The opening of Clementi's Sonatina (Op. 36, No. 1) is, I think, familiar to many piano students. I like it well enough, but because it's a little on the peppy side (which is less to my taste), I opted to learn (i.e. memorise) another sonatina by Clementi (Op. 36, No. 2). Still, I played through this one twice (so far). I think sonatinas are in general a good area for me to try my abilities now and to gain experience using some of the technique developed by playing scales. After doing some internet research, it seems that sonatinas are given at late-beginner / early-intermediate stages of piano development, so I figure I'm somewhere in there and should start working on them.
Theoretically, the "hard" parts of this sonatina are the quavers. However, since they are basically scales in C major, they're actually not hard at all. The trick is to get them up to a considerably higher speed than I'm used to playing in songs proper. The trick, actually, is to balance the speed at which I can play scales in isolation (fast) with the speed at which I can play the other stuff (not fast). I'm getting better at that, but not so much in this song. This passage on the right begins with an interesting set of descending dyads played staccato and ends with an ascending C major scale played legato. It's pretty cool. More on sonatinas in the one I actually learned.
Alan Chan's rendition
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