Piano for Stress Relief – Page 2 – Upper Hands Piano Blog

February 25, 2022

Free St. Patrick’s Day Sheet Music!

It’s St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th, so dig out your green clothes, dust off your Irish Soda Bread Recipe, and get ready to play some Irish Folk Music! Last March I posted a jig (The Irish Washerwoman), a reel (The Galway Piper) and a beautiful air (Down By the Salley Gardens). You can still print the jig and the reel HERE, but if you would like a copy of Down by the Salley Gardens, send me an email (UpperHandsPiano@gmail.com) as it is no longer on my website.

This year I have arranged an Irish-American favorite called Too-ra Loo-ra Loo-ral, which has been famously sung by Bing Crosby, as well as Van Morrison and The Band, The Irish Tenors, Rosemary Clooney and many others.

Print TOO-RA LOO-RA

Toora Loora demonstration

I hope you are enjoying some increased sunshine as we edge toward spring. Here in Los Angeles it has been very cold (for LA), but my bulbs are blooming, I’m seeing little blossoms on the neighborhood plum trees, and there is a tiny hummingbird’s nest in our backyard tree. My daughter Maura took this photo- isn’t it amazing? Mama hummer’s two eggs have just hatched and she is sitting on her hatchlings keeping them warm. The nest is about 1.5 inches wide 🙂

And now a word from our sponsor!

If you’re new to my blog, welcome! I give away free sheet music and practice tips every month. You might not be aware that I have written a series called Upper Hands Piano: A Method for Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind, Heart and Soul. This 4-book instructional series is a great choice for older adults who have always wanted to play the piano, or played as a child, and want a refresher course. I have also written 4 songbooks for beginners called Upper Hands Piano: Songs of the Seasons (Spring, Summer Winter and Autumn). For the intermediate and advanced players, I have The Music Remedy (No. 1) : 12 Passionate Pieces to Move you From Loss to Love, and The Music Remedy (No. 2) : 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Anxiety to Calm. Click the links below to shop and learn more! Thanks so much for your support, and HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!

With love and music, Gaili

February 15, 2022February 15, 2022

Giveaway Winners! And some Practice Tips to review in ’22

I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day spent with someone you love, or doing something you love to do! (Like eating chocolate?! Playing some beautiful pieces?) Congratulations to the winners of my Giveaway for 20 of The Music Remedy books No. 1 and 2! I so appreciate your enthusiastic support and I hope you enjoy your books. Here are the winners:

Helga Kaefer
Fran Tracy Walls
Mary Hebard
Lee Shatto
Raechel Averett
Dee Fisher
Louis Lemire
Mary Ellen Huckstep Labreque
CarolLynn Gregson
Medgar (SailorMargie)
Jolene Hudgens McClellan
Lisa El-Lakis
Cynthia Norlin
Linda May
Agnes Zelgert
Vera Harte
Sandy Ludwig
Beth DeAngelis Gooch
Nicole Rosenbach Brown
Donnamarie Shortt Kavanaugh

Winners: To claim your book, please email your address to me: upperhandspiano@gmail.com, and I will send you your book via USPS. State your preference for The Music Remedy No. 1 or No. 2 (click to see CONTENTS and sample pages) and I will honor your requests until one or the other run out.

Thank you all for your support! I hope you are enjoying The Music Remedy books, and are finding the music to be both beautiful and revitalizing!

||: Beginners you might want to take a look at my post on Repeat signs. It takes awhile to remember repeat protocols! :||

🤏 Intermediate piano players would do well to review this finger exercise for a few weeks in 2022!🤏

🏃🏿 You also might want to review these ideas I posted years ago about Aging Well. Now that the numbers of new Covid Cases are going down (hopefully we won’t have a big Super Bowl surge here in Los Angeles) we can begin to be social again soon. Being social is one of the three main components of Aging Well. 🏃🏿

🌹 Stay warm, cozy and musical for the rest of February. If you haven’t already, be sure to print and play my free arrangement of My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose.🌹

With love and music, Gaili

February 5, 2022February 6, 2022

Giveaway! The Music Remedy books No. 1 and No. 2

I hope you have been enjoying playing my February free sheet music, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. To further celebrate the month of 💗 love 💗 I am giving away 20 of my new books:

The Music Remedy, No. 1: 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Loss to Love
The Music Remedy, No. 2: 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Anxiety to Calm

