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Hi,
In the curse of a year I purchased a piano and taught myself Beethoven's moonlight 1st movement, Pathetique 2nd movement, Chopin's prelude #15 "raindrop" and #4, Bach's minuet in G, and last but not least Schumann's Traumerei. It has been a year of a lot of fun, memorizing and coloring this beautiful pieces. Since I am still learning I'd appreciate it if any of you teachers would suggest a new piece for me. Something that kind of follows the same type: Slow, long-ish, not so demanding of the left hand.
Thank you to all in advance for taking the time to read this post and hopefully to write back.
Aureliano-

Aureliano :

Since you have bought yourself a piano and are learning pieces, it seems that you might be serious about playing the piano.

I suggest that you start studying with a good teacher. Without professional guidance, how do you know how well you learned the pieces you have learned, or that you are even playing them correctly? Under a teacher, your technique will be much more solid, and therefore your progress will be more secure; you will avoid learning bad habits which could take years to correct if left unchecked.

Regards,

Gee, during the curse of next year, maybe I will teach myself brain surgery...

Now, don't everybody all line up at once...one at a time please...

Listen to Bruce, get a good teacher ;-}

Aureliano,

A good teacher is most important when learning classical music.

As I mentioned in another thread, I am working on a Clementi sonatina and my teacher commented that I was playing the scale passages with almost a swing rhythm. It takes an independent observer to catch mistakes like this.

Rich

I do agree with everyone who recommends a teacher. I am like you, I have had very little instruction, and I know I am doing horrible things on the keys. Just wait till I retire.....
In the meantime, you can try your luck at Beethoven's sonata Pathetique, second movement, and some Schubert impromtus. Not easy pieces in spite of their tempi, but possible to play even for us hacks.

First of all let me thank everyone who had a positive answer to my post. Except the person with the "witty" brain surgery remark you've been all very nice. I actually think that one can learn by onself. Ok I took 2 months of lessons and had one recital (played Bach's minuet in G). My teacher -and I don't want to sound pretentious here- was very impressed with my playing. She couldn't belive that my first piece ever was the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata and the second one was Chopin's "raindrop" prelude. She did point out to a few fingering issues and pedaling stuff. She wanted me to learn from zero. Forget the stuff I knew and go back to scales, and other exercises. Basically for two months I was turned into a 6 years old kid (I'm 28) In the end my teacher and I "split" because she wouln't teach me the way I wanted to learn and that is by going through the piece I was learning (at that time Beethoven's Pathetique second movement which I now know by heart)and correcting what I was doing wrong and basically guiding me. So I'm back to teaching myself. I have read a lot of theory books and have the help of a friend who is a pianist.
Anyway, back to my question now that you know more details what piece would you guys suggest?. Again my playing is very good. I am very self-critical, I have to be, I am an artist, a painter (please visit my site www.artmerizalde.com) and the only way to get better is to be honest (to the point of brutality in my case) to oneself. There has to be a piece that I can learn. Please help out. I am done with Traumerei, actually I played it complete from memory this evening for the first time. I am ready for another piece.
And to the person with the brain surgery joke, again. If you have nothing positive, constructive, or even negative (for that you will actually have to hear me play) please don't say anything at all.

Alejandro,

Very interesting artwork. Not the sort that I would sit down and catch in a glance... very abstract. The portraits are a little bit easier. My favorite is the portrait of Michelle.

The suggestion about finding a teacher is a good one. You've had a teacher -- keep in mind that she probably had a very good reason for wanting to teach you the way she was teaching you. There are different methods, but it is possible that what she was doing was the beginning of something that could really have helped you, even if you didn't understand it at the time. (or maybe not!) Trust is very important, especially when you are a beginner.

As for the brain surgery joke -- there is some truth to it. You might be very good for a beginner, but learning to play the piano is a very long and difficult road, just like learning to paint and understand abstract masterpieces. It's fine to go your own way, without the guidance of a teacher -- and you might progress quickly -- but keep in mind that even with a teacher it will take a while, and at each new level you will find that what you thought was "good" before actually had plenty of room left for improvement. You will be surprised by the things that will immediately jump out at you in your practice years from now... things that at this point you won't even notice.

So, I don't mean to discourage you -- I'm sure you play very well. (I haven't heard you, after all!) But don't be in a race. There's no need to cram everything into such a short time, when you might learn much more and play much better by spreading things out with the guidance of a good teacher.

