Monday, April 8, 2013

The Storm is Coming!

Stormy Seas by Carolyn Miller is one of the reasons I started this blog.  This Intermediate Piece is a wonderful showstopper.  It is fast and impressive.

I had a piano student who was looking for such a piece for a competition.  Her mother found a video of this on YouTube.  Her daughter loves Fireflies by Miller, so she searched for other things she wrote.



It was very exciting to hear Carolyn Miller playing her own piece, and the piece itself had all the memorable and showy qualities my student and her mother were looking for.  However, my student was a late elementary student at that point.  She wasn't able to play this intermediate repertoire right away.

I am hoping by categorizing and documenting music, people who are looking for a specific type of piece will be able to more easily find music that is at the level they can play.  I'm happy to report that my student has another piece she's working on for competition, and is excitedly waiting for the day she can play this one.  It is wonderful to have songs that are beyond you that you are looking forward to.  I'm hoping  Songs in my Head can help guide students and parents to pieces just perfect for them.

You can look inside at the music for this song here.  Stormy Seas uses traveling arpeggios and octaves for the A Section.  The B section is much more lyrical, which heads back into the A section.  This piece has lots of hand movement, with both hands traveling though arpeggios in the A section.  Left hand has octaves and jumps between treble and bass clef.  During the B section, both staves are in the treble clef.   The left hand then moves to the bass clef where it has large broken chords.  These either require some finger crossing or very large hands, perhaps both.  The end features several large chords that would be difficult for smaller hands to play.

Quick Look:
Key: A minor
4/4
Notes: sixteenth, eighth, quarter, dotted quarter,  half, whole notes and rests
accent, accidentals, left hand octaves, left hand cross over, staccato, slur, tie, rall, fermata, acclerando, subito piano, 8 va, D.C. al Coda, 4 note chords
crescendo, diminuendo, ff, f, mf, mp, p

This is available at Sheet Music Plus for $2.99.

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