Are some pieces simply impossible to learn?

[tomt1990]

Hi Everyone!

I know its quite a subjective question, but here goes!

in your opinion, are some piano pieces simply impossible to learn for someone who isnt blessed with virtuosity?

I'll give an example...
In my case - I didnt start learning piano properly until I was 21 (just over 2 years ago). Had lessons as a child but gave up when I was 12 due to parents not being able to afford it. I have certainly surprised myself with how I've progressed since starting again - I'm taking my grade 6 exam (in the UK) start of next year - but by no means do I consider myself anywhere near a virtuoso pianist!! (HAHA!). But I look at a piece such as Chopin's Scherzo no. 2 or his Fantasie op 49, and I think that they are simply too difficult to ever learn! would you agree with that statement? would you say that someone would be able to play a piece like this, and do it a certain amount of justice, after time learning to play the instrument? or would it take natural virtuosity, and/or a higher level of piano education, in order to pull a piece like that off?

I'm very interested in your thoughts!

[awesom_o]

in your opinion, are some piano pieces simply impossible to learn for someone who isnt blessed with virtuosity?

Nobody is blessed with virtuosity. Real virtuoso musicians work incredibly hard. Nobody has 'natural virtuosity'.  Everyone works at it.

Of course, there are plenty of musical works which are impossible to learn for someone who doesn't work incredibly hard.

I'm not sure what your question is. 

[outin]

I feel like most advanced pieces are impossible to learn until you have gained a certain amount of proficiency. On the other hand I encounter impossible things all the time, which reveal themselves to be quite possible after some time and some practice, so probably impossibility is just relative and will move to a different level of literature if one just keeps at it long enough.

Some pieces are simply so long and complicated though, that I doubt they are possible to learn without being able to sight read properly. Just trying to memorize everything at once seems like an impossible task. Unless one has very good memory skills.

Of course one might never be able to play as fast or as beautifully as someone else, but that's a different matter...

To really answer your question I'd say one needs to play the piano for a decade or two with good practice habits  

[cabbynum]

This is mostly on topic but I've got another question related.
Do you ever start a piece and it just doesn't work at all.
The Bach prelude and fugue no.10 for me just never got going right. I couldn't get it to start right or anything so I stopped. It was by no means the hardest piece I've ever played but it just didn't work.

[falala]

I think the answer is most definitely "yes" for the vast majority of people.

Developing advanced technique on an instrument like the piano comes down to a combination of factors: starting at an early age; having high quality expert tuition from as early as possible; incredibly large amounts of highly focused, deliberate practice; and probably several other things. (I don't include "natural talent" here as I don't believe there's any evidence for it and you don't really need to believe in it for the point to hold - but for those who do, that could be one too.)

Like most things, there's a parabolic curve involved in how the amount of these things in place translates into results. You might get a pretty good result by having most of them in place most of the time. But as you go upwards, it takes more and more of the necessary input to achieve less and less difference of output. So things like the early start and best possible tuition, AS WELL as incredibly large amounts of practice, become essential rather than just beneficial if you want to play like Lang Lang, as opposed to playing like your piano teacher.

The technical difficulties of the repertoire match this pattern of expertise development. The majority of the repertoire is accessible to anyone who had a reasonable amount of reasonably high quality tuition from a reasonably young age, and who practises reasonably hard. Then you get pieces that require a bit more than that, and then a bit more. And then you get things like some of the Liszt Trancendental Etudes or Rachmaninoff concertos that are simply never going to happen, unless all of the necessary factors have been firing on all cylinders for a long time. There's no point looking at that as just a question of the amount of practice from this point onwards; you need to have led the life necessary to have gotten you in the ballpark in the first place.

I learned the piano pretty seriously as a kid though not as seriously as some people. I'm now a decent player and a teacher. I certainly don't practise as much as I should, although there have been periods in my life when I practised much more. I know what I did and didn't achieve during those periods, and I know there are some of those works that I'll just never get near, no matter how much I practise. I have every admiration for anyone who takes up the instrument in adulthood and does well at it, but the same must be even more the case for them.

I don't think it matters though. The great thing about te piano is that there's such a vast and endlessly fascinating repertoire available for whatever level you play at.

[winstonian3]

The Liszt Rondo Fantastique, albeit very beautiful, is pretty much unplayable.
Take a look:

Valentina Lisita actually gives it a pretty amazing effort and shows some amazing technical skill.
Being able to play these type of pieces, and some of the ones you mentioned, require natural ability, but when it really comes down to it, it's all about hard work. Trust me, if you dedicate yourself and have discipline with learning, you will be able to play a Chopin Scherzo, for example.

[nanabush]

I actually just started working on the Fantasy in F minor... and I definitely would not have touched that piece 5 years ago...

The more rep you play, the more 'tricks' you learn for different passages.  Practice habits, methods of increasing tempo, sight reading ability, harmonic understanding, etc.

If you jump too far ahead, it will be very gruelling getting a piece like this down.

Consider the time when you were at a grade 1 level (or even lower!); you probably would have looked at a grade 6 piece, and been like "holy crap... people actually play this stuff?!!?"... I remember when I was really young, a student in the room beside my lesson room was playing the Prelude and Fugue in C minor by Bach (WTC1), and I was completely blown away.  I was also blown away by Fur Elise.

When you keep working through more rep, and you develop naturally, 'the time will come' when you will feel ready to tackle a bigger piece of music.



==

One example of something I would have completely overlooked in the Fantasy... the opening passage.  There are so many ways to articulate the material here, and to emphasize different things.  I didn't consider stuff like this 5-6 years back, and would just bash through and look for the 'hard' and 'fast' stuff...

Something you can do, listen to a lot of music!  Maybe give yourself a 'challenge' piece every once in a while.  You could do something like "Ok, maybe today I will try to learn the opening passage from the Scherzo #2".  Give yourself only 30 minutes, see how much you can do.  Come back a few months later (after having played your normal rep), and try it again.

That's just one example, but I found I would do that a lot.  I tried Jeux d'Eau when I was doing my Grade 9 RCM, and was like "what... how do people play this".  I had no patience, very little attention to detail, and was completely unfamiliar with Ravel's writing... I didn't know that it would probably take a few more years before I could adapt to a piece like that.

[tomt1990]

Thanks for the replies all of you!

Its really interesting to hear the different opinions.

Nanabush - you are absolutely right! When I started learning to play, I would never have dreamed I'd be able to play the music I do now. I actually jumped the gun a bit and started at grade 3 - but I remember preparing for my exam, taking about 3 months to get all three pieces learned. Now, for sight reading practice, I have been using grade 3 exam pieces that I didn't learn for the exam and can play through them nearly straight away (albeit very scratchy preformances!). So I suppose that in itself answers my own question to a certain degree!

I guess time will tell!

But If I can one day sit at a piano and play a chopin ballade or scherzo, I will be the happiest and proudest guy in the world!