Of course, it was the way back then. I've been told that it's changed a lot in the recent 10 or 20 years at least where I live. But the point is, even if they didn't teach improvising in the official lessons, the curriculum also didn't prepare us to do anything outside that narrow scope.
> playing pieces you dont like much again and again to perfection is not exactly motivating.
Sounds still better than half-assing a lot of pieces and then deciding that that's not it, let's try another one. It would have been nice to have some repertoire in playable shape for once.
I dunno. It sounds like you got further, kept doing it for long and kept liking it.
I ditched it first time I could and never looked back. I was against my kids playing music instrument unless they would really really insist on it, because I felt like it is unpleasant activity I don't want to burden them with.
> on the other hand every new piece is an unique snowflake that you star learning from scratch
Not really. You still have memory of previous ones and you do hear how it sounds. The intuition builds up, so to say. You do learn to hear and distinguish what sounds good or bad. I kind of do not see how theoretical knowledge of the scales would help here.
But also I dropped out the first moment I could, so there is that too. But remembering the pieces was not issue at all. Issue was that I did not even liked music I had to play all that much and playing pieces you dont like much again and again to perfection is not exactly motivating.