"20 Beautiful Piano Solos" is the first in a series of repertoire books by Sarah Bonsignore. The book is made up of simple warmups and many beautiful pieces in a variety of styles. Sarah composed a piece for her mother's 70th birthday the day after Christmas, and two weeks later she had over twenty pieces and so decided to publish her first book.
Sarah drew on her 25 years of teaching experience to compose pieces she believed would benefit the beginner/intermediate level pianist, and also provide some wonderful sight reading material for the advanced pianist.
The collection begins with five simple warmups designed to develop scale technique, how to play triads and inversions, rhythmic fluency, musicality, and confidence. Every warmup is transposed into other keys at the end of the book so that students can begin to modulate and understand key signatures and harmony. The warmups also work to train the ear for chord progressions, intervals and patterns in music.
The pieces are progressive and cover a number of different styles, keys and time signatures. Every piece focuses in on a skill. For example, how to arpeggiate chords in the left hand, or how to play duplets. Some pieces feature the left hand carrying the melody, while the right hand accompanies with chords. And some are wonderful pre-cursors to the more advanced standard classical repertoire. For example, "Waltz for Elise's Sister" is not quite as challenging as Beethoven's "Fur Elise" and could work to prepare a student for the more demanding solo.
Many of the pieces sound more challenging than they actually are, and this was Sarah's intention. As a teacher herself, she knows how much her students love to master fun pieces that show off their ability and artistry, but that are not so challenging that they they feel overwhelmed by the process. Sarah's pieces are beautiful, short and manageable, and many of them would be perfect additions for a recital program. Some of the compositions, like "Midnight Rhapsody", are exciting to play, and others feel more like soothing meditations. "Falling Water"and "Winter Garden" are wonderful choices for unwinding at the end of a long day.
Sarah is currently working on providing tutorial videos for every piece on her SingPlayStudios youtube channel, and she has produced instrumental backing tracks for a few of the pieces which can be found at her artist website.
