Easier, Lighter & More Popular Arrangements
Added in 2025, this page was (and still is) a labor of love for Cory, who has been teaching piano now for 40 years. There is nothing more Cory loves than performing beautiful lesser difficult music with the perfection of Swiss watchmaker while not losing any of its heart or soul. This is piano learning and performing at its most minimal that everyone can relate to. All of these pieces are immediately delightful.
Let Cory entertain you now with a funny story:
Once after exclaiming to his wife Marilyn how excellent his new recording of a Grade 1 “Yankee Doodle” arrangement was from the compilation book, PIANO PIECES FOR CHILDREN (Book 2), Marilyn jokingly replied: “Oh no!……World-famous BachScholar who has recorded large and difficult works and has thousands of performances on YouTube…..is regressing to easy pieces like Yankee Doodle in his old age.”
This was hilarious! Cory busted out in laughter!
But now to the truth of the matter…..
PIANO PIECES FOR CHILDREN (in two volumes: Amsco, 1934, 2000)
Cory honestly believes in keeping things simple when it comes to piano learning and pedagogy. Yes, there are the Piano Classics Tutorials and “Super-Slow” Videos pages on WRP where all the standard classical repertoire in their original versions is taught. But then, what about all the wonderful and extremely beneficial simplified arrangements of the great classics that have stood the test of time?
But before you count Cory out as a quack who has regressed to Grade 1 “Yankee Doodle”, realize that most of these fine pieces of music are more difficult than one would think. These are really not piano pieces for children. That was simply a marketing strategy of the 1930s, since children constituted 100% of the piano student population. In the 1930s adults worked and children took piano. There was no adult piano market in those days. Because of the changing times, the grading scale was much higher in the 1930s than today. For example, GRADE 1 in these books equals GRADE 3 today, GRADE 2 equals GRADE 4 today, GRADE 3 equals GRADE 6 today, and GRADE 4 equals GRADE 8 today. This is especially applicable in Book 1 (the green book), although Book 2 (the brown book, from 2000) tends to have less difficult arrangements than Book 1 (from 1934).
📚 PIANO PIECES FOR CHILDREN (in two volumes, 1934, 2000) offers some of the most beneficial popular classics in very fine arrangements for teachers and students, since short pieces can be used most effectively for teaching or focusing on one particular technique at a time. Usually, each arrangement features one or more techniques that are mandatory for all who wish to have a strong foundation in classical piano performance. Also, all these little gems have beautiful melodies from the standard popular orchestral and piano classics of yesteryear. These are the pieces your parents or grandparents would have learned as youngsters in the 1930s, 40s or 50s. These are better pieces and arrangements than virtually all compilation books published today. In this case, older is better. (By the way, Cory does not work for Amsco Publishing)
In Cory’s PIANO PIECES FOR CHILDREN project, he records the piece from one of two classic books. All recordings can be found on YouTube and for a complete playlist (consisting of potentially pver 100 videos), simply click here. Even if one doesn’t even play piano, this playlist offers a plethora of wonderful background music!
🎹 Cory’s YouTube Playlist of Popular Classics
Cory’s Favorite Selections from MUSIC FOR CHILDREN
Here is a list of Cory’s favorite pieces from this wonderful and beneficial book series, performed on Cory’s vintage 1929 Model L Steinway with as much thought and care is if they were 20-minute Beethoven Sonatas. They are listed in approximate order of difficulty (least difficult on top). Cory’s philosophy is that less difficult music and teaching music should be treated with as much respect as the longer and more difficult repertoire. There is much more to playing and enjoying these little gems than just “playing the notes”. The true essence of the music must also be revealed!
🎹 MINUET IN F (K. 2) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
🎹 MELODY (Op. 68, No. 1) by Robert Schumann
One of the most basic and foundational of all piano teaching pieces for beginners up through around modern Grade 4. To play it artistically requires basic finger and hand independence and the ability to maintain a smooth legato in both hands while giving special emphasis to this beautiful, timeless melody.
🎹 MINUET IN C MAJOR (K. 73) by Domenico Scarlatti
🎹 SLEEPERS AWAKE by Johann Sebastian Bach
🎹 THE FAIR by Cornelius Gurlitt
This cute and clever little gem is what beginners would have learned in the 1880s. This fast piece in 2/4 time is ideal for practicing eighths in the LH with fast sixteenths in the RH, playing hands together legato and staccato simultaneously, and maintaining a strict rhythmic pulse. The fast sixteenths in the RH seem dauting at first, but they are much less difficult and even pretty easy if you simply avoid the fifth finger in the RH all the way through by playing only 1-2-3-4.
🎹 CAPRICCIO ITALIEN by Peter I. Tchaikovsky
Who couldn’t love this beautiful tune by Tchaikovsky? This not-very-difficult arrangement of this classic melody is the ideal piece to practice and perfect the playing of slow legato double thirds in the RH, which of course, is the prerequisite to playing faster double thirds (one of the most advanced techniques in piano playing). Also some pedaling is necessary.
🎹 BOURRÉE (in G Minor) by George Frideric Handel
🎹 THE WILD HORSEMAN by Robert Schumann
🎹 SLAVONIC DANCE by Antonín Dvořák
🎹 SHEEP MAY SAFELY GRAZE by Johann Sebastian Bach
🎹 ANDANTE (from Sonata, Op. 26) by Ludwig van Beethoven
🎹 THE TRUMPETER’S SERENADE by Cornelius Gurlitt
🎹 SERENADE by Franz Schubert played by Cory Hall
🎹 LARGO (from “Xerxes”) by George Frideric Handel
🎹 MINUET (from “Don Juan”) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
🎹 TURKISH MARCH (from “The Ruin of Athens”) by Ludwig van Beethoven
🎹 SONG OF INDIA by Nicolai Rimski-Korsakov
🎹 LE COUCOU by Louis-Claude Daquin
🎹 TRÄUMEREI (Op. 15, No. 7) by Robert Schumann
🎹 SCHERZO (in A Major) by Johann Nepomuk Hummel
VALSE LENTE (from “Coppélia”) by Leo Celibes
🎹 VENETIAN BOAT SONG NO. 2 (Op. 30, No. 6) by Felix Mendelssohn
🎹 HUMORESQUE (Op. 101, No. 7) by Antonín Dvořák
🎹 ECOSSAISES by Ludwig van Beethoven
Probably the most technically difficult of all the pieces in the book series, this is Ferruccio Busoni’s (1866-1924) excellently edited and slightly ammended version of Beethoven’s fun and exciting set of lively Scottish dances known as Ecossaises (pronounded “Echo-sayses”). Busoni adds an exciting final page that Beethoven did not write, which make this the only piece in both books where the arrangement is more difficult than the original. This is one of Beethoven’s finest pieces for not just less advanced students, but for ALL pianists!
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