First-Grade Pieces book by Marcel Grandjany: Music for Kids

These easier pieces by Marcel Grandjany are great for beginning students to learn correct harp techniques.

For beginners, First-Grade Pieces for Harp starts with one finger of each hand, and only the treble clef. The 17 pieces, composed by Grandjany or Jane Weidensaul, progress up through all four fingers, 2-note chords, and both clefs. Fingerings included. Keys are C, 1 flat, or 1 sharp. 16 pages.

Includes: Drum and Bugle, Patrol, Song, A Little Sad, The Anvil, Just Walking, Choral, Three O’Clock, Treble Clef Song, Step by Step, Lullaby for Violet, Little Waltz, Midnight Stars, Passing By, Barn Dance Memory, Melissa, El Numero Uno.

Born in Paris in 1891, Grandjany studied with celebrated harp instructor Henriette Renie from the age of eight, and later with Alphonse Hasselman. Grandjany received the prestigious premiere prix at the Paris Conservatoire in 1905, at the age of 13. At seventeen he made his harp debut with the Concerts Lamoureux Orchestra.. He appeared with Maurice Ravel in Paris in 1913. During World War I he played the organ at the landmark Paris church la Basilicque du Sacre-Coeur, which was completed in 1914, the year that the war began. Grandjany made his London harp debut in 1922, and appeared in New York in 1924. He eventually settled in New York, and became a U.S. citizen in 1945. Grandjany taught harp at Juilliard until his death in 1975, where he was a tremendously influential teacher. He was also instrumental in the founding of the American Harp Association. A consummate performer, he also wrote many outstanding solo and ensemble compositions for the concert harp.