Trouble finding piano practice material I like

[MOK19]

Hey,

I've been trying to train some keyboard skills for a while, but I haven't improved very quickly. I'm pretty bad. The primary reason for this is inevitably that I don't practice enough, and I'm not practicing varied things either. Yet, I enjoy it when I do practice. And I'm probably practicing 'wrong,' too but I doubt that's worse than not practicing.

So what's the problem, why aren't I practicing? It's not enough material, I think. I have trouble finding material that is suitable for focusing on, and that I want to play. It's not that I'm very picky, I don't think, nor that it's not out there. Surely it is. But yet I'm having a real hard time finding it.

So far, I've only got a handful of basic tunes in my practice bag -





I'm forgetting two or three, but there's not much else. Each of these I had to figure out the chords on my own from scratch, which is a great exercise in some ways, but also served as a barrier to slow me down. The reason I post that list is just to at least give some small indicator of what I've enjoyed playing. Jazzy, funky, soulful, r&b, housey stuff... I suppose I could get into a lot more if I noticed the right stuff, but for now this is all I've got. I'm at a loss as to where to look for more ideas.

I can read music and such and I know a good amount of theory, so that helps. But my goal is that I'd like to be able to just bang on interesting chords extemporaneously. Becoming a functional instrumentalist, serviceable for a band would also be cool too.

So my question:
How can I find more piano practice material that I'll enjoy? Sorting through my music collection hasn't really been helpful, as most of it isn't very suitably composed for that.
Alternatively, do you suggest I change strategy? Or try out something completely different?

Thanks peeps.

[MOK19]

Nothing? Any form of suggestion or criticism on the topic broadly would be helpful, as I'm quite lost.

[Gamma-UT]

How can I find more piano practice material that I'll enjoy? Sorting through my music collection hasn't really been helpful, as most of it isn't very suitably composed for that.
Alternatively, do you suggest I change strategy? Or try out something completely different?

It's really hard to know what kind of material you're going to enjoy. To be honest, I treat practice as a means to an end - the playing that results to be the enjoyment. That doesn't mean doing endless scales before having a crack at a tune, but a lot of exercises for practice are simply that: exercises. You can then treat taking tunes and interpreting them as a cross between extra practice and ear training.

In terms of useful practice material, there are things like finger and hand independence that can be strengthened quite rapidly using what seem to be fairly drudge-like exercises (Hanon etc), playing scales and arpeggios with each hand starting at a different point, or just resting your hand on table and trying to lift one finger at a time; then two that aren't next to each other. You can play games even with scale exercises such as playing scales in swing, reverse swing or arbitrary rhythms (this comes from Bernie Sirelson's book "Five Magical Piano Practice Techniques").

Or there's more musical stuff like Bartok's Mikrokosmos series, which starts off with simple tunes and gradually winds up the skill level.

You may simply need to find a real-life teacher who can work out where your technique needs building up.