Polish or Drop? Ligeti Der Zauberlehrling

[foobarpiano]

My kid is 10 years old and has been practicing Ligeti Der Zauberlehrling (along with another one, but less "crazy") for the past six months. We had two two-week vacations, and at first, she wouldn’t really practice more than 2–3 hours a week for both pieces combined. Slowly, she increased it to 4–5 hours over the last two months. Six hours a week would be the max, and she has a one-hour lesson each week.

She enjoys different Ligeti studies, and this one is among her favorites, but she still has a few other pieces to learn by the end of June. While they’re much less complex, three and a half months can go by really fast…6 months was originally the target to finish the two pieces, and she is still relatively "far" but not that far...

So, while we will most likely keep the other one, we're hesitating to drop the Ligeti.
What would you suggest?

[dizzyfingers]

You’re really over thinking this.

What does your daughter say when you ask her if she wants to continue studying this Ligeti etude?

[lostinidlewonder]

There's plenty of scope for improvement but the playing is commendable especially for the age. I'm curious why at such a young age is music like from Ligeti is being studied? Given the short amount of practice each week I'd think there's room for more engaging works.

[foobarpiano]

There's plenty of scope for improvement but the playing is commendable especially for the age. I'm curious why at such a young age is music like from Ligeti is being studied? Given the short amount of practice each week I'd think there's room for more engaging works.

Conventional practice/teaching doesn’t really work for her.

Right now, in terms of composers, she enjoys Bach and Ligeti the most. She generally dislikes the Romantic era, except for Grande Valse Brillante (thanks to Tom and Jerry). She hates almost everything by Chopin. She also dislikes most Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Alkan, Chaminade, Méreaux, Shostakovich, etc. As for the Classical era, it really depends on the piece.

If it were up to her, she’d be practicing Mazeppa, Spanish Fantasy, Arabesque on the Blue Danube/HR2 (again, Tom and Jerry), or Bach’s Contrapunctus 2. But obviously, her teacher and I vetoed those ideas. While she can reach a 9th, or maybe even a 10th, there’s no point in taking risks, and she’s not ready yet (C2).

These days, we mainly get two types of feedback : teachers who know her say this piece is appropriate for her, while teachers unfamiliar with her context will obviously say it isn’t.

I can’t judge modern pieces that easily, but I do know that when she plays on an acoustic piano instead of our digital one, it sounds so much nicer, I questioned already that 6m ago https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=71619.msg735195#msg735195 .

My gut feeling, it would already require 8-10h practice on a weekly basis and just for this piece over a period of 3-4month+1-3months to polish it for a conservatoire studentnto achieve a convincing performance, here, I am unsure where we are and if we are in a sunk cost fallacy or if the progression is normal given the weekly practice : at most I'd say 20min/45mi, depending if weekdays or weekend, 4 times a week on Ligeti pièce itself.

[essence]

10 years old ?

I wish I could play as well as that (71 years old).

Why not let her play what she wants? Nothing better than playing what you want for motivation.

What does she like about the Ligeti? The technique? The music? To be honest, it irritated me after 10 secs, but maybe it was meant to.

Bach, if she likes it, sounds fine to me.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Let her play what she wants even if it’s too hard

[lostinidlewonder]

Conventional practice/teaching doesn’t really work for her.

What does that mean? Obviously a 10 year old doing such relatively short hours per week with advanced works like Ligeti is not a conventional situation but that doesnt fully describe what constitues conventional teaching, so what exactly does it mean to avoid conventional practice/teaching?

If it's just she learns Ligeti and does short hours per week then this is quite odd. Why not push to increase time spent practicing piano or does she have many other interests and after school activities? If piano is all she does then encouraging more hours is just an obvious priority. If she has tons of extra curricular activities then there's no need to really focus on piano unless you want to start sacrificing other activities and push to increase time with piano.

Right now, in terms of composers, she enjoys Bach and Ligeti the most. She generally dislikes the Romantic era, except for Grande Valse Brillante (thanks to Tom and Jerry). She hates almost everything by Chopin. She also dislikes most Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Alkan, Chaminade, Méreaux, Shostakovich, etc. As for the Classical era, it really depends on the piece.

Why Ligeti though who pushed that onto her? I don't know 10 year olds who self discover Ligeti or even any who would connect with his music.

If it were up to her, she’d be practicing Mazeppa, Spanish Fantasy, Arabesque on the Blue Danube/HR2 (again, Tom and Jerry), or Bach’s Contrapunctus 2. But obviously, her teacher and I vetoed those ideas. While she can reach a 9th, or maybe even a 10th, there’s no point in taking risks, and she’s not ready yet (C2).

A 10 year old reaching a tenth, ive personally never witnessed such things and from a female is even more rare. It seems as well that she needs more exposure to works within a comfortable hand span so there can be works she connects to which are appropriate to learn.

These days, we mainly get two types of feedback : teachers who know her say this piece is appropriate for her, while teachers unfamiliar with her context will obviously say it isn’t.

Her "context" hasnt really been revealed by your descriptions either. Ligeti for a 10 year old generally is a poor decision since theres much better things to develop with.

My gut feeling, it would already require 8-10h practice on a weekly basis and just for this piece over a period of 3-4month+1-3months to polish it for a conservatoire studentnto achieve a convincing performance, here, I am unsure where we are and if we are in a sunk cost fallacy or if the progression is normal given the weekly practice : at most I'd say 20min/45mi, depending if weekdays or weekend, 4 times a week on Ligeti pièce itself.

Learning one piece for half a year is mind numbing.

[foobarpiano]

More private context would be unbelievable unless seeing by oneself.

She practiced between 40-60hours in total, including her weekly time with her teacher, to reach the performance I uploaded.
So while she connects and would like to play more Études from Ligeti, I am unsure where we are and if we are in a sunk cost fallacy, I can't judge the piece, and thus my original post.

[essence]

If she wants to play more etudes by Ligeti, let her.

I sense a degree of controlling behaviour going on here, which is not good for anybody.

You said

But obviously, her teacher and I vetoed those ideas.

which rang alarm bells for me. Why do you think you or the teacher have the right to veto what she wants to do? It makes me angry. Which other areas of her life do you try to veto (apart from actual danger)?

Is the problem the child, or the adult?