***I am giving away 10 of each on February 14th, Valentine’s Day, of course! To enter, subscribe to this blog (if you haven’t already) and LIKE @UpperHandsPiano on Facebook or FOLLOW Instagram or Facebook, and be sure to LIKE the post about the Giveaway! Two chances to win if you LIKE/FOLLOW both. Also extra entries each time you tag a friend on Facebook or Instagram, or share this giveaway in your stories (remember to tag me @upperhandspiano) Includes free shipping within the USA.***

*If you buy one of The Music Remedy books between now and the drawing, you will get a refund if you win the drawing (you will just need to show proof of purchase)*

Click HERE to learn more on our website

SONG LISTS:

The Music Remedy: No. 1 – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Loss to Love

What’ll I Do– Irving Berlin
You Made Me Love You– James Monaco and Joseph McCarthy
I Ain’t Got Nobody– Spencer Williams
I’ll See You in My Dreams– Isham Jones and Gus Kahn
Piano Concerto No. 1 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Somewhere Out There– James Horner, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil
The Man I Love– George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin
Romance Without Words– Gabriel Fauré
Ready for You– Gaili Schoen
It Had to Be You– Isham Jones, Gus Kahn
At Last– Harry Warren, Mack Gordon
La Vie en Rose– Louiguy, Edith Piaf, Mack David

The Music Remedy: No. 2 – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Anxiety to Calm

The Tempest– Ludwig van Beethoven
Alla Turca– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Breathin– Ariana Grande
Rumination– Gaili Schoen
This Train – Gaili Schoen
Clair de Lune– Gabriel Fauré
The Swan– Camille Saint-Saëns
Meditation– Jules Massenet
Tristesse– Frederick Chopin
In My Room– Brian Wilson and Brian Usher
A Little Night Music II– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars– Antonio Carlos Jobim

*from The Music Remedy No. 1: 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Loss to Love*

from The Music Remedy No. 2: 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Anxiety to Calm

The Music Remedy is a collection of beautiful, melodic songs and pieces for intermediate Piano/Guitar/Vocals that use the healing power of music to help restore your emotional balance. Because playing music can be the best medicine.

The Music Remedy books begin with pieces that align with a troubling emotion. Playing pieces that resonate with your emotional state can help you clear a path toward healing and growth. It is widely known that listening to and playing music is deeply therapeutic, and more often than not, we musicians have the power to take our emotions into our own hands and literally play our blues away. As you progress through each book, the music seeks to gradually shift your perspective, guiding you to a more balanced outlook; an emotional state that can enable you to imagine and create a brighter future filled with renewed possibilities.

These books make great gifts for your loved ones, or for yourself! Leave a comment below to tell me which book you would like if you win and I’ll do my best to honor your request. Good luck and thanks for playing! 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶 – Gaili

P.S. You can purchase the books plus my Upper Hands Piano books for adults 50+ below, or order from your local bookstore (The Music Remedy series is only available in the USA, for now. The Upper Hands Piano series is available in the US, UK and Canada). Thank you!

January 22, 2022

Goals, Intentions, Scheduling, Structure

We know that setting goals can be an effective way to focus our practice time. In the past I have held “Pledge to Play: 10 Minutes A Day” challenges, where everyone pledges to get themselves to their benches for at least 10 minutes every day for a month. During those 10 minute practice sessions we concentrated on short-term goals such as learning a difficult musical passage smoothly, memorizing a short piece, or learning the minor 7^th chords in all 12 keys, etc. Challenging yourself to practice every day for 10 minutes is a great way to become a better musician, as research shows that daily exposure is the best way to improve.

Pledges can be a great motivational tool, but what about after the 30 days is over? Just as after a weight-loss program, we have to create an enduring plan for maintaining the good practices we cultivate while working towards our musical goals.

When in maintenance mode we might speak in terms of intentions rather than goals. Life coach Jennifer Louden writes that the word intention comes from the Latin “intendere” which means “to stretch toward something.” Louden suggests that while a goal drives you toward a future outcome, an intention helps keep you in the present. Louden writes:

The goal feels positive, but closed, almost a should, and it doesn’t inspire the imagination nearly as much as the intention, which feels open-ended, expansive, encouraging….

Instead of, or in addition to setting a goal such as, “I will learn this piece in 60 days,” you might want to form an intention, such as, “I am folding piano practice into my life four days per week.” Or, “I am exploring improvisation in my piano studies this year,” etc.

