Yeah -- where the heck did that come from?

(Ronald, congrats for being probably the first person who has the amateur competitions as a constant frame of reference even more than I do.)

I do think there's a point to what Ronald said, but in a different way. I don't think most people would get discouraged by a video of Horowitz, but such videos wouldn't be any kind of useful model to follow, not just because of things like tempo but because much of what they do is very complex and sophisticated and of a whole different sort than anything that a beginner or intermediate player should think of doing. I agree with the posts saying that the best is to try just using the score as the "model," but if someone strongly wants to use a video as a model, it would be better to use a 'regular' advanced player doing a pretty standard rendition than a super-high-level pianist.

By the way, I do not agree with the thought that people just play a piece. To me, I am not satisfied if I do not play well. Otherwise, I consider that I cannot play the piece if I do not play the piece well, and I'd rather not to play those pieces.

I paid attention to the teachers whose young students are very successful in competitions. These teacher will not allow their students JUST Play, they MUST play well.

I always wonder how people choose the pieces that they want to learn.
I personally do not pick a piece for competition purposes if I think I won't be able to play well (close to what I see in Youtube), because even pieces that I think I can play well, many times at the polishing stage, those pieces become annoyingly difficult.

Mark, yes, amateur piano competition is always my reference (I must be crazy about this). Honestly, it is very fun goal to achieve, winning or not is not important, but constant improvement is fun.

RS :

This seems somewhat of a no-brainer, to use a popular term. Does any of us choose to learn/play a piece if we think we are not going to play it well, eventually? Our initial hopes and ultimate results may exceed our grasp, when, as you say, we come to the "polishing stages", but surely most of us don't pick to work on pieces unless we hope and expect we will eventually be able to play them well.

I think some of us have enough musical judgment, too, to rely on our own standards, not competition standards - whatever that might mean (and how might competition standards differ from our own high standards?) - to determine how well we play; we play the best we can, and our musical experience, judgment and common sense tell us how good our performance may be.

As for "just play[ing] a piece" as opposed to playing it well, there are even times for that.

Regards,

The reason I wonder how people choose the pieces that they want to learn/practice is that many people with piano degree in amateur competitions chose pieces that are way beyond their ability. These people have decent knowledge of what good playing is.

Imagine the choice of people who do not have piano degree and do not have enough musical background, it can be very scary. I think many people often over estimate their ability, because they do not know what their limitation is.

We have a guy in our piano club who always plays difficult pieces. It was a painful 10-12 min of listening to his playing. If he had chosen something simpler, he could have played nicely. He has pretty good technique, but not for Winter Wind Etude level. One time, I asked him "Why don't you practice something simpler?" He said "First, I do not have the patience to polish a piece for a long time, and I knew that these pieces are too hard for me, but it is kind of fun to learn something difficult"