So, I have this problem. I absolutely love the piano (not the problem) but I get impatient with the boring pieces and I want to play really advanced songs. I can barely read music, and I have quite a bit of difficulty playing hands together. I just finished memorizing the RH of Chopins Fantasie Impromtu Op. 66, now I have the daunting task of memorizing the LH and then putting them both together, any advice on either being more patient with the beginner stuff or playing this piece HT would be greatly appreciated.

Do both. Work on whatever you want, but also work on easier music you are able to read.

It's not about advanced it's about art. Get a book of easier Chopin otherwise it'll all end in tears. Welcome to PW!

I agree.

There are a lot of simplified versions of great material - and there is a lot of great material that is simple enough to manage, but at the same time delightfully interesting to hear. (I personally like Baroque pieces - you can get some very interesting things going on with your hands weaving in and out of the melodies and bass lines.)

If you want to be playing Chopin I think you really have to learn to read music. Again, playing easier pieces to start with will get you rolling.
As I was told my a friend..... you have to learn to walk before you can run!

Welcome to PW, and .. have fun playing!

I would say, get a teacher if you can to help you improve. They are not compulsory, but if you can and you find the right one it will help you improve faster.

Many people on the forum will tell you to do both, some easy pieces and some more long term/complex.

The best part is that you are motivated, if you keep it up everything will go fine!

And remember that being able to touch the right keys is not enough!

Good luck and welcome to PW!

It is perfectly fine to dream about the advanced pieces and to have a challenge piece to work on! But don't work on hard pieces exclusivly. You will need to play a lot of easy pieces to improve your sightreading. And when playing easy pieces you can focus on learning one new technique without beeing distracted by tons of other difficulties. The easy pieces are not as boring as they might seem, because there is usually something interesting and something musical that you can work on even in simple pieces. Though, make sure you practise on as interesting easy pieces as possible. Some method books might have pretty boring pieces, so if you have a piece that seems extremely boring, your teacher is very likely able to find something that is much more interesting.

You're right - you do have a problem - if you're actually sincere, get a good teacher and engage in the hard, tedious, long-term study of the piano in the standard, tried-and-true manner that most serious students undertake for the next 5-10 years - maybe then you'll be ready to tackle a few "advanced" pieces - otherwise, take up video games, or some other form of instant gratification.

JF

Speaking from personal experience, trying to learn difficult pieces before you are ready is an exercise in frustration. There is a lot of what I've heard called "boot camp" that must be learned first - scales, inversions, arpeggios, separating the hands, learning to read music, etc. It is kind of like the Karate Kid movie - "wax on, wax off".

While some won't agree, get yourself a good teacher you like, trust and let him/her lead you. I personally can't imagine doing it w/o one.

Been at it five years now and am finally able to play pieces that I tried at year one but gave up in disgust. Its a lot of fun now.

Unless you are one of those born hard wired to play the piano, be patient and start building your 10,000 hours.

Am I the only one smelling a troll here?

Hmmm, let's see: "impatient beginner"; "barely read music"; "difficulty putting hands together"; and "Fantasie Impromptu". It does seem like a recipe we've seen before.

WTF

Fantasie Impromptu..yes. That's a piece that I won't even attempt until I've demonstrated I can play at least Grade 8 Romantic and Classical.

It is a piece on my bucket list, and perhaps something that I'll try in 5-10 years time, and with a teacher.

I had 4 years of childhood lessons and "paid my dues" with the easy stuff very early in life. (I was a John Thompson graduate)...

Good luck to you trying this as your first piece ever.

I saw a T-shirt at school this week that simply said on the front:

Whiskey
Tango
Foxtrot

It took me a minute to make the connection, but I thought it was cute.

LOL. After much pleading, I gave in and bought my teenage daughter, and devoted Battlestar Galactica fan, a "What the Frack?" t-shirt (on the obvious condition that she could not wear it to school). She was wearing it last Sunday when we went over to my 92 year old father-in-law's house for dinner, and he stared at it for a very long time and finally asked "what does that mean?" Much blushing and an awkward silence ensued.

Battlestar Galactica is magnificent. Science Fiction for intelligentsia! So many messages and threads going on in it about modern and ancient human history.

