A personal note:
Sept. 2010 How it all began:
Oh, how short the memory of piano players. Typically I will
read/hear statements like, “Oh this is real easy to play” or “This is a
good piece for beginners”, and when I go look it up or download it, I
am staring at a sheet, that maybe I will be able to play in say 2 or 3
years, if I practice real hard in the meantime.
When I say beginner, I mean
all-the-way-down-at-the-bottom-never-seen-a-piano-before-beginner. And
when I say real easy, I mean
I-am-lucky-if-I-can-hold-down-a-simple-chord-with-my-left-hand-while-playing-two-other-notes-with-my-right-hand-easy.
There are 2, maybe 3, websites that actually have (free) sheet music
for real beginners. Problem for most of us (I don’t
imagine I’m all that unique) is, that they mainly serve up things like
“Twinkle Twinkle” and “Mary had a little lamb”, which, if you are over
the age of 6, holds little interest. Or pieces that I have either never
heard of (and it’s much harder to play music you don’t know), or really
don’t care for that much.
Once we get over the first hurdles of “where is middle C”, and “how do
I get my left thumb and right thumb to press a key at the same time”,
we start looking for music to play. And I do mean music, not scales and
exercises. And, since we are going to be practicing for quite some time
on one little piece to learn to play it, it had better be something we
can stand to listen to as well, preferably something we really like. I
have found (and most music teachers seem to agree with me) that
motivation is depending on us liking what we do. I will happily
practice a tune I really like for hours on end, where as I’m quickly
fed up with music I don’t care for.
Thus starts the great search for music we like and can play. Maybe it’s
a tune of Bach you’d like to play, or maybe a Beatles song, or maybe
the theme song from your favorite game. What ever it is, you are very
lucky if you happen to find it somewhere, in a version that you have a
chance at learning. It is frustrating, to say the least.
Now, it’s my experience that “instructions for dummies” are best
written by the “dummies” themselves (trust me, I’ve done a few),
because they still remember what is hard and what is not. So, being a
“dummy” myself (novice piano player), I have started to compile all the
hard-to-find sheets that I can lay my hot little hands on (or make when
not available elsewhere), and make it available to anyone who wants
them on my webpage.
I am trying to include as wide a variety as I can, but obviously, what
enters my list will mostly be things that I happen to like myself.
Still, I’m hoping this will be a very long list, so you should have a
chance of finding something to your liking as well.
Anyone who has suggestions to what could be added to this list, is welcome to leave a message in the 'comments' page.
2013 Misconception:
So,
in my list of sheets, I had a number of sheets from another website
also providing free easy sheets. Simply because I was listing whatever
I found to be interesting and easy to play (as an adult beginner) and
wanted to share that list with others, as a one-stop-shopping-list you
might say. All of those of course listed with their name plastered all
over it, no infringement intended here.
I guess I was under the
impression that we all were just trying to share/provide as many sheets
for the hungry beginners out there, free of charge, and that it
couldn't possibly matter where they'd find it and/or download it.
Well....
I was wrong. Someone took exception to that. So, I have closed my
website with the intention of removing any and all of those from my
list. I will only have my own arrangements, and a few of those allowed
- or actually requested - to be hosted by me, in the future. Whenever I
get the time and inclination to do so.
Nov. 2014
Well,
that took me a while to get around to do some updating. Frankly, I'm a
busy person, and I was a little miffed too I guess, so it wasn't on my
priority list.
To my amazement.... when I had a look at my
domain-stats recently, I discovered that although my site has been
'down for maintenance' for well over a year, it is still receiving
40-50 thousand visits per month. No idea how and why I'm getting
all this traffic, but I take it to mean that there are still people
eagerly seeking music to play.
So, to honour those people, I
will get my little behind in gear, and get the promised updating done
with.... and also add some new sheets I've been working on lately.
And,
to those of you wondering, I'll confess I'm still a 'dummy'... I will
never progress past these beginner levels. I started late (just turned
60) and never seem to get much of anywhere. I'm one of those people who
work hard at something for a while, then some other project needs my
attention. And with piano playing, it's definitely 'use it or loose
it', so each time I get the time and inclination to get back to
playing, I have to start almost from scratch again.
That doesn't
bother me though. I have great fun with my keyboard, enjoy it immensely
every time I concour a new small piece. And that's all that matters to
me. And... that also means I'm constantly on the search for something
new to play, often a new piece of music I've just heard, which is the
ones most impossible to find anywhere. And that should be good news to
some of you out there, because that means this collection should
continue to grow.