Ideally, however, you will do as much hyper-focused practice as you possibly can every day. If your practice is good, then obviously if you do two hours a day you will improve quicker than someone who does twenty minutes. If you want more information on how to make your piano practice as efficient and effective as possible, I highly recommend you check out my related article here. The answer to this is absolutely yes. I was, at least until I was around fourteen or fifteen, for the most part, self taught.
I had a good ear for music and was able to pick tunes out on the piano with relative ease. But, I knew nothing about music theory. I knew nothing about learning to read music.
This is a major problem. Now, it would have absolutely been possible for me to go online and learn how to read music myself. I would eventually have been able to pick it up. However, there will be things that a teacher can point out or tell you that will help you learn quicker. It will be much more efficient if you have a teacher to help you. This is true for almost anyone; I remember when I was at university I would get stuck on certain things. Perhaps an awkward fingering somewhere, a tricky chord voicing, something like this.
It was always extremely helpful to have a teacher around to point me in the right direction. Any musical instrument is hard to learn for someone with no musical background. However, I would encourage you not to think of the potential difficulty, but think of the reward. Learning music is a lifelong journey. Nobody ever stops learning.
Even 80 or 90 year old musicians still practice, because with practice, they improve. Learning the piano never stops. So yes, it is hard. It requires a lot of dedication. You will find that you want to give up and not play again. You will get tired of practising. You will come home from work or school and not want to practice. I would encourage you to look past this, and stick to it. You will be glad you did. Scenario 3 is the greatest recipe for success because not only does Carlos have a fantastic teacher to guide him through piano lessons, but combined with diligent practice, this sets you on a much better path to achieving greatness.
Piano lessons aren't enough if your goals are to play epic music pieces like Chopin's Scherzo or Rachmaninoff's Concerto 3 fluently. Just look at the legendary Ignaz Friedman - a brilliant pianist nearly a century ago. When asked how he was able to comfortably play a short Chopin piece brilliantly, he said he played the piece 5, TIMES before he had the courage to play it on stage.
If your only objective is to learn to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars or Itsy Bitsy Spider, I guarantee you'll be able to do so within a day's worth of practice. Some people might say they want to learn to play piano for pleasure. And that's fine. With daily practice or training, learning how to play piano can take you between a year or two. But what exactly do you want to play for pleasure? And how great do you want to play a certain song or piece?
Depending on what your answer is to your questions will give you a specific timeline on learning how to play piano. What if your ultimate GOAL is to play classical music greats fluently? If these are your goals, dedication and serious commitment are key qualities students should have. Playing classical greats takes patience If you want to understand the reasons behind this slow yet rewarding fulfillment of playing the piano instrument, I'll dive deeper below into key factors or things that affect the overall process.
You can't simply WING this decision the same way you wing other areas in life like choosing between oreo or strawberry cheesecake. Your teacher is an inevitable hand to guide you from music theory and the instrument itself down to the proper order of how to learn each note. If you learn bad habits and poor techniques along the way, playing complex pieces later on will leave you in a serious pickle.
Every successful pianist knows that their skill level is as valuable as the guidance they receive. A great mentor can go a long way in your lessons, your skill level, how to read sheet music, and life in general. This is a question students tend to ask or should I say, extraordinary requests that DO NOT get you anywhere other than failure and despair.
You demand to learn how to play Chopin's Scherzo and in the first week, you struggle to read the notes. In the third week, your hand-eye coordination is a mess and you've blown everything into proportion. Slow growth is what you should be after. Slow and steady teaches you how to hit all the fundamentals right and it's much more rewarding.
It's a question many people ask impatiently: "How long will it take for me to get there? What most people don't understand is the destination can sometimes be an illusion to a rabbit hole of never feeling contented.
Most of the time, you'll keep thinking about the destination and forget the beauty is in the journey of learning the course itself. Comparing yourself to others only shows you one side of someone else's life be it another student or even your teacher. You don't fully see their struggles, their failures, their regrets, or the pain throughout time. With time, actions can be corrected and improved. No matter how great one person can be, this is not to say mistakes, challenges, or setbacks disappear.
After enough lessons and winning your first piano competition, you might burst into trying to win every competition and drown yourself in hard work. Can you know how to speak Japanese in a day? Can you learn how to play golf proficiently without practising?
