Twister by Wendy Stevens

Wendy Stevens is a piano teacher and a wonderfully imaginative composer. She has a new piece that is hot off the press from Hal Leonard. Any student who is around level 2 of a method book will enjoy this piece. The Hal Leonard Student Library is leveled differently than most of the well known method books. So this piece is labeled Level 3, which is about Level 2 in most books.

Twister is an exciting, energetic piece with easy accidentals that  put it in C minor.  Since it is ingeniously written in 3/4 time,  a late elementary student can get the  feel of 6/8 before he has reached that point in his lesson book. There are no eighth notes and  it  is mostly written hands separately in five finger positions.  Since Wendy is a piano teacher herself, she knows what students like and what they are able to play at this level. Your students will impress their  family and friends with the fast sounding tempo, minor sound, and the broken C minor chords.  It is so much fun to play, your student will be happy there is a repeat and a long coda on the last page.

The reason I am featuring this piece here is because, frankly, it’s hard to create an exciting sounding but easy to learn piece at this level.   I played this for a student at the suggested tempo and my student loved it, but sadly thought it sounded too hard. When I showed it to him, he was so excited, because it looks easy and he knew he could play it. I suggest you try this piece with a student at your recital this year. Hal Leonard has been publishing some good solos lately, so check them out. I hope they will publish more of Wendy Steven’s  music.