Taking my piano playing to the next level

[chauchalink]

I've lurked this forum for some time, so I have an idea of the community, but I'm new here..

Anyways, a little about me.
I'm a music major at a University, however I was only introduced to music (on an academic level) my first year of college.  I am third year at the moment.  When I say introduced, I mean, I just learned the order of the notes on a piece of staff paper at that point in time.  After 2 few years of studying music and taking introductory piano classes I can play a few pieces.  I am not a very good sight reader (perhaps I can sight read the most basic pieces) but I am very dedicated.  My introductory piano classes were filled with other music majors, however they did know how to read music extremely efficiently, and I was significantly disadvantaged.  By the end of the 2 years I was told that I played better than all the other students in my class, with a much more challenging piece than they played, something I am very proud of. 

Basically I want to know any advice you can give me to take my piano to the next level.  I have to audition to get into future classes, an aspect that makes me very nervous, and so I don't have much direction at the moment.

Current repertoire:
Chromatic Ragtime (this is a piece probably specific to the class it was part of a final examination but I still play it daily) I can play it quite easily

Prelude no. 4 Op 28 Chopin in eminor.  (the dynamics in this piece are the difficult part, but I can play this piece with ease)

Prelude no. 15 Op 28 Chopin in DbMajor-Raindrop Prelude (I practiced this piece for 4-6hours a day for about 10 weeks, quite challenging at first but I can now play it with ease) *

Sonatina in G major Beethoven both movements (this piece is very easy for me)

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*Raindrop prelude is the piece I played at the recital where I was told I had a great performance


I am the type of student that will focus on difficult sections of songs for hours (days, weeks) at a time to perfect it, and grinding is not an aspect that bothers me.  What I was wondering is, looking at my current repertoire, if anyone would give me advice as to what's next?

I am not too familiar withe Grade system, I always the same pieces at different grades, which is just confusing.  I very much prefer a challenging piece to an easy piece, I get bored with easy pieces quite quickly. 

I am extremely comfortable with the pieces that I can play, and others tell me that I give good performances. 

any advice would be greatly appreciated

Sidenote : I looked at the fantasie impromptu assuming that it was way above my playing level, but after a few days of practice I'm starting to the 3 in one hand 4 in the other timing down .  This piece is quite challenging but so was raindrop prelude when I started it.  Should I continue, or is my time better spent elsewhere?

[faulty_damper]

I am the type of student that will focus on difficult sections of songs for hours (days, weeks) at a time to perfect it, and grinding is not an aspect that bothers me.  What I was wondering is, looking at my current repertoire, if anyone would give me advice as to what's next?

Research on learning shows that it's best to diversify if you are learning tasks.  That means instead of only focusing on the difficult parts, you should also focus on various other pieces that you may not even be interested.  The difficulty isn't what's important but the variety is.

From my own experience, which mirrors yours, focusing so long on just a few bars resulted in a net learning of very little.  That is, I actually accomplished very little considering all that time spent over a small section.  However, when I stopped doing this and also focused on more pieces or the entire piece, my net learning rate actually increased quite significantly.

[lojay]

Take a look at "An Introduction to the Performance of Bach" by Rosalyn Tureck.  You can download a copy from this post.  I also linked to performance examples in that thread.

Anyway, I've recently finished all 3 Books and I would strongly recommend this to even advanced pianists.  If you follow Tureck's instructions, you'll probably find all pieces in the Book I except the first study extremely easy; however, I suggest you listen to the recordings that Tureck made and get your playing to that level before moving on.  Just getting the pieces to tempo with decent sound isn't of much value.

Book II and III are probably of appropriate difficulty for you, but do not skip Book I or you'll be doing yourself a great injustice.

After doing the contrapuntal study in Book II, you should consider taking on other Bach Inventions and Sinfonias.  If you're particularly ambitious, do a WTC Prelude and Fugue. 

[chauchalink]

@faulty_damper mmm, I do agree with you on the diversity of learning tasks, in the past however I had a class which provided me with things to work on that were very different every week.  (harmonization, sight reading, different clefs, combining 3 voices, rhythmic challenged etc.) Since I am no longer in that class (it was only a 2 year series) I don't know where to look to find other exercises or diverse pieces.  Should I just try playing everything that sounds remotely interesting to me?

@lojay I've downloaded a copy from that thread, thank you very much.  I will definitely look into this, and I understand how important it is to have a good foundation and so I will definitely not skip over Book I by any means.  Where can I find the recordings?  There are only a few on the thread, should I youtube the rest?

[lojay]

Here is a link to a playlist with all the pieces:

&index=1

[faulty_damper]

Should I just try playing everything that sounds remotely interesting to me?

If you are working on technique with all that time you are spending, then the other pieces you should work on will also be about technique.  This will reinforce the main pieces you are working on as well as diversity and help shape the necessary techniques in the main pieces.  It doesn't matter what the pieces are, as long as you are focusing on the technical aspects.  If you were focusing on musicianship, then alternate pieces should be focusing on musicianship.

Anecdotally, one of my teachers said that if he had technical problems on a piece, he would put it aside and work on other pieces, and in 6 months, he would go back to it and the technical issues disappeared.