Probably the best Sci-Fi series since the Twilight Zone (B&W).

Perhaps it's better we turn this thread into a Science Fiction thread, as this OP clearly is badger-baiting.

Thanks for the comments! Btw LaRate... I have no idea what a troll is... unless your talking Lord of the Rings. Anyways, I am working on getting a teacher. The one I'm going to call next week made his living by traveling the world as a concert pianist... hopefully I will be in his good graces and have him take me under his wing. If that goes according to plan, then I give myself 3 months to have the piece memorized HT... IF I continue at my current 3hrs a day practice time...

Haha... That made me laugh

I think the one thing that any one of us can tell you that is essential to learning an instrument is that patience, practice, and baby steps are the most important. Many students end up discouraged and frustrated because they don't realize that this is not about instant gratification and jumping to highly advanced pieces is setting oneself for failure.

If you can barely read music then I don't understand how beginner pieces are too boring? Maybe you are looking at childrens books? I would highly recommend getting a beginner book for adults like Alfreds or Adult Piano Adventures. Any teacher you get is going to start you with beginner pieces because that is the only beneficial way to learn.

Something about Fantasie Impromptu I don't understand. I'm a huge fan of Chopin but for some reason I can't stand that piece. Anyone else feel the same?

lol......... it took me a minute to get that.
First time I've read (or even seen) a musical notation joke, I'm more amused than I should be.

The music in all the method books I tried felt like musical torture to me, but then I discovered the various graded collections of classical teaching repertoire, which contain lots of genuinely musical stuff. I got the collections with CDs so I could listen and choose pieces which inspired me.

Here are some good series with CDs
Keith Snell Piano Repertoire
Succeeding with the Masters, and The Festival Collection
Masterwork Classics

Wow, really Rui? I was hoping to hear you play this one day.

I've read that Chopin himself never liked this piece either because it sounds too much like Moonlight Sonata (the fast movement).

Nevertheless, it's one of the most overplayed pieces by mainly the advanced pianists.

Personally, it's on my MP3 playlist. I love it listening to it.

you are not much different than someone who says

"I am new to karate.. I absolutely love it but I am so impatient.. I can't even do basic things like blocking and punching properly but I am working on a very advanced kicking technique."

I just hope you don't get hurt..

LOL, I played this just now, and thought to myself, "hmmm...that sounds familiar." Like casinitaly, it took a minute to realize what it was...

Ha! He's not only going to "take you under his wing" but also take for a long, wet ride, since with what I would imagine is his highly exorbitant fee you're going to get "soaked" - so you better hang on tightly to your wallet because paying that fee will be the only way you remain in his "good graces".

May I also suggest that you start off with something a little less ambitious - perhaps "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "Jiggle Bells", pieces highly conducive to HT playing.

JF

BTW - a troll is a person who has a fantasy about playing "Fantasie Imprompto" while simultaneously fantasizing about being able to read music.

We really do need a forum entitled " I don't know how to play but am working on advanced pieces" LOL

INTERESTING OBSERVATION...

I did not recognize the Studio Joe riff just by looking at it. But I playing it on a totally silent midi keyboard I heard it immediatly! (disclaimer...I am not a beginner)

I have been working through the Alfred's books and some of the songs are tedious, but I try and look at what they are teaching me...and there is NO song in that book that I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment in achieving the fingering and playing the song. In fact, the songs that I hated in the beginning, I ended up loving just because I mastered it.

I agree with the rest...a baby can't go from womb to jumping Olympic hurdles in a month...don't put so much pressure on yourself. There is alot of beautiful music out there...and better yet, the music that will teach you how to play the music! You can't jump to the end without doing the beginning and the middle.

I have MANY pieces waiting for me...and I pick them up once in awhile, and still find that I can't do them properly..but there WILL be a time when I can do them. I realize that now after starting my 9th month as a student of the piano!

Good luck to you..don't get discouraged...just practice every day!

Nancy

If you continue at your current 3 hours a day of practice time, you will likely wind up with a repetitive strain injury. That much practice time is for pianists who have developed both their muscles and their technique. You may want to back that down for a couple of years.

Learning piano is a marathon, not a sprint.

