how long does it all take?

[greyrune]

Hi everyone, i was just wondering how long it took you all to reach the stages you're at.  If you do grade levels i'd love to know what the expected times are to reach each grades.  I know it's supposed to be a year for each grade but surely not many people can honestly try and still spend a year to pass grade one.

By the way this seems a really cool forum, i'm looking forward to spending some time here in future.

[bernhard]

How long is a piece of string?

There are too many variables to come up with an answer to this question.

The ABRSM has now introduced a grade 0, so they now expect a student to reach grade one in two years!

The beginning is the slowest since muscle may take three to six months to grow, and most muscles used in piano playing are small and atrophied from lack of use in non-pianists.

Personally I believe it is absurd to spend 9- 10 years to get to grade 8 (which is really not a difficult level at all - most of the pieces usually discussed in this forum are well beyond grade 8 ).

But then you have to ask: How many lessons are you having per week? how much correct practice are you doing on a daily/weekly/monthly basis? What about personal limitations (physical/psychological/learning)?

Having said that I believe that a normal human being, thoroughly motivated, with a very good teacher, prepared to dedicate a lot of thought to the piano (I mean really obsessed by it - not necessarily spending that much time at the piano, but doing a lot of listening/talking/reading/etc.) and willing to spend some two hours a day at the piano should be at grade 8 in 2 - 3 years time maximum.

Best wishes,
Beernhard.

[allchopin]

What about those who are self-taught and self-motivated?  Having a teacher defintely speeds up the process, so what would be a correspoding estimate for a lack thereof?

[bernhard]

What about those who are self-taught and self-motivated?  Having a teacher defintely speeds up the process, so what would be a correspoding estimate for a lack thereof?

Impossible to say.

A self-taught student with the unbelievable luck to do everything right (highly unlikely but not impossible) would take the same time (or, who knows, even less) than a student with a good teacher.

However theory of probabilities is set against the self-taught student. It does not help that a lot of the correct procedures in piano playing are counter intuitive.

Perhaps the great (and maybe the only) advantage of a teacher is that s/he provides a feedback system. With such a system, swift correction of improper procedures becomes possible and progress follows.

Also the category "self-taught" is quite loose. For instance a student without formal lessons can still learn much valuable stuff from friends who have formal lessons, or by chance meetings and conversations with musicians. Such informal lessons may be even more profitable than formal lessons. Many jazz musicians had only this sort of tuition.

My final thought at the moment is that feedback is what makes the real difference. A (good) teacher and regular lessons are the best feedback but by no means the only one (other possibilities that come to mind are videos of other pianists, CDs, videos/tapes of oneself, pianist friends, professional musicians, the piano forum , teaching software, etc.).

Without feedback of any kind whatsoever (alone in an insland with a piano) I doubt a lifetime would be enough to learn even simple stuff.

Best wishes
Bernhard.

[NoCreamNoSugar]

Hi everyone, i was just wondering how long it took you all to reach the stages you're at.  If you do grade levels i'd love to know what the expected times are to reach each grades.  I know it's supposed to be a year for each grade but surely not many people can honestly try and still spend a year to pass grade one.

I don't know anything about grade levels, but here's my two cents:

I'll use myself as comparison. I've been playing for 13 months, starting at age 23. I play about 30 minutes a day... 1 hour a day when I started. I had a teacher, once a week, for 4 months. Having a teacher keeps you from slacking off, which certainly helps. Plus she pointed out stuff I didn't think about and things that I should not let become habits.

The best thing you can do is to do a little every day. And always try to achieve a little more each time, but don't kill yourself. If you can appreciate and enjoy the feeble attempts every day, then you'll play more than you expected.

Basically, there are no shortcuts. What's appealing about learning to play is that everyone says, "gee, i wish i could play piano... just sit down and make music." it's not easy so few do it. But if you have the will to try a little every day, you'll keep improving. What better testament to the piano music you love than at least trying.

