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The past months I've been providing an opportunity for many of my piano students to learn how to play Fur Elise and Toccata in D Minor. The chance has opened doors for students to be "exposed" to two famous Classical Songs. These lessons have been tons of fun watching students light up with excitement about these popular songs. The songs are written "easier" for students to understand, yet are written precisely as Bach and Beethoven created the songs.
Fur Elise is from musicformusicteachers.com, where it's written in 6/4, where the song has quarter, dotted half and whole notes. The blog explains several options created, yet I've been focusing on the 6/4 with chords the left hand. This song written out includes the exact notes created by Beethoven, yet written out "easier" for students to learn. The song includes fingering options that will helpful, plus the time where the hands play octave E's and the part with D#'s and E, swapping back and forth from Right to Left, back to Right to Left on those notes. Here is the blog post explaining more.
Here is the link to the Fur Elise I've been using. Worth checking out.
The second song is Toccata in D Minor, also written by musicformusicteachers.com. The arrangers takes the exact notes of the song, yet makes it "simpler" for musicians to play the song. Now I do it differently, as I don't focus on the many hand changes, yet I have the students play the Treble Clef with their right hand and the Bass Clef with the left. That's how I teach the song. My student have been loving this song, since they have been playing it. Here is the blog about it.
Here is the link to the song: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/freesheetmusic/toccata-notereader-longer.pdf
The other arrangement is from gmajormusictheory.org, who created one of Toccata that has been tons of fun for students to play. This is a full sounding arrangement worth having in your collection. Here is the link: https://www.gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/Level2/2ToccataFugueDm/2ToccataFugueDm.pdf
I hope that these ideas inspire you to teach some of the most popular and well known songs by Beethoven and Bach. Your students will love to learn and experience playing the songs for those they know. What are some of your favorite songs to teach students that never get old? Would like to know. Thanks for your. support. Blessings.
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