Top played pieces, their correlations and defined paths

[keyb0ardfweak]

Hi,

I am curating a list of top pieces played or requested by students and anyone who enjoys playing the piano, both amateurs and professionals.

So far I have found..

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/features/best-piano-pieces/
https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/7-best-known-classical-piano-pieces
https://www.cmuse.org/classical-piano-music/

My aim is to find correlations between each piece.

Let's say we want to play the Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 #2 in Eb Major.
What are the ingredients to make this possible? Intuitively, we might think of spending lots of hours playing until it sounds right. The reality, is that there are a set of tools that can help us learn music faster and efficiently. There are lots of techniques out there from books and websites.

Many people can not afford music lessons. It is also true that some people might find it easier to play a specific piece due to their unique individuality.
We might find someone who can play this piece incredibly well despite not having any formal music lessons. These types of people might have done things differently, and in consequence, they might have played a piece or set of pieces that gave them particular skills (etudes, exercises...) that led them to play this particular piece. This can also be applied to pieces they might have played afterwards.

If we could get into the minds of each and every pianist in the world and get all this information to see a pattern, I am fairly sure that we will get a defined path on what to do and not what to do to avoid being stuck in a plateau that prevents us from developing our skills, technique or musicality among other factors.

There are many approaches to solve this, and the first example I can think of is Spotify's collaborative filtering. Based on user's experiences and preferences, they compare all of the other data in their database to find the best song(s) and/or playlist(s) that will match their preferences.
https://benanne.github.io/2014/08/05/spotify-cnns.html

Suppose you are new to piano. You have never played it before but would love to be able to play "La Campanella Etude" by Liszt. You could check how professional pianists got there with a defined path. Saving you time from learning other pieces that your school, conservatoire, book, teacher, parents, etc. told you to get to the top.


The final question then is..

What do I need to do to play "Piece X"?
The answer itself is complex to answer, but if you go deeper into the complexity, you can find a simple answer, which would be.. to start with the Basics (in the case you are a total beginner)

Another question that appears is..
Do we need to develop technique first in order to tackle any piece? Or should we develop it along while learning pieces gradually?

Let me know your thoughts,
Thank you