It is not impossible to teach oneself the piano if one is extraordinarily intuitive. There are stories of Walter Gieseking, after having learned to read music was for the most part self-taught. He had amazing powers of reading at sight - there are several of his commercial recordings that are completely sight read. He also had an extraordinary memorizing ability and could visualize playing the piano, fingering and all, away from the piano with only the score, many times on a train or plane en route to his next concert.

Aureliano

I too was self taught starting at 12 and worked hard until going to college. Fifty years later I began taking lessons for the first time. The advice about teachers here is very sound.

Like Ben Hogan (golf) perhaps you can hit each club 3000 times to gain proficiency. In piano terms it would mean taking years and years and making inconsistent progress== meaning you won't know what you don't know.

Interview teachers until you find one you like. I didn't like the scales and exercises either, so we used Bach WTC Preludes and Fugues. They work wonders to develop so much technique.

Happy hunting...

Have you tried Schumann's Romances? They are murder to read, but rather easy to play.
And when you have nothing else to do, sit down and learn some songs without words by Mendelsohn. And, of course, Auf Flügeln des Gesanges. That's stuff that will always charm your audience.
For developing more finger dexterity, try Sinding's Frühlingsrauschen. It looks daunting, but is rather easy.
Good luck

Aureliano would suggest an Italian background ... so the interest in art goes without saying ... as does the passion to get to grips with some of the most aesthetic of keyboard masterpieces.

You obviously want to go it alone (and top marks for the stance) ... you might like to try these gems which meet your requirements of slow tempo and not too demanding LH.

Moussorgsky’s “A Tear” ... 2 pages
Beethoven’s “Minuet in G” 2 pages
Mozart’s “Fantasia in D minor” KV397 (Andante) 6 pages
Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor Opus 3, no. 2 (Lento) 6 pages
Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” (Andante tres expressif) 6 pages
Chopin’s Prelude in E minor Opus 28, no. 4 (Largo) 1 page

The above will go well with your Moonlight, Pathetique , Bach and Traumerei.

I have students who I am just as 'impressed with' but NOT with their technique. Pedaling stuff?! There's is something in your phrasing that tells me you had a good teacher - you should have stuck it out longer. The 'I am done with..' comment is very telling.

I'm with the brain surgery poster myself - I think I'll teach myself to paint next week!

if you really love the piano that much and you want to learn it well then you would just stick it out and bear with it.. I would go with your teacher.

I had almost the same situation as you although my 1st teacher did not teach me the correct art of playing the piano as a result, after I moved to canada and went to a new teacher she found my playing erratic and attocious. In fact she was suprised that I played Fur Elise perfectly for her when she auditioned me but everything else was in a mess. She said that somehow, my talent and sense of musicality must have helped me to learn that 1 piece well.
Anyway I went for 1 lesson, she corrected me and yelled at me so much that I wanted to give up learning under her right away. Her 1st assignment for me was to relearn all of my technique right from the beginning, forgo all the pieces that i had learnt and learn fingering, how to shape my hands...etc and you can imagine how tough that was. I went home and cried saying that I never wanted to go back to her. My uncle and mom chatted about it and finally my uncle persuaded me not to give up, not to mention, other relatives were extremely supportive. I went back for the next lesson and soon after that decided that I wanted her to teach me. The 1st year was simply horrible and I had an extremely difficult time but managed to pull through it. After studying with my teacher for almost 2 and a half years, she decided to cut off more then half of her students, so she simply told us that she would keep the best. So I worked my butt off and she decided to keep me as her student.

Well anyway 4 yrs have passed and i'm still her student, my teacher currently has only 6 students left and i'm in no danger of being kicked out. Managed to play by all of her rules and as far as I know i've corrected all my bad habits etc. and am doing really well in my teacher's opinion and do have a future as a musician.

Hope that encourages you

Obviously, excellent teacher meets excellent student. I do hope the above is not true though.

Scrub round all the teacher promotion klutz,
Now that you are home (within sight of Big Ben)...
do you have any suggestions for the artistic
New Yorker to extend his repertoire? ... he is obviously blessed with a rare ability to memorize music fast ... his technique might well be considered up to maggots (by formal teaching standards) but I don't think he really cares ... as an aesthete he might be content to delight in having his fingers caress keyboard gems ... at 28 he really doesn't need some old duck to talk down to him with pedantic imperatives to shove him through dreary hours of mind-numbing Hanon.

