January 14 – January 20: Listening Assignment (remember that listening assignments apply to the weeks during which the listening is assigned.)

Frederic Chopin (#1)

• Read the composer's short bio here (no music links need to be watched).
• Read some of Chopin's famous quotes: 
• "Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."
• "When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher."
• "One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to achieve certain unlimited dexterity. A well formed technique, it seems to me, can control and vary a beautiful sound quality." 

• Q. 1. Write out the composer's entire name in your lesson plan.
• Q. 2. What era did this composer live/write in?
• Listen to and watch Lang Lang play op. 10 no. 3 by Chopin here.
• Q. 3. Name 3–5 famous pieces this composer wrote for the piano (or what is now played on the piano, if originally written for a different instrument). Use different pieces if the composer has previously been asked for.
• Q. 4. Name 3–5 stylistic characteristics of why this piece is a part of the musical era you wrote above. (Refer to the new page on the blog on the right called "Musical Period Characteristics" for help.)