Advice on advancing in piano

[kobethuy]

Hi, I'm an amateur pianist who started playing for over a year now.

A little background on myself:

I'm 19 now and I started taking piano seriously in April 2013 (I had contact with pianos when I was 11 but it was merely some fiddling around). I began playing on an old 60-ish keys midi keyboard for a year, playing mostly easy pop songs arrangements, some Yiruma, etc... Those times were nightmares. Then I upgrade to a digital piano (the Casio Px700 model). By that time I got a little bit better, switching to play classical pieces as well as some ragtime. Note that I self-taught myself up until last July when I finally take piano lessons.

My current state:

Somehow ,I have no idea why I did this, but I chose my repertoire to be mainly Bach. I know for a beginner, playing Bach's preludes and fugues was a difficult task. In fact I have only started playing Bach last May, sums up at 3 months of playing. And moreover, I have never finished any of the inventions and sinfonias (to my surprise). Yet, I have successfully practice and recorded Bach's Prelude & Fugue in C Major WTC Bk I and Fugue in C Minor. I'm currently working on Contrapunctus 9 ( have been about 3 weeks and I'm in the middle of the piece). Aside from Bach, I can play other composers like Mozart, Beethoven, etc... moderately/ somewhat ok. I studied music theory by myself too so tackling pop pieces is no problem.

My concern:

I know that I took an unusual approach, my techniques are being shaped to play counterpoint ( I made use of Guerrero's finger tapping techniques). I'm wondering if I'm going to meet any difficulty that may present themselves as I progress due to my "skipping"/unconventional approach ? BTW I love playing Bach, his pieces brought me so much joy (and badass-ness, IMO )

My piano teacher won force me to follow any certain path but rather guide me on the way I've chosen (he told me that he thinks I know what I'm doing in other words I have a goal)

Please give me your comments and advice on my situation Any comments will be much appreciated.

Bonus: Here's the video of me playing WTC BkI Fugue in C Major, I was sooooo nervous when I recorded this, luckily it only took me 2-3 takes to get it done. I have little problems performing to other people though, except playing in front of cameras and such. I practiced this piece in about a month, thanks to the concentration and fingering help from my teacher.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=687419787977884

Many thanks

[carl_h]

Hello,

Well, it is important to play what you love. If you love Bach, there is no harm in playing his music, only benifit. If you want to play a lot of different music styles, you should obviously study different composers from different eras.
I like to have 1 Bach (barok) project running at all times, while working on romantic repertoire. I don't care much for the classical period so I don't study it.

To take your playing further you will probably need an acoustic piano, you will miss out all the 'magic' if you don't. I also have a digital piano for when I'm unable to play on my acoustic and I'm always happy to get back to my acoustic after that. Digitals are just too limited as they are now.

Your video doesn't work for me.

Grts,

[kobethuy]

thank you for your opinion for now I can't afford an acoustic piano though, let alone storing it in my house I will check the video

[hmrichter]

You will probably be fine. Baroque music is the foundation of most modern harmony, and as long as you have what I call a "back up" piece (a piece that's easy enough to work on on the side while you work on a big project, but that you still are learning from), you should be fine.