Write down your intention. Then come up with a structure to support it. You can adjust your expectations and intentions as you go along, but a written intention and structure acts as a roadmap. For example, if your intention is to become a more skilled musician, schedule 4-6 piano practice sessions per week in your phone calendar using the repeat: weekly and the alerts functions. Schedule your practice at times that you believe you can consistently follow through. Some might be 10-minute sessions, some might be 30 minutes or more. If you miss a session, reschedule it, or just let it go and look forward to your next scheduled practice. If your intention is to explore improvising, the structure might be scheduling weekly improv, just noodling around on your instrument or trying my improvising exercises, watching jazz, rock, or folk YouTube videos, and planning monthly visits to jazz and folk concerts (when it is safe to attend concerts in your town!) Whatever your intention(s), find a structure that you can embrace. Setting unreasonable expectations is counter-productive.

When you have to leave town and won’t be able to practice, set an intention to put practice aside until you return, and name the date that you will resume your practice routine. That way, your travel becomes part of your intention, and not an aberration.

When days or weeks pass in which you didn’t fulfill your intention, let regrets go. Start fresh the following week doing your best to reinstate your structure. This isn’t about perfection, it’s about process. Keep it light and enjoyable. Intentions are about how you want to live your life. Your intentions are driven by your values. A little guilt is ok if it keeps you aligned with an intention, but don’t let yourself slide into shame and negative self-talk.

Be brave enough to live creatively…. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You…get there…by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful: You will discover yourself.

-Alan Alda

Please leave a comment below to share your goals or intentions with our piano community, and let us support you! While we are still battling Covid-19, community support is especially important for our emotional well being!

If you are new to this blog, welcome! I am a veteran piano teacher of almost 35 years! I post free sheet music every month, arranged for beginning to intermediate piano students, plus posts like this one to motivate and inform. I have written piano instruction books for adults over 50 (UpperHandsPiano.com), younger adults and teens (PianoPowered.com), Songs of the Seasons piano sheet music books for seasonal classical and popular favorites, and my latest piano/guitar/vocals books called The Music Remedy – sheet music collections to restore and revitalize the spirit. Check out my books on the websites above, or click below to view them on Amazon.com.

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful winter’s day wherever you are. With love and music, Gaili

January 1, 2022

January Free Sheet Music: Someone to Watch Over Me

Happy New Year Friends!

I always enjoy posting free sheet music for you at the beginning of each month, but on January 1st it’s especially exciting, because it is Public Domain Day! That means that an entire year’s worth of songs (today it is 1926) come into the public domain, and I get to pick one to arrange for you! This year my favorite song to become available is Someone to Watch Over Me by George and Ira Gershwin.

Someone to Watch Over Me has been recorded by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Willie Nelson, and Lady Gaga to name just a few! It’s one of the Gershwins’ most popular collaborations, and I hope you will enjoy playing their beautiful song.

⬇️ Click to print ⬇️

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

Here’s a demonstration of this arrangement:

This is an arrangement for intermediate pianists. If you are a beginner, print it out now for the future, as it will only be free for 1 year, until December 2022. [After that time you can purchase it on Sheet Music Plus where you can find a lot of my arrangements for songs such as White Christmas, Autumn Leaves, Hallelujah and a lot more!]

🎶  I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood. I know I could, always be good, to one who'll watch over me....🎶

I think we have all been feeling a little lost this year, and we all need someone to watch over us, making sure we’re not getting too isolated during this painful Covid era. New cases are multiplying here in Los Angeles, and I hope that you manage to stay safe and find companionship, wherever you are.

Most of you know that I just released some new books called The Music Remedy last month. A thousand thank yous to those of you who purchased these therapeutic song books (No. 1 – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Loss to Love, and No. 2 – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Anxiety to Calm) for yourself or for loved ones! I am hard at work finishing up No. 3 – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Discouraged to Hopeful! Amazon.com is keeping the price at $9.50 for one more week! Also, If there is an older adult in your life whose New Year’s Resolution is to start or restart playing the piano in 2022, please remember that my Upper Hands Piano books make great gifts!

Ok that’s enough advertising! 😆 It’s time for you to get playing! Please leave a comment below and tell me and our Upper Hands Piano community what you are playing now, and what you might like to play in 2022. Let us know if you are playing Someone to Watch Over Me, and tell us how it’s going! Now that we are locked down again, it’s a great opportunity to play your piano more! Try to sit down for at least 10 minutes each day; daily exposure to a new challenge is the very best and fastest way to learn. Don’t get discouraged if it takes a while for you to learn a difficult passage in your piece. Honor your own pace and keep playing!

