Your Ultimate Goal

[Antnee]

I'm curious as to what your ultimate goals in your pursuit of piano are. I hope to perform someday. I've only been playing for a year and recieving lessons for two months, but me and my teacher are working on the heroic polonaise, perfecting Appasionata (mov. 1), she's also given me a Scarlatti sonata. I've been progressing quickly and I feel confident that I will meet my goal.
   
   What's your goal? To be the best ever? To perform? to someday be able to play that one special piece? Be a teacher? Or to just make music to your fullest potential...?
                       -Tony-

[comme_le_vent]

my main goal is to be the greatest pianist who ever lived.

simple as that. and if you have heard my playing , you would realise that this is a perfectly reasonable ambition    

[rlefebvr]

A legend in his own mind.....

[comme_le_vent]

A legend in his own mind.....

quite

[Noah]

my main goal is to be the greatest pianist who ever lived.

simple as that. and if you have heard my playing , you would realise that this is a perfectly reasonable ambition  

The compulsive liar strikes back.

[L.K.]

I don't really have any ultimate goals in my piano playing because I'm playing just for fun. Though, I have some pieces that I want to learn duringg this year.

[comme_le_vent]

The compulsive liar strikes back.

quite

[squinchy]

To be able to say that I am a pianist.

[Not just someone who can play the piano, but someone who can actually play.]

[As if that made any sense at all..]

You know how some kids say, "Lookee me! I'm a pianist!" and then play the beginning of Fur Elise with the wrong rhythm/notes/everything else, but it still sounds sorta like Fur Elise because they have the first nine notes down pat? And then other kids say, "Wow! You're a great pianist!"

I don't want to be anything like the kid playing Fur Elise.

[goalevan]

comme lets get a recording of you playin somethin nice

thanks in advance

[Legato]

I'm curious as to what your ultimate goals in your pursuit of piano are.

i do not believe that we are just shadows, cast on the ground as the sun and moon wills it, because the world flows like a river and all things change. we are partly carried by the current and partly able to steer our course. i do not take for granted that what is here today will be the same tomorrow because it will change; even if you try to paddle against the current in order to stay in the same place, eventually, you will grow tired and become too exhausted to swim at all. then the current will drag you as it wills and you will be unable to travel the path you choose. when you are young, how to swim is not immediately known to you. but you will learn because you will navigate improperly from time to time and you will come to understand the truth of what is good and what is bad. and for this reason i do many things. and for this reason i study piano.

Rob

[faulty_damper]

"Your Ultimate Goal"

Ultimately, I will die.  My goal at my death:  To be able to play the piano better than I could before this time.

That is my ultimate goal.  To die with the ability to play the piano.  Socrates said something about "truth".  Playing the piano is part of that "truth" though only a fraction of it.  And even then, this is just an illusion of truth of me thinking "I can play the piano".  But to my misfortune being granted the gift of self-realization, there is no "truth", just the truth of whatever manner I choose, through the course of my life, to define its meaning.  Of this realization among similar "surrogate activities*" I have and will partake in through to my end, I will have realized by my gift that there is not a defining line of the concept of "life" and as a result there is not a "death" for that life.  No death; no life.  And that is only part of the Truth he was referring.  And yet knowing this, my behavior changes in no significant way: I still practice and play.

*surrogate activities - term from Kaczynski's, Industrial Society and Its Future.

[Legato]

Ultimately, I will die.  My goal at my death:  To be able to play the piano better than I could before this time.

right on FD!  this is exactly what i was saying.

Rob

[steveolongfingers]

my goal is to learn
1.) the first book of preludes and fugues-J.S Bach
cant stand them, but it'd be cool to play them all
2.) the 32 beethoven sonatas
3.) Chopins Preludes
4.) all the schubert Impromtus
5.) Rach 3

those are my goals to have those perfected

[comme_le_vent]

my goal is to learn
1.) the first book of preludes and fugues-J.S Bach
cant stand them, but it'd be cool to play them all

why would it be cool to play music you cant stand?

i NEVER play anything i dont LOVE, why waste time on things you dont even like when you can play music you fuckin LOVE!

[comme_le_vent]

comme lets get a recording of you playin somethin nice

thanks in advance

define 'nice'

and i wont be recording anything until i get a decent piano

[Motrax]

Definte "decent."  

Although I'm spoiled and own a baby grand by the good graces of my parents, I play on all manner of broken upright pianos provided by my school. Certainly it's more difficult to play on bad uprights, and recordings won't sound as good, but I think most of us would be reasonable and take that into account when listening to a home-made recording.

So I'll start the ball rolling. Here are the two recordings I've ever made, neither of which is particularly impressive. They are taped with a 15-year old hand-held tape recorder, so the sound quality is quite a few degrees less than magnificent.

Turn the volume up if you don't hear anything, these tend to be pretty quiet.

Scarlatti's Sonata in D minor, K. 9. The beginning measures seem to be missing a couple notes. I don't remember missing anything (I played this over and over again until I had it pretty perfect), but I guess the recording speaks for itself. My apologies.

https://www.polarisboard.org/motrax/Scarlatti_Sonata_9.mp3

The second movement of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, "Moonlight." I take this pretty fast, my teacher's always telling me to slow down. But I like playing it this way (sans mistakes), so whatever.

https://www.polarisboard.org/motrax/Beethoven_Moonlight_2.mp3

I'd like to hear recordings of others, not just Mister Comme Le Vent. And I'd also like comments/criticism about my renditions of these two little pieces.

~Motrax