He's got the Moonlight, Pathetique , Bach and Traumerei under his belt ... what next?

Hanon schmanon! What you mean crucify some Mozart or Schubert next?

Not everyone teaches that way. Surprise!

Hi all,
This is all so interesting. I appreciate all the comments and in the case of BTB his suggestions.
Let's see. I took lessons for 2 months. My teacher was (is) amazing, she is an exquisite pianist. Her approach was to teach me from scratch. Again, I am neither Mozart nor Horowitz here. As BTB put it I don't really care about how my fingers look in the keyboard (they don't look like inverted spiders. I have the “holding the apple” posture) nor do I mind if my fingers have to make some acrobatics to complete a phrase. I am not learning to be the next Barenboim. I deeply respect and admire all of you that have spent years and years with the sometimes-painful struggle of learning this beautiful instrument. Learning it, I believe, is a commitment and a long, almost never ending process. I go through that pain myself in my own way. For me music equals sound. When I have guests over and I sit at the piano and play for them (and again I am no Claudio Arrau here by any means) I can see that the sound that my rustic hands produce moves them. When I went to the Hall and purchased my Steinway I was playing alone in the room the second movement of Pathetique and when I was done there were three people inside, salesman/pianist included -that I had no idea where there- and they all seemed to love it and complemented my memory.
What I'm trying to say is that with humility, I believe I have some aptitude. I do not disregard the option of finding another teacher in the future but part of the learning process for me is the challenge of creating the music by myself, to bring it to life with my basic (I studied classic and flamenco guitar for 2 years) theoretical knowledge but mainly with my intuition and sensibility.
What I meant with "I am done with Traumerei" meant that I was done memorizing it. I believe that one can never be completely done with a piece nor can one play it the same way twice. There is always the mood factor, at least for me. Sometimes, Traumerei can sound, when I play it, childish and happy, but if I'm sad it can have a tremendous depth. Same with Pathetique, at times it is a love duet but others it can bring out tears. I do not pretend to crucify Mozart, enough he had with the way he died, with the confusion that up to this date his requiem, still causes among scholars, who composed this, who composed that. Enough crucifixion he had by being buried in a common grave. As for Schubert, his early death (31) was our crucifixion, equally as sad as Wolfgang’s (35).
To the comment that one poster said about teaching him/herself to paint. I encourage you to do so. I spent years learning it, taking classes at the art students league, privately and I have come to the realization that my best work is the one that I did when I had less technical knowledge because by then I wasn't worried too much with angles, colors and proportions. I was letting my heart and emotion flow. I am back to that now. When too much technical stuff gets in your painting you are at risk of becoming a robot. I believe that in music is the same. Performers with the best technique might not sound as great as others with more soul.
Comments?.
Thank you to the person that commented on my artwork. www.artmerizalde.com

No comment.

My god that repertoire! How do you stay sane? Try some Prokofiev or a Beethoven fast movement or something fun.

If you really are looking for music like the pieces you've mentioned, try Chopin Opus 9 no. 1 and 2, any of the Liebestraums, Debussy preludes, etc.

Again, my knowledge of the overall repertoire is not great and I've made it a point to avoid the music you seem to enjoy, so take those suggestions as a starting point.

I don't want to rush into fast pieces yet. I am a very introverted person. Dark and stormy as my lovely wife calls me sometimes. I like "sad" sounding music and want to stick with it for a while. I am asumming that the chopin piece you suggest is a nocturne, right? I have never heard any of Chopin's liebestraums, only Liszt's...
Let me look into those, thanks!

why no comment keyboardklutz? Don't you think that what I said could be valid? I don't think I crushed your argument, did I?

That's because they were trying to sell you a Steinway. I bet then they talked about how great you sounded on their instrument too.

I have to disagree. You need to have the technical ability to play even the expressive music. With tension in the arms or bad posture for example your sound will be harsh, you will not have the control to really phrase a lyrical melody the way it was meant to be played. I was self taught when I was younger too, went to my first great teacher with Fur Elise in my fingers, and it was a review piece, I had also gone on to more difficult pieces like Chopin Waltz in b minor. I thought I played it well, and was suprised when she told me my fingering was terrible, my pedaling was blury, I played note to note without feeling the larger phrases etc... I was an unusual case like you are in that way. I started out being able to play classical music without formal training. Then when I went to my teacher she had me going way back to simple Czerny exercises and much easier repertoire. But since I was motivated and practiced a lot I was able to catch back up and surpass where I had been in about a year. I am so lucky I listened to her too, now I am working towards my Doctorate in Music and have a teaching assistantship. I started really studying with her at age 14, I am now 25. So a lot can change in less than a decade.

