what to focus on

[maestoso]

I've been taking lessons for a month or so now and i feel they have helped me. my dilemma is i'm not sure what to focus on. my teacher has me working on the "raindrop prelude" which is cool and i play it well, but i feel like i'm losing interest in playing lots of repertoire. i am an artist at heart and i like to create my own things. i'm pretty good with theory and structure but i would like to go more in depth. how should i approach my instructor for direction, cause he is really cool and  helpful but i don't want to spend a year perfecting a piece cause that is where every lesson seems to go. should i quit and just work on theory and technique? kind of torn any input woud be appreciated.

[preludium]

my dilemma is i'm not sure what to focus on.

Well, how are we supposed to know what is best then? I'm basically in the same position after having started with lessons one month ago. My goal is to compose, but in order to do it decently one has to know the literature. At my first lesson I came forward with a list of pieces I want to play in 5 to 7 years. The teacher probably thought I'm nuts showing him this list with the complete WTC, Brahms Intermezzos, Skriabin, Rachmaninov... So he knows at least what I'm after and that I'm aware of the fact that it's going to be a long road. There is a vast amount of great pieces out there and knowing the personal taste of the student the teacher can find the best way to achieve the goals - that's their job. I want to know what the great composers thought when they wrote a piece, so I have to analyse them. Some of their decisions were of a technical kind, like the choice of the key. This is not only about what chords you can grasp but the same intervals sound more dissonant when played at a lower pitch. So who chose what to achieve which effect? You can find such things only if you can play the pieces well enough.

should i quit and just work on theory and technique?

Theory and technique is learned best from the pieces of the masters in my opinion. I don't see any contradiction. By the way, my teacher doesn't think I'm crazy anymore. He knows it now.

[maestoso]

Theory and technique is learned best from the pieces of the masters in my opinion. I don't see any contradiction. By the way, my teacher doesn't think I'm crazy anymore. He knows it now.

no i meant quit lessons. my teacher doesn't seem to really focus on different levels of playing ie pianissimo and dynamics and such, more focused on just playing the notes. i still will play repertoire to learn technique but i am just feeling like i will be stuck repeating for months if not years. i have no problem with commitment and discipline but just taking lessons to be able to play whatever pieces i am assigned and that be the extent of it i can do that on my own.

[preludium]

Probably dynamics comes later. I just started with the Chopin Prelude op.28/4, which is technically almost trivial, apart from one jump in the left hand. This piece is ideal for working on expression. Just ask your teacher what he has in mind and if there is a long term plan. Suggest some pieces that you like and let him choose the ones he thinks are suitable or similar in style. That's how I do it and it works great. One month isn't enough to know whether you are going to work on one piece for a year. And the raindrop prelude doesn't seem so difficult to me that it would be necessary. One piece that I find very rewarding is Skriabin's Prelude op.11/13. It's a real beauty and even easier than "Für Elise", so you can work on expression soon. It's a bit hard to read because of the key Gb major, so I think it would be better to learn it by heart quickly.

In your situation I would wait for at least two more months and then see if it goes into the right direction with the teacher. If you're not satisfied with how things are going on then just talk to him - you are the one who pays the bill. 

[mad_max2024]

I think if you don't like the way your teacher works, you should switch teachers before considering quitting lessons altogether.
I've self-learned for a long long time before I took up formal lessons and trust me, I know what kind of bad habits and small mistakes can haunt you after that kind of learning.
You don't have to just learn to play the piece, try to analyze it and understand it's structure if you're so interested in composition. Ask your teacher for help if necessary. Also try to learn theory outside classes from books or WWW.
Experiment at the piano and fool around with the notes at home.
But if you have a teacher, you have someone to turn to when thing go sour and to point out your mistakes before they can become a problem.
If you feel that you are not making progress with your teacher, talk to him and speak your mind, if that still doesn't work then just switch to another teacher, there are both good and bad teachers after all.
But I would think twice before quitting lessons altogether and going through the painful and frustrating process of self-learning.

Hope it helps
[[]]

[Bob]

You could always get a second teacher, a composition teacher.

Or take the current teacher and cut back on "already composed" pieces, and add some of your own.  A half/half solution -- Half yours, half of the already composed stuff.

[overscore]

i am an artist at heart and i like to create my own things. i'm pretty good with theory and structure but i would like to go more in depth. how should i approach my instructor for direction, cause he is really cool and  helpful but i don't want to spend a year perfecting a piece cause that is where every lesson seems to go.

If you like him, I'd say keep him. You can easily learn scales and chords out of a book at home and not have to pay for it. Once you understand those fully it's dead easy to improvise or compose and you can play your experiments to him, which hopefully will help him understand where you're coming from.