Piano Pieces for the Cheerful Mood

I love it when something good happens completely by accident.

In my quest to teach myself Estonian (it's coming along slowly), I often end up doing things like buying books based on nothing more than the cover and the two words in the description I can actually understand.

This has worked out quite well as far as cook books are concerned (a future post entitled "cooking in a foreign language" may continue this theme), but I have bought a few items that end up sitting on my shelf because they were either not what I was after or I'm not quite "up" to them yet.

During a period where I was buying books that came with CDs (aiming for audio books, so I could hear the the words as I looked at them), I accidentally bought a work by Katri Hallik-Rebane called Hea tuju klaverilood, which I later learnt was referred to in English as "Piano Pieces for the Cheerful Mood".

At the time, I was disappointed to note that it wasn't an audio book - it was a collection of sheet music with the pieces recorded on CD. I wasn't interested. I had bought this book to listen to the language, and couldn't be bothered listening to music that appeared to be written for school students.

I mean, the packaging didn't exactly "sell" it as music you'd listen to if you weren't a music teacher at a primary school. It was written by a music teacher, there was some weird framing story about a group of animals playing the songs for the sake of it, and each song had titles like "A piece about the Lemur Girl Katta, missing her home in the rain forests in the sunburnt desert". The whole thing just made me think "fifth grade music class end of year presentation".

How many times have I bemoaned the way adults dismiss things without giving them a chance because they think it's "only for kids"? I should have known better.

Anyway, the book and it's CD sat, unexplored, on my bookshelf until I decided to challenge myself with the baritone horn by sight-reading a piece of music I had never heard before. I learnt two things as a result - one: piano music is not easily played on a baritone horn, and two: these pieces were pleasantly interesting to listen to, and I wanted to hear them. Once I put the CD into my stereo, I realised I had left an absolute gem sitting unappreciated on my shelf.

The pieces are short, but interesting and technically challenging for the casual pianist, and the tunes have that weird incidental quality to them that would make them ideal for a movie sound track. You could easily picture a scene with someone walking to town accompanied by "A piece about Madame Giraffe, who looses her head on a shopping trip."

Okay, Katri, if you ever read this, I would like to offer some constructive criticism: you have got to pick better names for your pieces. Something a little less unwieldy would be great.

The accompanying CD was an interesting concept. There were ten piano pieces, but twenty recordings. Five of the pieces were recorded with a backing "band" (the band consists of Peeter Rebane playing a number of other instruments - most of which sound like they might be electronic, and perhaps synthesised). At the beginning of the CD, we have those five pieces with the "band" and Katri Hallik-Rebane on the piano. Then we have all ten pieces as piano solos, followed by the backing music for the first five pieces so you can "play along".

The weird thing is, it's all "background music" worthy. I think the piano solos are the strongest part of the CD, but even the backing music on its own is pleasant to have in the background while one is reading or doing the dishes.

I've had the tunes in my head for a couple of weeks now, and I don't mind having them there in the slightest.

If you ever get a chance to listen to any of these pieces I would recommend that you do. They really are pleasant piano pieces that go perfectly well with a cheerful mood.