Yep, sure thing, crushed by the weight of your self-publicity!

Hi all,
Of course they were trying to sell me the instrument but my point was about the sound, and not only the Steinway sales person has said good things about my sound and character but my teacher too. We are forgetting that I had a teacher for 2 months who was a Julliard graduate. She was genuinely impressed with the sound. Sound. I did mention that she was concerned, if not puzzled/horrified with the acrobatics of my fingers, but back to my point, music to me is sound. It is out of question here the importance of having a teacher. I never said I was against it. I said that I might consider the option in the future. Right now I want to keep with my self-teaching. Technique is fundamental in any discipline: music, painting, dance. I never said otherwise. When I encouraged the poster to learn to paint on his/her own It wasn't an invitation to believe you can be the next Jackson Pollock. There are things that only professional instruction can teach. Likewise in piano.
I believe we are digressing from the original post. I only wanted suggestions of pieces that follow the same like as the ones that I already know.
As for my "self-publicity" (according to poster keyboardklutz) you are right. But in this case I wont call it publicity since I am not selling you any of my paintings nor will I attempt to in a forum like this. Galleries are the place for paintings. My purpose with sending my art website was to share with whoever was willing to look the work I do. To show through it that I am a person with principles and commitment. So you guys pianists and teachers can have a better idea of the person that is asking a favor from you (in this case the person is me) There is nothing wrong with "self-publicity" otherwise what can we say about the millions of persons that post their piano performances on youtube. I think keyboardklutz that you have an un-necessary anger, starting with your Mozart and Schubert remark. I just don't understand if people like you don't have anything relevant to say on the subject of the post, why bother at all?
Anyway, only one person throughout these posts has suggested some music for me. I wonder if my position is valid in regard of the teaching issue.
Again I believe it is fundamental but at 29 years old, I just want to play music, not perform at a Hall or be another Richter. I play for my own pleasure and if friends and family enjoy when I play for them, then even better.

Hold on, you were 28 this morning!

It's called a typo keyboardklutz, the 8 and the 9 are right next to each other. And again if you can only contribute with anger and offensive remarks I kindly ask you to step out of this conversation. I cannot believe that somebody, just like you, that can probably play a Chopin nocture, can be so obtuse and not nice.
Again I'm not here to have this type of arguments. I want to talk about music and pieces that people in the forum think I might be able to play.

8 and 9 next to each other eh? Will wonders never cease?

Just to clear the air a bit - I read something yesterday by J. Krishnamurti I would like to share; I think it applies to the general tone of this discussion:

"Why is one angry? Because one is hurt, someone has said an unkind thing; and when someone says a flattering thing you are pleased. Why are you hurt? Self-importance, is it not? And why is there self-importance? Because one has an idea, a symbol of oneself, an image of oneself, what one should be, what one is or what one should not be. Why does one create an image about oneself? Because one has never studied what one is, actually. We think we should be this or that, the ideal, the hero, the example. What awakens anger is that our ideal, the idea we have of ourselves, is attacked. And our idea about ourselves is our escape from the fact of what we are. But when you are observing the actual fact of what you are, no one can hurt you. Then, if one is a liar and is told that one is a liar it does not mean that one is hurt; it is a fact. But when you are pretending you are not a liar and are told that you are, then you get angry, violent. So we are always living in an idealized world, a world of myth and never in the world of actuality. To observe what is, to see it, actually be familiar with it, there must be no judgment, no evaluation, no opinion, no fear."

I just don't know why this person is so attacking and bad. This is a music forum. I want to talk about music. This is the last thing I'm going to say about the issue. If your ego is hurt, move on. I never said anything wrong or disrespectuf to you. So please stay away.

That's nice Paul. Who's angry? Oh..., he is.

Bad?!

To all.
I am leaving this thread. Hopefully start a new one later. The reason being that it is not nice when people like keyboardklutz only display anger and nasty conduct. The intention of my thread has been damaged by this individual. I sent an email to the moderators about this issue.
And for you Mr. Keyboardklutz, I have still nothing to say, except that your attitude is very dissapointing.

Goodbye cruel keyboardklutz!

Topic Closed.