Attention disorder pianist!

[Fastzuernst]

Not accually diagnosed yet!

I am currently taking this year to discover my self musically, without a teacher. Luckly I am just (or more) motivated and I have started working on a variety of different works.
The problem is that once the chalenge is gone (when I can play it with correct fingerings, but not quite up to tempo) I get bored and want the chalenge of learning another piece.
Bach works perfectly. Many of the preludes and fugues are accessible in a week, (without being up to tempo of course!). Of course I enjoy the musicallity of these as well which makes them perfect for my attention disorder! I notice also that my technique as well as my ability to learn a piece as improved even by practicing these slowly.

Because I don't have any real plans to perform until next summer, I am looking to build my repertoire and not necessarly getting anything "ready".

I guess I want validation that I am not wasting my time?
But if I am please say so!

[JK]

Its not an unusual thing to find that when you have over come the main difficulties of learning a piece that you then want to go on and look at something else, however I personally would not encourage this, please bear in mind this is just my opinion. By overcoming the technical difficulties you have not learnt the piece, in order to learn a piece you have to have formed some sort of musical understanding of what the composer is trying to say and do. Without this your interpretation will be based completely on instinct and nothing else, instinct is not always reliable. When you do get to that point when you feel that you want to go on to something else, this is the time when you need to start exploring the piece, the harmony, the themes and motifs, the development of the themes and as well as all this there are details such as bringing out different lines and voices. There are also questions of tone and sound to consider, the sort of tone you want and how you're going to achieve it. On top of this you have to consider how you are going to communicate all this to an audience, it is one thing to understand a piece of music and quite another to show your thoughts to an audience. As you can see being able to play a piece should really only be the beginning, by all means explore other repetoire as well but realise that learning a piece is very different from being able to play a piece.

[Fastzuernst]

I absolutely agree with you!
I guess I should have specified that I do go back to these pieces and because I have taken care of the technical problems I am able to focus the most on the musical aspect. Although, even when I am figuering out the technique required I am also trying to think "musically" as well.

I am trying this approach because I don't have specific goals this except to become familiar with as much repertoire as possible.

I have found that if I let a piece "rest" for one month or even 6months I am able to play this piece better than before, usually after only a couple days of slow practice

I also know that these pieces are not performance ready by any means. I would have to spend time perfecting them before I could ever perform them.

Not having a teacher makes me have to focus on my own which is one of the most difficult things to learn, I believe!

[quasimodo]

Why not work things in parallel ?
You start a new piece, learn the fingering and so on and in the same time improve what you already know from other pieces in order to master it and play with musicality, it's just a matter of organizing your practice time.