I’m looking forward to releasing some other pieces that have come into the public domain, throughout this year. I just love arranging songs and pieces for you, and I so appreciate that you have subscribed to my blog! Stay warm, safe and healthy. We can get through these difficult times, apart but together, sitting on our benches, playing music from the heart.

With love and music, Gaili

December 13, 2021December 18, 2021

Announcing… New Books and Free Holiday Sheet Music!

My series called The Music Remedy launched today!

For the past year I have been hard at work researching, selecting, arranging and editing songs and pieces for a new series of sheet music books called, The Music Remedy. For many of us, playing music was the best medicine during the Covid-19 pandemic, getting us through the isolation, the anxiety, and our many losses. In The Music Remedy books we target some of life’s most problematic obstacles, offering songs and pieces to help the musician (pianist, guitarist, vocalist) move through distressing emotions to a more positive and balanced emotional state. Piano players and guitarists who have tested these books report that playing (and singing) these songs and pieces helped them to cope with painful feelings; they also reported that the pieces renewed their optimism, restoring a sense of well-being. Playing and singing the songs in The Music Remedy: No. 1: – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Loss to Love, helped them to extend themselves to people and to open to the idea of bringing a new love into their lives. The Music Remedy: No. 2 – 12 Passionate Pieces to Move You from Anxiety to Calm helped musicians to relax and trust that they would be safe. It’s been so exciting creating music books that might help people feel better (while also boosting their brain power, of course!) But even if you aren’t experiencing these issues, the pieces within The Music Remedy books are beautiful, melodic, and fun to play!

You can click the images above to order on Amazon, or click here to view sample pages and song lists for each book.

This month only, The Music Remedy books are on sale for $9.50! On January 1st they go up to $12.95, so buy now!

On TheMusicRemedy.com you can find links to video demonstrations for every song in each book. I think you’ll find that watching the videos will help you to learn the pieces more quickly and accurately. All of these arrangements range from the early to late intermediate levels. I hope that you will consider giving these books as gifts, or buying them for yourself (as my student Joan says, playing the piano is the best therapy!)

As an added incentive, if you buy ANY of my books this month (Upper Hands Piano levels 1-4, Songs of the Seasons: Spring, Summer, Winter or Autumn, Piano Powered, or The Music Remedy) send a screen shot of your receipt to me at UpperHandsPiano@gmail.com, and I will send you some free holiday music- Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, Deck The Halls, Dona Nobis, I Saw Three Ships, Jingle Bells, Joyful Joyful, Little Drummer Boy, The Nutcracker Suite, O Christmas Tree, Oh Chanukah, Oh Holy Night, Sevivon, Silent Night, and Vivaldi’s Winter. Request one or request them all! That’s just this month, December 2021.

Selling my books helps me to support this blog so that I can continue to offer you free sheet music each month, so I hope you don’t mind my advertising today! Many thanks for your kind and generous support. Happy Holidays friends!

With love and music, Gaili

June 1, 2021June 1, 2021

June Free Sheet Music: Nocturne from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Felix Mendelssohn wrote his Overture (Op. 21) for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1826 when he was just 17 years old, to great acclaim. Sixteen years later in 1842 he completed the score for the play (op. 61) to include his famous Wedding March and this gorgeous Nocturne which celebrates summer, marriage, fairies, nature and dreams.

CLICK TO PRINT A Midsummer Night’s Dream NOCTURNE

Demonstration of Nocturne from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

If you have used my Upper Hands Piano method books for adults over 50, you played the first page of my Nocturne arrangement in Book 4. However I have now expanded that arrangement to include some extra harmonies and the 2nd section of theme.

This is an intermediate arrangement. Beginners can play the top note in the treble staff- that is the melody line.

For the original sheet music click below:

ORIGINAL Mendelssohn’s Nocturne for piano sheet music Download

I hope you are enjoying the increased hours of daylight! The summer solstice (and longest day of the year) is June 20th this year, and Midsummer Night is traditionally celebrated on June 23rd. If you start practicing today, you can play this Nocturne then!

Are you becoming more social after being vaccinated? I am loving getting together with friends and family I haven’t seen since March. There is so much joy in the ordinary pleasures of life. I am continuing to do porch concerts with neighbors and can feel that I am getting better at playing my accordion. I just got my piano tuned and am enjoying playing through this Nocturne as well as some old jazz standards I’ve wanted to learn. What are you playing right now? What are you struggling with in your music? Please leave us a comment, question or observation?!!

