What do you play for enjoyment?

[dizzyfingers]

When you just want to kick back and enjoy playing piano music - not learning, not polishing - just playing for enjoyment, what do you play?  Real life examples only!

[brogers70]

Everything I play, I play for enjoyment, especially when I'm learning or polishing. Maybe it would be different if I were not just an amateur.

[pianistavt]

I understand your question.  There are times when practicing feels like work, like when I'm trying to finish a piece and I'm practicing it a lot, the repetition can be fatiguing.  I don't find learning new music particularly enjoyable either.

One piece that I used to play for enjoyment is Schumann's Blumenstuck op 19.  It has a reflective introspective quality.  I rarely practiced it, mostly just played it - to sink into the dreamy vibe.

Here's a recording I made:

[ted]

Everything I play, I play for enjoyment, especially when I'm learning or polishing. Maybe it would be different if I were not just an amateur.

Me too, in music I am much closer to a happy pig than to a wretched Socrates, an unashamed hedonist. My teacher wanted me to be a professional musician, what a disaster that would have been ! If the sounds I create, the improvisations I record, did not make me unconditionally happy I'd sooner stop music altogether and work in the garden. It's nothing to do with discipline or the lack of it, I actually think and work very hard at recording thousands of hours of my playing. I enjoy the discipline but it's self-discipline, not a magisterium of social, economic and academic instructions imposed from outside. That makes all the difference.

[transitional]

Most pieces I learn start with poking around with them for fun, unless my teacher gives it to me. I did a lot of the Schubert sonatas, especially D 845 and 958, without actually learning them so far, as well as a bunch of easier anthologies. Also, I don't typically spend much time refining aged repertoire, so it's usually just played for enjoyment. I suppose I do anything for sightreading as long as it's manageable.

[pianistavt]

Most pieces I learn start with poking around with them for fun, unless my teacher gives it to me. I did a lot of the Schubert sonatas, especially D 845 and 958, without actually learning them so far, as well as a bunch of easier anthologies. Also, I don't typically spend much time refining aged repertoire, so it's usually just played for enjoyment. I suppose I do anything for sightreading as long as it's manageable.

Agreed, Schubert is very enjoyable to learn/play, compared to Beethoven, I'd say more enjoyable.

[lelle]

For me it's typically old repertoire that I really love. I play Chopin's "l'Adieu" waltz at least once a majority of the times I sit down at a piano. I have been doing that since 2014 haha.