Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales
The prevalence of pop, game and film tunes in simplified piano arrangements in the latest syllabus publications from ABRSM and Trinity College has led to a healthy debate among teachers and players.
Such arrangements are of course nothing new. It is simply that we are now freshly encountering them in a different context, giving rise to lively discussion about their suitability, broader musical and educational value.
There are issues here that need to be considered carefully, with appropriate attention to context.
A Brief History
Keyboard instruments have a storied history, fulfilling many musical functions. Since the nineteenth century, the piano has sometimes assumed the role of a domestic jukebox, able to evoke other instruments and music in addition to having its own indisputably marvellous repertoire.
Visiting the opera or concert hall in the nineteenth century, patrons could purchase the quickly produced sheet music of the highlights to take home as a souvenir. And there were many reasons that musicians created these easy piano arrangements:
- Entertainment: the piano served as a focal point of family life and socialising; arrangements of popular works provided for their shared enjoyment “around the piano”
- Popularity: making arrangements offered musicians commercial opportunities to reach a wider market of enthusiasts, bringing their latest music to a broader, more diverse audience.
- Education: incorporating well-known tunes motivates students and aids the teaching of music sound before symbol.
Let’s also remember that from Liszt onwards, touring virtuosi would routinely create transcriptions and concert paraphrases designed as much to dazzle and delight audiences as they were to promote the works on which they were based. This repertoire offers its own stunning legacy, but is somewhat separate to the concerns currently under scrutiny.
Whether easy or difficult, two qualities consistently characterise the best arrangements that I have come across. Firstly, they are effective as solo piano pieces in their own right, conceived with alert attention to the instrument’s wonderful qualities. And secondly, they fully respect their source material, however far they divert from it.
A problem with the arrangements now appearing in exam syllabi is that, while some are serviceable, others are less effective. If we are really fond of the original songs, then weak, oversimplified arrangements are best avoided.
Context and Balance
In the case of the good arrangements, here’s a few things to consider.
1. Adaptation: arrangements usually benefit from aural adaptation, going beyond the given notation, and drawing from our reservoir of love for their source material. But realising this scope for creative license makes them less than ideal for any assessment in which notation rules.
2. Inspiration: while enjoying the latest popular arrangements, let’s explore the continuing solo repertoire, expand our taste, and discover a wide range of great piano music. Though useful for developing core skills, most pop song arrangements will soon lose their currency. Let’s balance music choices to include pieces that offer enduring inspiration and abiding long-term value.
3. Performance: when giving a performance or entering a graded exam, we all want to sound our best. Music originally conceived for the piano, written to the advantage of the instrument’s many wonderful qualities, will usually help us shine more brightly in performance than music that was actually conceived with different instruments, voices, and musical effects in mind.
Let’s embrace popular piano arrangements with wisdom, understand their merits, recognise the benefits they offer for motivation, creative development, and above all, enjoy them in their appropriate context.
And in doing so, of course, let’s never forget that, though supremely versatile, the instrument we so love is more than simply a jukebox!
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