Have you been playing the Exercises in Thirds I recently posted? I’ve heard from a few students and piano teachers that the exercises are really helping students play with increased skill and speed, so I hope you will check them out!

Happy June, and have a happy, healthy summer. With love and music, Gaili

Author, Upper Hands Piano: A Method for Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind, Heart and Soul

January 2, 2021

January Free Sheet Music: Look for the Silver Lining

Happy New Year Friends!

I hope this finds you well, and feeling at least somewhat optimistic about 2021. Last year was admittedly abominable, but some of us have been fortunate to have also acquired some new skills, or have experienced some new growth, or other benefits due to the pandemic: I have learned how to teach piano online, and although in-person lessons are more enjoyable, my students have embraced the technology and continued with lessons in a way they never would have dreamed of before it became our only option; since April my husband and I have been hosting sing-alongs on Friday nights that wonderful neighbors we hadn’t previously met attend in their cars; some of my students that have been too shy to perform in my in-person piano recitals, have been participating in my video recitals; and I have been writing some fun new music books and reading great new novels (if you love to read, see my reviews of books that feature older adult characters at RipeReads.net!) with my extra time.

I have heard people refer to these positive aspects of our stay-at-home lives as Silver Linings, a term that reminds me of an old standard I love, called Look for the Silver Lining by Jerome Kern and B.G. DeSylva which has been recorded by so many great artists: Tony Bennett, Chet Baker (uptempo), and Judy Garland (she adds the introductory phrases), and contemporary artists Brad Mehldau and Lane Webber.

I have arranged Look for the Silver Lining three ways. On my website you can print the intermediate/advanced arrangement:

PRINT Look for the Silver Lining (interm/adv)

(The above intermediate/advanced arrangement will only be posted through Dec 2021, so print it now!)

My easiest arrangement is here:

Look for the Silver Lining (easy)Download

And the following arrangement appears at the end of Upper Hands Piano, BOOK 2, and was designed to help you practice your left hand chord inversions:

Look for the Silver Lining (with inversions)Download

Finally, below is the original sheet music for those of you who want to explore the 1920 arrangement:

Look-for-the-Silver Lining (original)Download

Will you please comment below and tell us your silver linings stories? We can all use the encouragement! If you have lost someone you love, then you will be hard-pressed to see any positives, but I hope that playing this song can help some of you to Look for the Silver Linings in your life.

If you are new to this blog, welcome and thanks for joining us! I give away free sheet music every month, and you might want to check out the list on the right of this post for practice tips, flash cards and other helpful resources. One thing you might explore in 2021 is composing a piece or writing a song! If you have always loved Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue but aren’t able to play the original, check out my intermediate arrangement here! Click the links below to learn more about my Upper Hands Piano books on Amazon.

Many thanks for your support throughout 2020, and here’s wishing you a New Year with renewed good health and happiness. With love and music, Gaili

Gaili Schoen, Author Upper Hands Piano: A Method for Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind, Heart and Soul

December 15, 2020December 17, 2020

Happy 250th Birthday Beethoven!

This week we celebrate what would have been Beethoven’s 250th birthday! How wonderful that Beethoven’s body of music continues to thrive to this day, globally beloved for its unique, varied and profound beauty.

I have been in search of a Beethoven piece to arrange for you that would uplift us all, and help us to celebrate this important date; these days we need all the celebrations we can get! I decided upon a piece that not everyone will know, but I believe everyone will enjoy. As far as I can tell, this piece has never been adapted to solo intermediate piano, so you might be amongst the very first to play it!

Click to listen to Beethoven’s CHORAL FANTASY (finale)!

Isn’t it a wonderful piece? Some say the Choral Fantasy sounds a little like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy theme (listen at 1:25), but Choral Fantasy was written first, so perhaps Ode to Joy sounds a little like the Choral Fantasy! The two pieces are also similar in that they both deliver a message of universal love. Here is the English translation (from German) for the Choral Fantasy lyrics:

Graceful, charming and sweet is the sound of our life’s harmonies, and from a sense of beauty arise flowers which eternally bloom. Peace and joy advance in perfect concord, like the changing play of the waves. All that was harsh and hostile, has turned into sublime delight.

When music’s enchantment reigns, speaking of the sacred word, magnificence takes form. The night and the tempest turns to light: Outer peace and inner bliss reign o’er the fortunate ones. All art in the spring’s sun lets light flow from both.

