Confused student about pieces to play!

[savvygal]

Hi, everyone, I found this forum and I need some advice.  I'm an adult playing piano again and took as a youngster (played classical).  I'm at about a six level with some work and I'm playing a few piece that are a Level 7, BUT they require a lot of practice. 
I've been working on Bach's two part invention No. 13 for over a year and I'm almost done with it but it still needs work for perfection.  Then I got a Scarlatti piece I've been working on and now I realize I don't like it. 
I loved my Chopin Polonaise piece in G minor I did in relatively short time.  BUT I love playing Xmas carols!  I think it's because I can play them!  I'm so confused.  Do I want to play contemporary or stick with those harder pieces that get to be laborious!  I'm not sure what I like!  Anyone going through this? I feel like life is too short to spend hours and hours and hours on pieces that are so much work!  I enjoy one, but my teacher gives me like three of them!

[hfmadopter]

I think if it's taking you over a year to get a two part invention together right now, then you should consider backing up a bit. You're bogging yourself down with unnecessarily harder work than your present level. Soon enough your hands and mind will get back in shape, meanwhile work on things that you can exercise both in without a big struggle. So back up in level of material, keep one piece a bit more advanced to put your extra effort into. The fact that you like the carols and enjoy them mostly because you can play them supports my thought on this.

I've done the same thing myself since I returned to piano ( and funny, I've found joy in playing carols and hymns as well). I was away a really long time, figured backing up to level 7 work would do it for me but ended up a few months on level 3 work and presently more stuck around level 6. Ya I can do level 7, have done a couple but it's a battle I wasn't ready to take on, never mind beyond that. Like you with your invention, it just takes longer than it really should. So I found all sorts of music I have enjoyed and even performed ( for family and friends), that I could get together in less than a months time, then spend a couple of weeks perfecting them before I played them realistically for some one.. My level is slowly rising, I did have some medical issues that slowed me down last summer and fall though. Even so, I'm pleased with my progress and I'm pleased to just be playing again. Coming up in late April to May, I will be back at the piano now for two years.

The key to all this , enjoy yourself !!!!

[carl_h]

I do believe that you should challenge yourself to progress, but not all your pieces should be like that.
What is more important: If you take a piece to challenge yourself, you must love it! If you don't, you will lose your drive to practise it or you will do it without the thought and concentration it needs.
Also, remember that if you prevail on working on a hard piece, the satisfaction will be awesome once you master it.

Talk to your teacher about him assigning you too many pieces like that.

Have fun practising.

[savvygal]

Thanks you guys, kind of my same thoughts.  I do practice quite a bit in the winter time (six to ten hours a week appx.) and I, too, am into this two years now.  
HFM, can you tell me the pieces you played that took you a month or two.  Are they all like one pagers?  That is where I am having difficulty, trying to decide what I like!  I spend a lot of times going through my old books and listening to music on the internet and going to the music store and nothing strikes me as awesome!  
I have told her about the difficulty and also in the Czerny exercises, which takes me weeks to master one of them and I don't see how I'm really gaining a whole lot of technique when it's like learning a piece!   I like Elton John.  Do you guys do his stuff?  And some of the Disney pieces are nice!
I guess I would feel like I'm not really a true pianist if I'm not doing the classic-type composers.  Is that dumb?

[hfmadopter]

Thanks you guys, kind of my same thoughts.  I do practice quite a bit in the winter time (six to ten hours a week appx.) and I, too, am into this two years now.  
HFM, can you tell me the pieces you played that took you a month or two.  Are they all like one pagers?

Several popular pieces that I did some arranging on as well. Several New age pieces. A Chopin Nocturne ( might have been closer to two months on that). I dug Fur Elise back out and got it working in a couple of weeks and then put it back aside.  Two Bach Inventions, not fully up to speed but working so as to use as a study for other pieces. I also am working on one now as well, till work got hectic, now settling back down. Little Prelude, two Anna Magdalina Pieces and two from Schumman's Album For the Young ( The Wild Horseman and off hand I forget the title of the other). A bunch of level 2 things and level 3. Some Mozart, the two studies in F ( those two are 1 page , yes. K1c and K2). Most pieces ranged between two and six pages though. Most of the popular pieces and New age range between maybe level 3 and 6 and average 5 pages each but have been melodic and fun to do with people enjoying to hear them.

Most of the Christmas Carols I just played off the sheet but I did do extensive work on maybe three that just needed extensive work. But most I didn't even follow the bass cleff on, I went off the guitar chords and played my own bass through those.

I've downloaded scale and chords sheets and apply them as I did up a key I haven't been in for so many years. That has helped get new pieces into my hands faster.

Non of this memorized incidentally, except for a page here or there. basically, I go digging around and listen for something I want to play. Not of it is perfected, except I have done a couple of Christmas Even performances that I brought up to a respectable level. Those were mixed music but mostly pop, New age and carols. Non of my classical work is up to my own personal standard to perform yet, not even Fur Elise that I played out so many times with decades ago.

[savvygal]

Thanks so much for taking the time to give me that response.  I am familiar with some of those pieces as I do have Music by the Masters' book.  I also did a search at imslp for anna M. and here's what I've come up with.  Are these the pieces you are talking about?
https://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/e/ef/IMSLP296002-PMLP10219-Bach_JS_Songs_and_Arias__BWV_439-518__EdBreitkopfNaumann.pdf
They sound nice as I listened on youtube and I'm sure more to my ability to play them.

