Easy piano piece - Annen Polka

[Sherry C]

Howdy folks,

My daughter Mahala took piano lessons for about 1.5 years, and decided that she'd rather play pieces that she wants to rather than the ones that the teacher assigned Thus, I use Composer a lot for finding pieces she wants to learn and then using the Part Wizard to create piano reductions for her. She wanted to learn Annen Polka, but wanted a simple piano arrangement she could master fairly quickly (she also wanted to sing the lyrics for the Beethoven's Wig "Be a Good Doggy Now Rover" version while she's playing ). To that end, I came up with the following easy piano version. For all you aspiring keys ticklers, enjoy

AnnenPolka-easypiano.not

If you have suggestions (I'm not a piano notation expert) please feel free to comment. (I didn't add the lyrics in this one.)

ttfn,
Sherry

[mgj32]

Hi Sherry,
I've heard this a dozen times, probably at pops concerts or recordings make by pops orchestras, but never knew the name. Two observations about the "easy" piano reduction. First, I'd give a lot to still have fingers nimble enough to play those 32nd note trills with more than fingers 2 and 3. Second, in one of the last measures there is a chord that would take a pretty big hand. The lower note is two A's below middle c and the top on is F# above middle c. Unless Mahala has grown a lot recently, I'd just move the F# down an octave. I tried it and it sounded okay to me.

Doggy-gone it, the lyrics sound like they might be fun.

all best,
mgj

[Sherry C]

Howdy MG,

Originally Posted by mgj32

I've heard this a dozen times, probably at pops concerts or recordings make by pops orchestras, but never knew the name.

Same here - Mahala told me the name of the piece so I could find it

Two observations about the "easy" piano reduction. First, I'd give a lot to still have fingers nimble enough to play those 32nd note trills with more than fingers 2 and 3. Second, in one of the last measures there is a chord that would take a pretty big hand. The lower note is two A's below middle c and the top on is F# above middle c. Unless Mahala has grown a lot recently, I'd just move the F# down an octave. I tried it and it sounded okay to me.

Thanks for catching that one in the uploaded score. I actually had changed that in the score I printed for Mahala (there were a lot of those that had to be changed), but I had saved the final version in a different folder. Ooops!!

Doggy-gone it, the lyrics sound like they might be fun.

They are

Be a good doggie, good doggie now Rover
Be a good doggie now Rover roll over
Come on now Rover, come on roll over, come on roll over, Rover boy

Rover I think you’re not even trying.
Any dog can do this, I’m not lying.
I don’t know why you are not complying,
But I’m gonna give you one more chance.

(lyrics by Richard Perlmutter)

Actually all the lyrics in the "Beethoven's Wig" series are not only hysterically funny, but often tell something about the composer and/or the piece. (You can find the website at http://www.beethovenswig.com/) Of course some of them are just plain fun (like Rover), but I have only one problem - I now hear the lyrics in my head whenever I hear the song performed. However, I'll take that, because I also hear my kids humming these classical tunes throughout the day, and generally on pitch to boot. Not a bad trade off at all

ttfn,
Sherry