Piano on Dave Hogan

Way Out West - My Final Grade 2 Piece

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:17 +0000

I’m sharing my final piece from the ABRSM syllabus Grade 2 titled Way Out West by Peter Letanka.

Here’s the performance:

The Journey

This piece kept me really busy! I spent way longer on this than any other piece so far.

The tempo is quite quick at 116bpm but with a “rolling lazy” feel in 6/8 timing. Bars 17-24 feel entirely different and I still struggle with this sounding right. It’s a complete contrast switch but the piece is great fun and unique to play. Unfortunately the sheet music is copyrighted and therefore only available to purchase. The ABRSM 2025/6 exam books contain it should you wish to read it.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 22:15:30 +0100

It’s that time of year when Piano practicing includes something a bit more seasonal. My tutor gave me a basic arrangement of this classic Christmas song, which is something completely different to what I’ve previously learnt.

I didn’t manage to get this polished for the holidays but it’s at least recognisable. I learnt various chords studying this piece and used the pedal. I’m still learning and trying to remember lifting between chord changes. This sheet music has no pedal markers or fingering which was great for studying and coming up with what I felt worked for me.

Drifting Away - Faithless Piano Cover

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 21:33:00 +0100

I’ve just come back from an amazing weekend at the Isle of Wight Festival 2025. I watched Faithless played on the Friday night (20th June) which was an incredible end of the night on the main stage. During the set, I was struck by an old song I haven’t heard for years with a great melody. I actually think I’ve heard the Paradiso Remix version before and not the actual song. Anyway the song is called “Drifting Away” which has this cool repetitive piano melody. Now I’m back in the land of living today, I went off to YouTube to find how to play it, but I couldn’t find any sheet music or video tutorials.

Mozzie - Grade 2 Piece

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 20:00:00 +0100

I’ve been away from recording progress recently but despite that, I have been keeping up with my Piano practice and learning. My excuse for not recording is mainly due to the jump in complexity from Grade 1 to 2. I’m also concurrently working on three pieces, Mozzie (this), Écossaise in G and Moderato since I last posted Anglefish.

Here’s where I’m at with it so far.

Angelfish - My First Grade 2 Piece

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 22:25:00 +0100

Here is my first recording of an ABRSM Grade 2 piece 🐠 titled Angelfish. My tutor gave me this as one of the three Grade 2 pieces I’m currently working on. This piece is from the ABRSM 2021 & 2022 Piano Grade 2 syllabus (List C, No. 2) written by Anne Crosby Gaudet.

As always, it’s very much a work in progress, but I wanted to share and document my progress so far.

Building a Basic Piano Chord Explorer

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 22:30:00 +0100

I recently created a simple web-based tool to help visualize piano chords as part of my ongoing piano learning journey. The Piano Chord Explorer was built to quickly visualize chords for another project I’m working on, but I thought it might be helpful for others learning piano and music theory.

The Tool

The Piano Chord Explorer is a simple web application that displays piano chords and their inversions with sound playback. You can:

Fresh Air - My Third Grade 1 Piece

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 15:45:00 +0100

The third ABRSM grade 1 piece I’ve been learning is a piece titled Fresh Air by Andrew Eales. Again another unpolished performance but getting the notes and rhythm mostly right. As with all grade 1 pieces I’ve learnt so far, I know I still have work to do. The biggest issue being my dynamics and articulation.

The Journey

At first glance this looks like an easy piece (and of course, it is as it’s a grade 1) but there are a few things that kept catching me out. Holding doing the E whilst continuing playing other notes in bar 1, 3 etc… took my brain forever to get right.

Sneaky Business - My Second Grade 1 Piece

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 21:35:00 +0100

I’m sharing my second recording of a ABRSM grade 1 piece 😱 titled Sneaky Business by Martha Mier. My tutor gave me this as my second piece to learn. This is from Jazz, Rags & Blues, Book 1 and is part of the ABRSM 2023 & 2024 Piano Grade 1 syllabus.

Again it’s by no means a polished performance but happy with the progress and will continue to work on it but also move on to other piece.

Allegretto in C - My First Grade 1 Piece

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 22:05:00 +0100

I’m sharing my first recording of a ABRSM grade 1 piece 😱 titled Allegretto in C by Anton Diabelli. My tutor gave me this as my first piece. This is “No. 3 from Die Ersten 12 Lectionen, Op. 125” and is part of the ABRSM 2023 & 2024 Piano Grade 1 syllabus. I’m not sure if it’s in this years 2025 syllabus?

It’s by no means a polished performance but I felt it’s good enough to move on to other pieces now. I’ve probably spent about 10 hours on this piece and played 100+ times.

My Piano Journey

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 23:03:00 +0100

I’ve been a lifelong consumer of music and I love pretty much all genres. Music really hits me emotionally. I love live music, blessed with the Isle of Wight Festival and the local music scene here, and visited many orchestras and music venues over the years.

Despite this, as a kid, I never really explored music. I just consumed it. I had a school borrowed acoustic guitar for a few weeks but that was it. Then something prompted an impulse purchase of a guitar for myself when I was 25. I was a typical noob but did eventually get weekly lessons with local guitarist Matt Kellett.