Playing pieces you don't like

[sissco]

It is hard to find something about this subject. But Bernhard has allready tons of links about it  Anyway...What do you think about this? It is really difficult for me to practice and memorise pieces I don't like. I am playing all the heller etudes with my teacher at the moment, and it takes monthssss because they don't interest me (well....the most of them...some of them are really beautifull!) So.... 

And one little request...can someone rank the nocturnes of john field in easiest, medium hard for me? I mean...compared with eachother

[thalbergmad]

I don't play pieces I don't like. I have never done and i never will do.

One of my teachers insisted I play Bach, so i left her.

It serves no purpose.

No idea about the Field, only ever played one Sonata of his.

Thal

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

Yes, Berhnard and I have discussed such matter not such a while ago. . You need to tell your teacher that you don't like the etudes and she may perhaps switch to something else. I am in the lucky position of loving the etudes my teacher assigns, so I play them. It is a plausible thought that your teacher will just say, 'suck it up and do it'. A teacher knows best. I am not familiar with Heller, or his etudes for that matter. What do they teach? What level are they? I am curious.

[debussy symbolism]

You don't like Bach Thalb?

[counterpoint]

I'm shocked too...

[jre58591]

One of my teachers insisted I play Bach, so i left her.

It serves no purpose.

youre my hero. i too have been forced to play things i dont like (ie mozart and bach). i still respect them for being great composers. i just dont like playing their music.

[thalbergmad]

You don't like Bach Thalb?

I do like Bach, he gave us some excellent material for transcription.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

youre my hero. i too have been forced to play things i dont like (ie mozart and bach). i still respect them for being great composers. i just dont like playing their music.

Thats the way i look at it too. I recognise the genius, but i dont like the music.

Mozart Sonatas are aimless note spinning.

There is so much that has been composed, why play things you don't like.

If you dont like Bach, play Scarlatti.
If you don't like Mozart, play Clementi.
If you don't like Beethoven, play Dussek.

The list is endless.

Thal

[bernhard]

It is hard to find something about this subject. But Bernhard has allready tons of links about it  Anyway...What do you think about this? It is really difficult for me to practice and memorise pieces I don't like. I am playing all the heller etudes with my teacher at the moment, and it takes monthssss because they don't interest me (well....the most of them...some of them are really beautifull!) So.... 

I completely agree with Thal. If you don´t like them, don´t play them. But then this is hardly shocking news, is it?

I am also curious. Heller did not publish his etudes as a method, but rather as collections (Czerny op. 740 and op. 399 on the other hand are methods: if you are so inclined you should play all of them). So why exactly are you required to play all of them?

Originally Heller wrote them as stepping  pieces toward the more virtuosic repertory of Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt. Or even as replacements for the technically challenged. So you will find many pieces that sound like simplified versions (and indeed that is what they are) of Chopin and Liszt Etudes, for instance. He never meant them to be played in their totality (although one can do it if one wants), but rather, you should play a selection of them that is conducive to the romantic repertory you aim to conquer eventually. Also he was not so much addressing the “mechanism”, but musicality. Hence most of his etudes are really more like Mendelssohn´s Songs Without Words than like etudes. In the same vein I would be very surprised if your teacher asked you to play all of the SWW.

And do you really mean all of them? There are several hundred. You probably mean op. 45, 46 and 47.

In any case I would be interested in your teacher´s explanation.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

I don't play pieces I don't like. I have never done and i never will do.

One of my teachers insisted I play Bach, so i left her.

It serves no purpose.

You may wish to give your testimony here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2107.msg17496.html#msg17496
(Why do you hate playing Bach?)

 

[bernhard]

And one little request...can someone rank the nocturnes of john field in easiest, medium hard for me? I mean...compared with eachother

John Field’s Nocturnes (he invented the genre!) There are 18 of them ranging in difficulty from grade 6 – 8 (ABRSM). My favourite is no. 4 in A. Benjamin Frith has recorded the whole set for Naxos, and there is a Schirmer´s collection edited by none other than Liszt!

In progressive order of difficulty:

Easiest (Grade 6 ABRSM):

No. 1 in Eb – no. 5 in Bb – no. 7 in C – no. 9 in Eb – no. 10 in Em – no. 11 in Eb – no. 13 in Dm – no. 14 in C – no. 15 in C – no. 16 in C

A bit more difficult (grade 7 ABRSM):

No. 2 in Cm – no. 3 in Ab – no. 4 in A - no. 6 in F – no. 8 in A – no. 18 in E

Most difficult (grade 8 ABRSM):

No. 12 in G – No. 17 in E

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[sissco]

And thanks again  hehe...About heller:

Yes I mean the opus 46, 47 and 48 etudes. He said that this set has all the basics like scales, musicality! etc. on a rather "easy" level. And I have to agree with him I really learn from them. But don't you think it is pretty difficult to find pieces on my level that I like with the same principle.

