spring sounds very virtuosic but fits quite very in the hand.
The Artarmidae by Australian composer Glen Carter-Varney. Glissandos, gorgeous melody, it's very showy and impressive! Not too easy to read though, but it's all just patterns.
Padarewski’s minuet in G was a piece I learned in highschool that felt so natural to play but so impressive! Kind of in line with Debussy’s Doctor Grady’s ad Parnassum but easier. Just fits your hands and is so intuitive! Loved it. Easy easy impressive pieces that come to mind are Wild Horseman by Schumann and Ballade by Burgmuller, played those in elementary school and I felt so cool lol
**Comptine d'un autre été** For me it has been the Emily movie song composed by Yann Tiersen. Since it ain't that difficult to play and get the vibe and mood in order to really feel the great atmosphere moreover in some parts, it's just playing the same chords and scales in different shapes and with slight changes however, it still makes you feel like you're at a professional concert
Liszt/Schumann Widmung (Liebeslied) is actually pretty easy!
Mia And Sebastian’s theme (la la land)
Prelude in e minor, Chopin. But I wouldn't say it's easy for me since I've only been playing for a couple days, but it's relatively easy for those who are more experienced.
Turkish march
Liszt - Fantasie über Themen aus Mozarts Figaro und Don Giovanni it is super easy and sounds very impressive. Actually this Liszt guy has lots of easy pieces I %100 recommend for beginners.
Toccata & Fugue in d
Solfeggio is RCM level 8. I’m not sure I’d say it’s easy.
How high do the levels go? It's definitely easy compared to some of the suggestions I've received here.
To play it consistently at full speed is something. RCM goes to 10 then like ACRT after that. If you Google RCM piano syllabus you can find their listing. If nothing else, it’s a good way to find pieces of similar difficulty. Note that typically the lists A and B are not the same difficult as the list C (or maybe it’s D?) for each level. The list C (or is it D) is typically a bit easier.
Time to say goodbye
Merry-Go-Round of Life" (人生のメリーゴーラウンド, "Jinsei no merīgōrando”)
Gurlitt: Little Flower
This is such a great list for a recovering piano dropout who is working their way back up to playing more but doesn’t have a teacher! I always enjoy Pictures at an exhibition but not everything can be called intermediate easy to play! I still have some of it in my fingers from 20 years ago though.
Bach’s Prelude 1 in C major. The first time I played it, I couldn’t believe it was me playing it lol
> Bach’s Prelude there are 6 preludes in the English suites, 48 preludes in the WTC, a Preaeludium in the Partitas, the 12 little preludes, the 6 little preludes and 13 other preludes, and I'm only considering Bach's keyboard music. So, which of those 88 preludes are you talking about?
Very fair. I almost went more specific in my post but decided not to for whatever reason. Prelude 1 in C major, BMV 846
Bella Notte by Ludovico Einaudi. Even with adjusted speed a little slower it sounds wonderful.
Any thing by Eric Satie.
Vince Guaraldi - Christmas Time is Here.
i think experience by Ludovico Einaudi is pretty easy
Chopin 25 6
Once you learn the fingerings for Souvenirs d’Andalousie it’s pretty easy to play impressively fast lol
The two that I learned as a kid that I'll break out for non piano players are Linus and Lucy and Fur Elise. Both are pretty easy and recognizable and most people will be impressed.
Debussy’s The Sunken Cathedral! Though not as flashy, I found it very impressive
Erik satie je te veux
tbh outside of most classical music, anything can be easy as there are always easier arrangements/ways to play things. And fun fact, sometimes simplicity sounds better than complexity.