Some proposals for the second year of studying piano

The first year of studying piano is the most demanding and difficult. You have to learn to read music and coordinate your hands, but above all you have to get used to practising, acquire a working method and develop patience, a great virtue in music… and in life!

After passing this first stage, in the second year of piano, the journey into music is definitely more exciting, in fact you will be able to play more challenging music and follow your inclinations more widely. Here are some study materials that I propose to my second-year students. I have also made video courses on some of these books.

Second year of piano: the study changes

While in the first year of study we mainly focus on hand independence and music reading, in the second year of piano you will have acquired the necessary tools to learn and play more varied and exciting music.

In particular, during the second year we can focus more strongly on piano technique. To do this, we can use a good method; there are many that belong to different historical periods and can therefore suit our musical tastes. Here, then, are some study proposals for the second year of piano:

• J.B.Duvernoy The Primary School of Piano Op.176
• J.S.Bach Easy Pieces from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook
• Burgmuller op.100
• Schumann op. 68 Album for the Young

Let us now analyse the characteristics of these works to find out what they can teach you.

J.B.Duvernoy The Primary School of Piano Op.176

To my students who are completing F.Beyer’s Op.101 or at the second-year piano students, I normally propose Duvernoy Op.176. This is a collection of 25 pieces that provide a very effective and enjoyable study path.

The studies are organised in an orderly manner by key, subject and difficulty. Beginning with the study of scales and chords, the exercises allow you to explore other techniques such as arpeggios, staccato, ribattuto, dynamics between pp and ff. It is a very entertaining and varied book, in which there is no lack of beautiful pages that make one think of more important romantic authors.

Another merit of this volume is its brevity; it takes about six months to learn the exercises. Therefore, it is not a ‘threatening’ book like some fuller works that frighten the student and make him think ‘I will never finish it…’

J.S.Bach Easy Pieces from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook

For someone who has been playing the piano for a year or so, getting to play Bach’s music is an important milestone. The Notebook for Anna Magdalena is a collection of pieces that J.S.Bach gave to his second wife. Some of these pieces are very simple and suitable for a first approach to Bach’s music.

Bach’s music is not really piano music, not only because the keyboard instruments of the time were the harpsichord and organ, the piano did not yet exist, but also because it is often conceived abstractly, and not based on the movement of the hands on the keyboard.

Playing Bach’s early pieces is like using a time machine, the essential lines of his music are out of our time and you only have to play a few notes to be thrown into his world.

If you want to do really serious piano studies, you will definitely have to play a few pages of Bach at some point. Not to do so is to miss out on one of the great pleasures reserved for those who study piano. J.S. Bach was one of the greatest musicians in history and even if his music is not easy, approaching it will give you great satisfaction.

Burgmuller op.100

Burgmuller’s work 100 is a true masterpiece of didactics. The collection consists of 25 exercises, small pictures that are meant to describe a situation.

Around the middle of the 19th century, when this work was created, ‘programme music’ was very fashionable. Composers tried to set real-life situations, when not actual stories, to music. Telling a story through music is certainly not easy; music is the most abstract of disciplines and arts.

Hence, pieces such as The Reunion of the Children, The Chivalry, The Harmony of Angels take shape. Each piece has its own character and this makes Burgmuller’s Opus 100 extremely entertaining and varied. In particular, the student learns to interpret a piece of music, and works on very different rhythms.

This collection is similar to Schumann’s Album for the Young, but is much simpler. I therefore recommend it as a transition method between Duvernoy op.176 and Schumann’s pieces.

Schumann op. 68 Album for the Young

The Album for the Young is a book from 1848 dedicated by R. Schumann to his daughters. The pieces are very varied and often strive to translate emotions, moods or even real-life situations into music: Soldier’s March, Hunter’s Song, Wild Rider, Cheerful Peasant, First Sorrow etc.

Unlike J.S.Bach, it is evident that R.Schumann was thinking of the piano when he composed these pieces, the piano techniques employed are extremely varied as are the nuances that Schumann manages to draw from the instrument.

In particular, studying Schumann’s music can be a good way to prepare oneself for the study of modern music. Indeed, in his pieces, Schumann uses seventh chords, arpeggios and accompaniment formulas typical of the piano that can also be used when playing modern and jazz music.

Playing Schumann’s pages can be a lot of fun and will certainly be very satisfying for a student, who will have the feeling of really playing accomplished piano pieces.

Final remarks: the best music for the second year of piano

All four of these books have a clear didactic purpose. The music of Bach and Schumann is certainly of higher value than that of Duvernoy and Burgmuller, yet it is often the task of almost unknown music teachers, such as J.B. Duvernoy or F. Beyer, to produce effective didactic books suitable for everyone. Perhaps because they, unlike Bach and Schumann, were not exceptionally talented and therefore had to struggle to learn to play the piano.

In my experience as a teacher, I have seen dozens and dozens of students overcome the difficulties of the first and second years thanks to collections of exercises such as Duvernoy op.176, which I recommend you study with commitment, perhaps combining it with some pieces by Bach and Schumann.

I discovered Burgmuller op.100 later, relatively recently, and this work also immediately entered my heart, to the point of making a video course.

If you have also studied some pieces from these collections, I would be pleased to hear what impression you had of them. Tell me about your experience in the comments, thanks!