There’s so much of it in print, so little of it that you want to use.
In this blog I’m planning to work my way through the contemporary (meaning somewhat recent, or at least, still in copyright) piano music I love and use, as well as reviewing new publications I am looking at in my quest for great new material.
The shame of it seems to be that for many piano teachers Bartok’s Mikrokosmos drew a line in history, and they are reluctant to use anything very much that has been written since – unless it is just ‘for fun’. Further, the profession’s collective propensity to start beginners on white notes with both thumbs moored on middle C makes some of the brilliant contemporary contributions to pedagogical repertoire to be (at first glance) far too advanced, when in fact these pieces are perfectly designed to celebrate what young fingers, wrists, arms and brains (belonging to beginners) can and do enjoy doing.
Elissa Milne 