Hello again, everyone!
I've just been cleaning out my sheet music, which has given me time to reflect on a few things about my playing. I feel it's probably best to give backstory now, for the sake of preventing any confusion, as my playing experience has been... rocky, to say the least.
If you don't care to read through it all (I wouldn't blame you), feel free to skip to the last paragraph.I started playing piano as a small child, learning how to read music at the same time as learning to read books. My first instructor was a church pianist who hardly managed to get me through a basic method book over the course of the year, but to no fault of her own. Looking back, I don't think I was mature enough to be learning the instrument, and when I changed schools the next year and started on their lesson program (it was a private school), my immaturity was paired with a bad teacher who tried to force me into classical music even though I was a child who just wanted to experiment. I would cry through lessons and practise, eventually throwing tantrums so bad the teacher would have to walk me up and down the hall until I calmed down. I didn't learn chords until my third or fourth year playing, and even then, I only knew how to read them. My knowledge of theory only encompassed what was needed to read the songs in my method books.
Near the end of elementary school, I switched teachers. This lady was convinced that any mistake I made was an effort to sabotage her lesson business, and we would regularly engage in shouting matches about repertoire (at this time in my life, I just wanted to play musical accompaniments... don't ask me why... and she wanted me to play smooth jazz) and my abilities. She often told me I wasn't good enough for certain things, one of her favourites running along the lines of "you aren't good enough to play this piece with emotion, and anyhow, that's not what music's for". Two years of that, and I was frustrated and insecure, and I quit lessons.
In the years that followed, I began to love piano. I started listening to jazz and classical of my own accord, and started arranging some of my favourite rock and punk songs for solo piano, learning theory as I went. However, my playing was extremely damaged, especially my technique. I could read sheet music for diploma level pieces, and I knew what to do to play them, but I had the technique of a grade four student. I have been doing exercises daily (these are my favourites:
https://pianoexercises.org/exercises/philipp/philipp-complete-school-of-technic.pdf), but the gap between what I know and what I can do is so large it's frustrating. I started playing keyboard a few years ago, really focusing on it this past year as I've gotten a teacher again, and it's the only time I really feel like I have fun playing the instrument anymore. My teacher is like a mentor to me, and in the past few months alone I've learned more than I have in the past decade of playing. However, I still want to play the classical pieces I've grown to love, despite my lack of ability.
I'm coming upon my thirteenth year playing keyboard instruments, and the high school I attend has an extremely competitive music program. For example, last year a freshman won the school's piano competition with Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor. This doesn't much help my lack of confidence. Also, my hands are very small, meaning that some pieces I love to listen to, such as Brahms Sonata III, are painful to play.
So, now that all of THAT is explained, I'm looking for a piece that will help with my confidence and ability. I can ask my instructor for help, as they are well-versed in classical
playing (not so much classical pieces, hence my asking here), and I've taught myself pieces such as the Grave portion of Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique, Mendelssohn's Lieder Ohne Worte op.19b no.1, several parts of Bach's WTC, and almost all of Ravel's A la maniere de Borodin. My favourite composers are Khachaturian, Ravel, Shostakovich, Gershwin, Brahms, Prokofiev, and cliche as it is, Beethoven. Any ideas?
Topic: Repertoire Advice -- Feeling frustrated and "behind"