The answer is no. You cannot learn how to play the piano by attending your lessons only. If you are relatively talented, it might be OK at the very beginning, and you might see some improvement, even if you have not touched the instrument for a few days, but believe me, it is not going to last.
If you are not prepared to put some time in daily, or at least every other day, you are not going to go anywhere. You should only take this activity on if you are willing to put time and effort into it. Learning how to play the piano with an instructor who does not have any experience or just a little in adult piano education is not recommended.
Do your homework and do some research before starting your piano lessons. Many individuals claim to be piano teachers as they can play the piano, but only a few know how to pass their knowledge on to adults and suitably guide them.
To increase your chance of success, it is essential to study with an experienced piano instructor who follows a structure and who is used to teaching adults. To summarise, scenario 1 is the perfect example of a recipe for disaster. If you intend to approach piano playing in that fashion, I am sorry to say that it would be better not to start. You attend your piano lessons weekly, you practice relatively well in between your lessons, your piano instructor has not much experience with adults.
Scenario 2 is a little better as you get input regularly, and you are diligent in your practice. But unfortunately, if your instructor does not teach you correctly, you will learn in the wrong way, pick up bad habits and end up giving up. You might lose your motivation due to the lack of progress. Even if you are the most dedicated individual, this scenario shows us that if one of the elements is missing, it will prevent you from succeeding greatly.
You attend your piano lessons weekly, you practice daily for 1hr or more, you study with a fantastic piano teacher who knows exactly how to take you from point A to point B. It is starting to sound better as you now have all the odds in your favour! You are attending your piano lessons regularly, you dedicate 1hr or more to daily practice, and you learn from a brilliant piano instructor who specialises in teaching adults.
What a perfect combination! Both scenarios 1 and 2 will not take you to where you want to be, while scenario 3 sets you on the right path and gives you much more chance to succeed.
By now, you have understood that you must attend your piano lessons weekly with a fantastic instructor and practise in between your lessons to achieve your goal. Most adults say that they do not aim to become concert pianists and that they just want to play for the pleasure. Playing for pleasure is a wonderful endeavour, and I can only encourage all piano enthusiasts to take it on. It is as vague as saying that your ultimate goal is to be happy.
Once again, various factors come into place. What exactly do you want to play for the pleasure and how well or badly do you want to play these pieces for the pleasure? I believe that they understand the difficulty of this task and that it is reserved for the most proficient pianists. I did not say that amateur pianists cannot play these incredible pieces of the repertoire.
I mean that it will require several hours of practice daily, and approaching these pieces is not for everyone. As they are aware of this fact, somehow, adult beginners lower their goals and talk about Mozart, Chopin or Einaudi. Do you know how difficult it is to play any pieces written by these composers well or even badly? Some adults realise it along the way and go for easy arrangements of their favourite pieces.
It is an excellent option, as several books are now available on the market and it can allow you to enjoy playing your favourites.
Playing the original versions, however, should not be approached at the early stage of your piano education. You should, at least, wait a few years before studying them.
I am talking about the most accessible pieces by these composers. When I started my career as a piano instructor, at about 18 years old, I did not always know how to handle some extraordinary requests. One of my students just started his piano lessons as an absolute beginner with no musical background, whatsoever. After a few lessons only, while he was still barely able to play with both hands simultaneously, he came to his session with a new piano score that he was incredibly proud to show me.
He explained that he was incredibly frustrated with the pieces that he had to study and that he was about to give up unless we would approach more interesting works of the repertoire. If such a gentleman came to me now, I would explain kindly all the reasons why it is a terrible idea, but I did not know how to handle it at the time. What happened next is pretty obvious: He spent weeks trying to play the first system and gave up piano playing as he was not satisfied with his progress.
The whole process was too slow! Do not begin with the wrong thoughts and ideas in mind. I have met a student once who set the goal to train and run the marathon after a year. After this goal was accomplished, he set a new goal, for the following year, which was to learn how to play the piano.
Unfortunately, he did not start with the right mindset. He was extremely tense and impatient. He was regularly going backwards instead of going forward. He kept doubting the most obvious advice as he was looking for a magic trick. He wanted to achieve his goal so fast within a year that he used to memorise the pieces to make it easier to play them or use various other tricks to progress more quickly. Sadly, this technique of skipping steps does not work in piano playing, and you will surely fail quicker than you can imagine.
This poor man, who could have done very well over time, ended up quitting.
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