I agree that I need to backpedal.  I have expressed to my teacher that these pieces are just too difficult for me to master in a reasonable time frame.  Then I start reading how lots of folks on this forum do not do any exercises!  Another confusing subject?!!
 should have started with my First Lessons in Bach book, but instead I just had to do the Bach Invention No. 13, which isn't easy for me, but hey, it's almost there!  I sure am making slow progress at this venture.  I have improved in tone quite a bit by relaxing my hands.  Again, thanks so much.  I think we both are kind of in the same situation.   Good luck, keep me posted on your progress!
I just checked the level of my Brahms and it's a 7.  No wonder it's taking me a long time to do the first page!  And my scarlatti is a level 6 but it's fast!  You're right, the pieces that I can play nicely after a short time are level three like my beethoven sonatina.  Yes, I may get out my Fur Elise -- good idea!  Don't know why I didn't want to relearn it since it was memorized as a kid!    Check out this Czerny piece.  It's nice and it's a Level 3!  https://www.pianostreet.com/czerny-sheet-music/piano-piece-op-792-1-c-major.htm Pains me to say that level!   HA!

[slane]

Here's some suggestions

Anna Magdalena (already suggested)
Kabalevsky 30 pieces for children (I love them)
Burgmuller progressive etudes which get harder, hence the progressive, and are a much more musical alternative to things like Czerny. I've seen these referred to as "student savers" because recalcitrant suddenly get a new love of piano on being given these pretty pieces.

Those three are  really beloved of music teachers for ages.
Since the pieces are easy and you'll only be playing for a few weeks, you don't have to love love love them, just extract the lessons and move on.

You and your teacher should read this ...
https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/the-surprising-power-of-quantity/
and maybe this
https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/top-5-reasons-why-its-taking-so-long/
I'm thinking the last point is the relevant one here.


My study plan is to have a queue of slow moving hard pieces and then a faster queue of easy pieces.
So while struggling away with what I think you'd call level 5, I have a bunch of level 2 pieces that I fly through. So don't give up your bach prelude, but leaven it with some easy pieces.

[hfmadopter]

Thanks so much for taking the time to give me that response.  I am familiar with some of those pieces as I do have Music by the Masters' book.  I also did a search at imslp for anna M. and here's what I've come up with.  Are these the pieces you are talking about?
https://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/e/ef/IMSLP296002-PMLP10219-Bach_JS_Songs_and_Arias__BWV_439-518__EdBreitkopfNaumann.pdf
They sound nice as I listened on youtube and I'm sure more to my ability to play them.

I agree that I need to backpedal.  I have expressed to my teacher that these pieces are just too difficult for me to master in a reasonable time frame.  Then I start reading how lots of folks on this forum do not do any exercises!  Another confusing subject?!!
 should have started with my First Lessons in Bach book, but instead I just had to do the Bach Invention No. 13, which isn't easy for me, but hey, it's almost there!  I sure am making slow progress at this venture.  I have improved in tone quite a bit by relaxing my hands.  Again, thanks so much.  I think we both are kind of in the same situation.   Good luck, keep me posted on your progress!
I just checked the level of my Brahms and it's a 7.  No wonder it's taking me a long time to do the first page!  And my scarlatti is a level 6 but it's fast!  You're right, the pieces that I can play nicely after a short time are level three like my beethoven sonatina.  Yes, I may get out my Fur Elise -- good idea!  Don't know why I didn't want to relearn it since it was memorized as a kid!    Check out this Czerny piece.  It's nice and it's a Level 3!  https://www.pianostreet.com/czerny-sheet-music/piano-piece-op-792-1-c-major.htm Pains me to say that level!   HA!

You don't have to stay at level three, it's to get your hands really back into the piano, or that's what I used it for. I know I am capable of much higher level work but that wasn't the point. The point was my hands and even mind were totally out of pianist condition. So I worked to get them back in. Even so, i enjoy some of the works back there.

Hate to clue you in but Bach is always a struggle !!!!! Those Inventions are made to help your hands also. Good to have one going on. I don't try to bring them to performance level really, I'd never perform them anyway but they are so good for your hands. My present work includes one and Mozart K397. It's taken this amount of time to get to the Mozart, I downloaded that music more than a year ago now.

Your Bach link works but my computer seemed to bog out loading the music. Non the less, Anna Magdalena, the entire set, is available here at Piano Street. Click on the composers links near the top of the page. I downloaded a lot of music from there on my Gold membership. It's worth the entire years membership but even if to just go a couple of months to have access to that is quite a find.

[savvygal]

Thank you all for your help; I really appreciate it.  My teacher did suggest some of those composers but we didn't expand on what level at this point.  She is in love with Gillock for some shorter pieces (not sure about those since we've completed book 1).  
I have another question, if you don't mind:  She has assigned me the Czerny eight measure studies comprised of 160 exercises.  It takes quite some time for me to master one of those, like a month.  Is this really good technique practice since it's not flowing at all for quite some time?  Thanks!  
Great suggestion because I need to try to master some shorter faster pieces to get the hands moving!  
You're right, a gold memebership might be worth it since trying to access the internet for some of these is quite laborious.  Hey, I have 150 bucks of losing lottery scratch tickets sitting here!  DUH!  One is always hopeful!  Music is the same!!! HA~
P.S. I do plan on performing my Bach No. 13 soon.  I'm getting that good at it!  Thanks for the inspiration
Slane, great articles --- THANKS!