# What are realistic goals for some of these pieces?



## paulguterl

A bit of background first, I am fairly new to playing piano, though I have extensive training in other instruments. I have been playing music for ten years so I can sight read, know theory, harmony, have a good ear, all of that.

I am taking lessons, mostly to make sure my technique is right, and to get the help with learning a new instrument only someone very experience can provide.

I am moving along somewhat quickly I'd say (I am using an adult course book and I am just about to finish and move on to the next book all in the course of roughly a month). 

In addition to the composition aspect, part of the reason I am learning is there are various pieces that I love and would adore playing. 

My question is, currently practicing about 4-5 hours a day everyday, what time span am I looking at in being able to play some of these (months, years, longer?):

Chopin's Nocturne no. 8 op. 27-2
Rachmoninoff's Prelude in C# minor.
The Liszt piano arrangement of Saint-Saens Danse Macabre
Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and 2 and 3 part inventions
Beethoven piano trios
Tchaikovsky's Romance in F minor

I searched and couldn't find anything relating to this kind of question really, and am trying to get some feedback, using it as incentive perhaps, to keep up spirits while playing those scales and exercises for the millionth time.


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## david johnson

the length of time per day is not as important as playing a selection as 'right' as you can each time you play it.
play etudes and technical studies in the key/style of each of these selections, then play part of the works themselves.


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## tomM

Well, i learned exclusively in classical so you will probably take much long, as you have also had much less time playing.
For the Chopin, i learned that in about a month (+ memorized) so figure 2 months for you.. if you "shape the line" and really care to get all the little tonal inflections right.
Rachmaninoff's C# prelude can be tricky as there is alot of hand crossing. I'd say, if you focus on that intensively, you could do that in about 4 months.
Liszt: probably a year, if you play the original original, if not, you would have the second version which is a bit easier, so more like 8 months.

And i haven't played either of the other two.


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## SonataSonataSonata

Depends how much drive you have, as you are an adult student with other musical background. I have seen with myself and my own students that the more you really want to learn something, the easier you can make it out to be.

In other words, I have had students (and myself) learn challenging pieces quite quickly and quite well because they really wanted to learn it, while they took much longer to learn much easier pieces and they still sounded like crap because they just couldn't connect with the piece. 

The biggest thing, though, is that you have to learn the technique and elements that make up the pieces you wish to learn. And all of this takes time; a lot of time. There is something to be said about how many hours a day you practice, but that is only as good as the way you practice. If you have bad practice habits, 4-5 hours of practice a day won't help you learn any of your dream pieces any sooner than 2 hours every other day with amazing practice habits.

Easier Etudes would be a good place to start. As a teacher I am totally embarrassed that I can't rattle of sets of Etudes by teacher-composers off the top of my head this morning, and I don't have my resources with me right now...but you can search a few out if you'd like. (I am not talking about Chopin's Etudes, by the way--those are advanced pieces and not "student pieces" in regards to where you are at.)

You could give Bartok's Mikrokosmos a try...

If you think about it, the Well-Tempered Clavier was written for amateurs and students to learn with and for virtuosi to play for fun and relaxation...this is paraphrasing Bach's own words from the manuscript, and not touching on the compositional element of using a tempered tuning, blah, blah, blah...


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