Which piece should I learn next on the piano?

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Sure. Shall I add you on MSN or anything so I'm always floating about?

i was the same way when i was playing, i could memorize my pieces really quickly which compensated for my lack of reading ability. i really wish i had kept it up, my parents stopped paying for lessons in grade 11 and they sold the piano a few years ago which makes it a bit difficult to keep it up.

if you don't know Fur Elise or Moonlight Sonata, i'm quite fond of them. i wouldn't be able to play moonlight sonata all the way through anymore, and it would take me a few practise runs through fur elise to get it right but i really do miss playing those, they're nice pieces, lots of people know them, and they aren't too difficult. i learnt fur elise in my second year of playing so you should be able to do it.

Good idea, though I can't go on msn at school either, but you can remind me when you see I am on! ^_^

haha yeeeah, i'm slightly beyond that sort of level at the moment. though i do like movement three of moonlight haven't learnt it, may do sometime! ^_^ i can play fur elise though!

ooh, i like it! i'll try and locate some music for it

Yes, "knowing" is the general sense but "savant" in the neurological sense, including autism, refers to having exceptional abilities in isolated parameters. This could be like the "Rain Man" stereotype of memorising the telephone directory and decks of shuffled cards. It could be like someone, unfamiliar with London, who is shown a photograph of a Thames landscape from Westminster to Docklands and then draws it accurately from memory. Musically, it could be like the young Mozart listening to a performance of the Allegri Miserere and then writing it out from memory. When you write of playing one very difficult piano work after another after only two years of playing and little knowledge of technique or music reading, I naturally wonder about the savant option:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_syndrome

Well, if you want to have a workout, you could always try Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition', which was written for piano. Some people are only aware of Ravel's orchestration of it, and other geezers like me know the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version...

Wasn't it Czerny who did all those scale exercises? My Dad used to work through those before playing Jazz gigs back in the day.

Hmm... well I think that does sound far more impressive than me. I don't think I really do much out of the ordinary :S No one has ever really told me..
But I think I am fairly good at most things though... :/

That is cool, I wish I could do something like young Mozart! I haven't seen the film of Rain Man..

That's just draconian! Oh well, will do. I know I've wasted months of man hours on it through the years

Here's a link to the Mozart story:

http://www.mozartforum.com/VB_forum/showthread.php?t=52

As for Rain Man, that gets discussed here from time to time. I think it's worth watching just for an example of a savant but the downside is that it encourages a popular misconception that one has to be like that to be on the autistic spectrum, which simply isn't true.

I was wrong earlier about the savant artist being unfamiliar with London - he's a Londoner! Nevertheless, what he can do from memory is no mean feat:

http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/

Those stories are both very impressive! It is sad that they cannot find his copy though.

Sounds more like polymath than savant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

A polymath (Greek polymathēs, πολυμαθής, "having learned much") is a person whose knowledge is not restricted to one subject area. In less formal terms, a polymath (or polymathic person) may simply refer to someone who is very knowledgeable.

I think that I am more a polymath than a savant.

a suggestion to play is mozarts "rondo alla turca".
am too mechanical to play it with subtlety. it is beyond me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omNPKAkpDq4

Even better! A Renaissance person! I suggested savant rather than polymath initially because you mentioned not knowing the nuts and bolts of your piano playing accomplishment, like reading and technical exercises. Anyway, I searched the words "composer" and "polymath" together to see what names came up and as you have a preference for the Romantic repertoire, the big name is Borodin

so it's 'rhondo...' I've stumbled through it, but I play by ear...

Strangely enough, the only time I've seen someone play it was 'Teddy Roosevelt' in Arsenic and Old Lace... with Carey Grant...l)