I'm waiting for any comments on Julliard or Horowitz....

I recognized it by sight (after a little reflection), but when I tried it later at the piano it wasn't the theme I remember. As I remember it, the theme dropped by a minor third after the chromatic half-steps, not a major third (so it would be G#-A-G#-F).

The interesting thing is that I recognized it anyway. Structurally, the visual pattern (the half steps and the drop by a third) triggered something in my memory. Of course, the intertextual context of the whole thread helped me. I'm not sure whether I would have recognized it isolated from the rest of the discussion in the thread. And, of course, in isolation it wouldn't even have been a joke.

(I'm interested in the ways music notation functions as a visual language, so I think about silly stuff like this.)

I laughed when I saw Joe's joke. I didn't actually try it on the piano, so I don't know the minor/major third part. But I knew what it was. It's way better than writing "du du du du, du du du du" to try to put it across

Cathy

I've been on the forum since Nov. of last year, and I've seen quite a few of these posts..lol. " I don't know how to play but am working on advanced pieces". ...maybe there should be a suport thread for this..lol.

Now, here's a guy that may pull off a feat and then some:

The best teacher I had was a former concert pianist who, for personal reasons, had to curtail her performance career and teach. Her rates were very reasonable, and an incredible bargain considering her knowledge, ability, and gift for teaching.

The definition of an internet troll, from Wikipedia…

I'm not sure if anyone is still on topic, but I thought I should throw my opinion in.

OP, like you, I started by learning difficult pieces (Beethoven Sonata's instead of Chopin though). I was advised by another member not long ago to look at Bach two part inventions and Schumann's Album for the Young to start with, instead of jumping right in the deep end.
Whilst I was looking for those on Amazon, I came across this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chopin-Introduct...3632&sr=8-1

There are a lot of good pieces for beginners like ourselves in there. I have just started on Prelude in C Minor.

I have to dissagree. Listen again.

You're right! I didn't listen to the real music first. I just played the single note theme and compared it to my mental image. I guess I didn't want to "hear" a major third because it didn't sound spooky enough.

On the other hand, I have now listened to the recording and looked at a piano arrangement that I found online. The essence of the sound isn't just the theme notes. It's the fact that there is a accompanying line that renders the tune into a series of different intervals. The note in question (the E) is part of a diminished fifth (it's played with an upper Bb). I'll bet that's where the eerie sound in my memory came from.

I definitely used to feel that way. You just have to accept that sometimes you will have to play pieces you don't like. But, keep your eye on the prize and remember that it will all pay off in the end. Maybe you can ask your teacher for some more interesting pieces. Or, maybe you can think about how good it will feel when you master that boring piece and will never have to play it again-Yahoo!

Also, I think the patience takes practice and a slight shift in your mind set. Instead of thinking about how boring the song is think about how exciting it is to be learning to play the piano.
If you don't like the song don't "listen" to the whole song, listen to each note and what kind of sound it produces.

As far as the HT... Learning the whole piece HS does sound daunting. How about doing a few measures at a time. That's how I did it when I relied on memorizing (now I that my reading is improving I don't have to do it that way anymore).

You can also read through the song without playing to get familiar with the patterns etc. Then run through each hand to get a feel for it.

p.s HT will get easier the more you practice

Beginner pieces may be tedious but they are essential for learning sight reading, finger technique, moving hands, playing hands together, and dynamics.

I didn't like learning Jingle Bells as I prefer classical pieces but when I was learning jingle bells it helped me with my timeing and rhythm because it's a song I am very familiar with therefore I immediately heard my mistakes.

I can't wait for the day where I will be able to play Michael Nyman's work from The Piano because that was my inspiration 16 yrs ago. I also know that I have many hurdles to get over before being able to do this.

keep pluggin, don't quit, git 'er done

even if, as many have already presumed is inevitable, you fail to offer a musical interpretation of this piece, the sightreading, dexterity, and other skills you learn in the process will help you with the other pieces you want to learn.

I disagree that you will ruin the piece by trying to learn it now. I believe that even if you teach yourself to play it now, with mistakes, that when you return at a more experienced level of ability, it will be mostly waiting for your return.

good luck, and congratulations on your progress. please share when you are prepared!