Edit:
    
Romance In E Flat (Nocturne No.19) H.30    
Sicilienne In G Minor (Nocturne No.20) H.28
Pastorale In E (Nocturne No.21) H.54/65      
Nocturne No.22 In E Flat H.64

Are this also nocturnes? Because you said there are only 18 nocturnes

[thalbergmad]

I completely agree with Thal.

I have printed this out and framed it.

Thal

[jre58591]

If you dont like Bach, play Scarlatti.
If you don't like Mozart, play Clementi.
If you don't like Beethoven, play Dussek.

funny, i was thinking the same thing. too bad the colleges dont think the way i do (for auditions).

[bernhard]

I have printed this out and framed it.

Thal

I thought this was common knowledge.

[bernhard]

And thanks again  hehe...About heller:

Yes I mean the opus 46, 47 and 48 etudes. He said that this set has all the basics like scales, musicality! etc. on a rather "easy" level. And I have to agree with him I really learn from them. But don't you think it is pretty difficult to find pieces on my level that I like with the same principle.

What is your level? If it is between levels 5 - 8, most of the piano repertory is actually at that level - and some of the most beautiful pieces ever written.

You see,  up to the beginning of the 20th century there was a huge market for sheet music for amateur players - since there was no TV, no Radio and no computer games, almost every middle class house and above had a piano, and it was the focus of the fmily leisure. So composers could not just write ridiculously difficult pieces. They had to write wonderful pieces, with a certain degree of difficulty (preferably they should sound more difficult than they actually were) so that amateurs could tackle then. Heller fits in just this market.

But also, most of Chopin´s pieces (the Waltzes, the Mazurkas, several of the preludes, some of the polonaises) are not that difficult and fall well within this range of difficulty.

All of Mendelssohn´s Songs Without Words (which can claim - as your teacher said of Heller - to have "all the basics like scales, musicality! etc. on a rather "easy" level").

The great majority of Scalatti sonatas (over 450 of them) are also on this level of difficulty, and so is a good number of Bach´s keyboard works.

Handel Suites, Haydn sonatas, most of Mozart´s solo keyboard works are also within this range of difficulty.

Between grades 5 - 8 you will find numberless works by Beethoven (including several sonatas), by Schubert, by Schumann, by Kirchner, by Hoffman, by Fibbich.

You can add to them Prokofiev - which has a number of easy and yet highly effective pieces, Shostakovitch, Gliere, Borodin, Karganov, Rebikov, Liadov, Kabalevsky.

The list goes on and on and on.

And these are only the most famous and well known composers. If you decide to explore the more obscure composers (especially women composers like Amy Beach, Fanny Mendelssohn, Cecile Chaminade, and so on) You will be overwhelmed with the absolutely wonderful pieces totally within your reach.

It is no secret I love Scarlatti, but I would never suggest to anyone (unless they wanted to do it, of course) to learn all 555 sonatas (there are many that I confess to find dull).

Or to learn all 48 SWW by Mendelssohn or all 376 "Souvenirs" by Fibich.

And the main reason for this, is that there is so much wonderful repertory out there that I cannot afford to waste time learnig what I don´t like.

Moreover, it is exactly in the variety of pieces/composers/stules one learns that the range of technique at one disposal will be found. For all my fondness for Heller, there is much that he does not cover - no composer can cover everything.

Like with food, you want variety. Eat just one kind of food and you end up sick.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

And thanks again 

Romance In E Flat (Nocturne No.19) H.30    
Sicilienne In G Minor (Nocturne No.20) H.28
Pastorale In E (Nocturne No.21) H.54/65      
Nocturne No.22 In E Flat H.64

Are this also nocturnes? Because you said there are only 18 nocturnes

er...

I don´t know about no. 22, but the other three seem to me to be a Romance a Sicillienne and a Pastorale.

My edition has only 18 Nocturnes,

But there may well be more - pieces that were discovered after Field´s death and published posthumously.

Unknown Chopin´s Waltzes keep surfacing (some were published as late as 1955). So it may well be that recent editions have added a few more Nocturnes to the 18 I am aware of. Then again, Field did not compose just Nocturnes, but other genres as well. Maybe some modern editor decided that they were similar enough to a Nocturne to fit in with the other 18 (which seems to be the case with the ones you have mentioned).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.