One of the common comments we get on this channel is that there are just thousands of
pieces out there with varying difficulty levels. As a beginner, what should i have played by the
first year? The second year? The third year? Is there maybe a system I can follow? This is
a really good question. Hi, I'm Jazer. I've been playing piano for 18 years and in this video I
want to share with you a rough plan or let's say a menu of pieces for you to work on within your
first three years of playing piano. I'm gonna share with you 7 pieces to work on across the 3
years. But of course, I recommend you play many, many, more than just 7 pieces in your 3 years.
My hope is that these 7 pieces give you some kind of guidelines or checkpoints for what you
should be able to play, or at least aspire to be able to play within these first 3 years. Use this
program at your own discretion. I'm going to assume that you're going to be practicing very
diligently every single day. This list is going to include both classical and also some modern songs,
so you have a nice variety. Before we get into the 7 pieces, make sure you LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to this
channel to make sure you stay in touch with more of these free piano lessons and tutorials. Okay,
let's talk about your very first year of piano playing. After you've worked on those true 101
basics like learning C position and learning simple chords and simple scales. When you're
ready to move on to some real pieces, here's one great piece for you to start with....
The First Piece is the Minuet in G by Petzold. This is a great piece for beginners because
the position changes aren't too extreme. You're staying relatively within the middle piano area
there are some parts. For example,
...where the right hand is playing a scale part and left hand plays a scale part. So it's just
busy enough to keep you on your feet and just to work on your finger movements across the piano.
To play this piece well and with legato, there are actually a lot of points in a piece where
you you need a turn. And by turn I mean things like for example 1-2-3 and you turn your thumb
to play the next note. So this piece is great for that. It doesn't just stay in one position but it
works on your ability to turn and navigate and go into slightly different positions on
the keyboard. The second piece I think you should play in your first year piano is...
This piece is the Gymnopedie Number 1 by Erik Satie. I really love this one and I think it's
great for beginners because it doesn't have too many notes. So, it's relatively easy to learn.
You'll need to use the pedal for this one so it'll also give you some practice with using
the pedal. It's very calming. It's very beautiful and I think it's just a really
encouraging piece to play. Something that isn't too hard. Something you can whip up and it
just sounds really, really nice. Of course, in saying this learning to play a piece
versus mastering a piece are two very different things, So I recommend beginners to, you know,
get your hands dirty and start meddling with this piece. But across the years that you play piano,
continue to come back to these pieces to work on them and improve on them year after
year. the Third Piano Piece that I think you should play in your first year is...
This is the Prelude in C by Bach. I think this is a great one for beginners.
Aside from its sheer beauty it also is just this sort of pattern...
...throughout the whole piece but just with different chords. So not too difficult to
learn. You sort of learn that pattern. Once and you apply the pattern to all the other chords,
and speaking of chords that's a very important concept to learn In piano the idea of chords,
groups of notes. So this piece will really, this piece really helped me to see chords a little bit
clearer. So i recommend trying this Prelude in C by Bach in your first year. Moving on to the
second year of piano playing. So by the end of the second year, hopefully you can play this...
This is Fur Elise by Beethoven. This one is probably one of the more iconic pieces. Even
people who don't play piano usually know what this piece is called. I think the world sort
of sees this piece as the pianist verification piece. So as a pianist, like you kind of need
to have this in your hands whether you love it or you think it's overplayed. It's good to have
this in your hands. Now I recommend this piece for the second year and not the first year is because
there are a lot more position changes. it's using a wider range of the keyboard so there were notes
going from down here all the way to up here this piece will teach you a
lot about how to play legato and how to use the pedal definitely a must-have for
your piano hands the second piece i think you should work on in your second year is
this one is also a really well known one this is the canon in d by pachelbel it's a really
interesting one this one it's it wasn't written for piano originally it was written for strings
and for some reason over time it's become almost synonymous with wedding music
so pretty useful to have in your hands if you are ever asked to play for a wedding there are
many different arrangements for the canon d i recommend you do your own research to see which
arrangement you want to play but there are some free ones on musescore you can check them out
in the description box below the canon d has a very nice progression that repeats
basically throughout the piece and at about this second year level is when i think you should start
to tackle something like this i think to do this in your very first year of piano playing is a bit
hard but second year i think this would be a good challenge for you let's move on now to the third
year of piano playing i have three pieces to share with you for your third year the first one is
i have a confession i don't actually know how to pronounce the name of this piece
i refer to it as comptin the first word but it's by jan tiersen and it's from the movie
amelie i love this piece not just because it's beautiful but because there is a very interesting
left-hand technique that you learn from this it just gave my left hand lots of control when i
learned it first so i think it's just a great double up it's a beautiful piece of music and
it also is sort of a great exercise for left hand and to later in the piste also for the right hand
next piece that you should play in your third year is
this is river flows in you by yoruma this has got to be one of the more iconic and viral
piano pieces of this century it's got that four chords that the modern ear really loves
and it's got lots of scaly passages and going up and down the keyboard it's got that sort of right
i think complexity but also simplicity inspirational quality that makes it very
attractive to play at about a third year standard i think you would be ready to tackle this
wonderful calming and inspirational piece and our final piece for the third year of piano playing is
so
this final one is the moonlight sonata by beethoven this also is another iconic one this is
very peaceful but it's different to the other two pieces in that it's a lot darker and contains
very very deep emotions on the surface it may feel like this piece seems technically easier
than the other two because maybe there are less notes they're not so many position changes but
it's very hard to get the right hand voicing properly let me explain for example look here
you gotta play with your weakest finger the pinky louder than the inner voices
so you could do something like this
as opposed to
right if you were to play the piece something like this
it's very distasteful so i think for a third year level this is a great piece to try to get
that right hand
try to get that voicing to be a lot higher than the inner voices with your thumb first second and
third there you go we've come to the end these are the pieces that i recommend to you as a general
guidelines or checkpoints for you to think about in your first three years of piano playing i think
you're going to have lots of great fun with them it's really great to start learning these pieces
will you master them right away probably not but over the next months and the next years
keep playing them keep growing with them it's quite an amazing life too to work and grow with
these music do you agree with a choice of pieces for your first three years of piano let me know
in the comments also what other pieces do you recommend people play in the first three years let
me know in the comments too i really love reading your suggestions catch you in the next video guys