Greatness, once it has pierced the heart, then blooms anew in all its beauty. Once one’s being has taken flight, a choir of spirits resounds in response. Accept then, you beautiful souls, joyously the gifts of high art. When love and strength are united, divine grace is bestowed upon Man. [Translation from Wikipedia]

How amazing that back in 1808 Beethoven spoke of the power of music to elevate grace and to bring people together, just as we keep rediscovering today.

I have arranged Choral Fantasy for EASY and INTERMEDIATE piano, and put them all together for you, as a theme with variations. The first page is the main theme as sung by the choir and is fairly EASY; page 2 is a variation on the theme as played by the clarinets, and it is INTERMEDIATE; and page 3 is a variation on the theme as played by the violins and it is also INTERMEDIATE. I took the melodies, harmonies and chords directly from the orchestral score.

The double bars on each page indicate that you can end the piece there, if the successive pages feel too difficult to play (you can try playing them again next year!)

Click DOWNLOAD (below) to print Choral Fantasy (finale):

Choral-Fantasy Download

You can also print the gorgeous Sonata Pathetique Adagio (intermediate) arrangement I posted here two years ago:

Sonata Pathetique Download

To print more free sheet music including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, please visit my website!

If you are joining us for the first time, welcome! My name is Gaili Schoen and I post free sheet music at the beginning of each month, arranged for EASY and INTERMEDIATE piano. I also post practice tips, worksheets and flashcards – just take a look at the archives to the right of this post. The free sheet music I post on my website is only available for a year, but when I offer downloads like the ones above, they stay put.

I also love to write music books. I have created a set of piano instruction books called Upper Hands Piano: A Method for Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind, Heart and Soul, as well as an easy-to-learn and brain-enhancing format for younger adults called Piano Powered, all available on Amazon. But mostly I like the idea of creating community here on my blog, arranging free piano music, and supporting adults who are taking piano lessons. Please subscribe above if you would like to be notified of my monthly free sheet music and practice tips. I never spam or share email addresses, ever.

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season, and that you will tip your hat and play a tune to the magnificent Beethoven, one of the greatest and most influential composers of all time.

Please leave a comment below and tell us what you are playing, or what issues related to piano lessons you might like to see me address in the future. I’d love to hear from you!

With love and music, Gaili

December 1, 2020December 15, 2020

December Free Sheet Music: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

One of my favorite holiday rituals is listening to Tchaikovsky’s enchanting Nutcracker Suite. Though we won’t be able to attend the ballet in person this year, there are several online performances we can watch, and of course we can play his beautiful music on the piano.

I love the mysterious Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy for its playfulness as well as its dissonant harmonies and E minor key. Tchaikovsky used the celesta for his piece, but it sounds beautiful on piano as well!

I have written two arrangements for intermediate piano: one for the intermediate level 1, and one for the intermediate level 2 players amongst our blog subscribers. Print them both if you are not sure. If you feel more comfortable with the level 1 arrangement this year, you might be ready for the level 2 arrangement next year! I can only post the level 2 arrangement on my website for a year, so if the year has passed, leave a comment below and I will send you level 2.

PRINT Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy LEVEL 2

If you’re not quite ready for level 2, level 1 is also quite challenging:

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy Level 1 Download

As always, remember that the fingering I wrote in is just a suggestion. If you find a fingering that works better for you, that is perfectly fine. Just be sure to cross out mine and write in yours. You will learn faster if you use consistent fingering.

In other music news, this month would have been Beethoven’s 250th birthday! He was baptized on December 17th 1770, so the guess is that he was born a day or two before that. To celebrate I will post a free arrangement of one of his pieces around the time of his birthday, so be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already!

What is your favorite Beethoven piece? He was such a prolific composer, it’s difficult to choose just one of his beautiful pieces.

I hope that you are maintaining good physical as well as mental health, wherever you are. Playing the piano can help. If you know of anyone over 50 who might like to play the piano or to refresh their piano skills, please keep my Upper Hands Piano books in mind as holiday gifts! I also have a parallel series for adults under 50! It’s called Piano Powered. There are links below if you would like to check them out on Amazon.com.

Until Beethoven’s birthday, stay warm and well. And thanks so much for following my blog! I hope you find the sheet music enjoyable and the piano skills posts helpful!

With love and music, Gaili

Author, Upper Hands Piano: A Method for Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind, Heart and Soul, Piano Powered: An Innovative New Piano Method To Power The Brain And Feed The Sou l, and Songs of the Seasons: Winter Spring, Summer, and Autumn