Well that was a tangent, but so far I can play the first page (the mellow part) of für elise, the first seven measures of Bach's Two Part Invention in F Major (BWV 779), 70% of Satie's Gymnopedie #1, and various simplified tunes. I think that's pretty good for 13 months (a few months had some heavy slacking).

best of luck,
john

[rachlisztchopin]

I have been playing piano for about 13 months also, am 15 years old, and am playing stuff above grade 8 now.  It just depends...

[Hazim]

Regarding the achievements of the grades, I wonder, is this learning process linear in time, or to formulise the question in a different way, does it take the same amount of time to move from grade 1 to grade 2, and for instance, to move from grade 5 to 6, etc.?

Also, just for comparisson, what grade is For Elise, Satie's Gnossienne, and what grade is Chopin's Revolutionary Etude (my ultimate dream )?

Hazim.

[bernhard]

Regarding the achievements of the grades, I wonder, is this learning process linear in time, or to formulise the question in a different way, does it take the same amount of time to move from grade 1 to grade 2, and for instance, to move from grade 5 to 6, etc.?

Also, just for comparisson, what grade is For Elise, Satie's Gnossienne, and what grade is Chopin's Revolutionary Etude (my ultimate dream )?

Hazim.

No, learning the piano is not linear at all. People’s experiences in other areas of life and strongly held views make them expect progress in all things to be gradual. This is certainly not the case in piano learning. There are also other areas in life that exhibit the same non-linear/non-gradual kind of progress, but most people seem oblivious to it.

Take learning how to read, for instance. If you ask anyone “How long did it take you to read?” if they remember it at all, the answer will be on the lines of “around one year”. This however is impossible. The fact is that everyone learns how to read in an instant. Think about it. You cannot possibly learn how to read gradually, because you cannot read gradually. Either you read or you don’t. In fact, most people who can remember it (and they will agree with you once you point it out to them) went through something like this:

The family is having breakfast. The father is reading a newspaper. The four-year old shouts excitedly: “I can read, I can read!”. The father and mother smile, since the toddler has just enrolled in school and just the day before was struggling wit letter shapes. But the child insists: “I can read, I can”. So the father, to humour the child says: “all right, what is the headline in this newspaper?” and the child proceeds to read it impeccably. Jaws drop, great commotion, a prodigy in the family!

So, this is just one of many instances of what I call instant learning. And trust me, the majority of learning is actually of this kind.

Now, if you can learn to read in an instant, what was that whole year in school for? That was a very important period. It was preparation for instant learning. The important point here is that during the whole year not much seemed to be happening. And then suddenly it all came to fruition instantly. It is specially important for adult students to realise this, because if you spend a year doing something and nothing much seems to be happening, you are likely to become demotivated and believe that you are going nowhere. This is not true.

Let us go back to reading and understand it a bit better. Reading is what I call a “complex” task. It is not complicated or difficult. But it is complex. This means that it is made up of a huge number of simple and easy skills, but each of these simpler skills need to be thoroughly mastered before it can all “gel” into the complex task we call “reading”. So one needs to be able to recognise the letters of the alphabet. One must associate the letters with sounds. One must be able to recognise strings of letters as patterns we call words. One must know the words and their meanings (we often forget how poor children’s vocabularies necessarily are – just imagine the difficulty of trying to learn to read in a foreign language). Now although we know quite a lot about the teaching and learning of isolated simple skills, we know next to nothing (I am not exaggerating here) about the gelling process. All we know is that it will happen if we persevere with the drilling of simple skills that make up for the complex process. And this gelling of simple skills into a complex whole will happen suddenly, instantly and unexpectedly. It is actually perfectly possible to be a master of every single skill needed for the complex process of reading, and yet be unable to gel them into reading. Anyone who teaches literacy (specially to adults) will know what I am talking about here: a person who can laboriously join letters, who may be able to sign one’s name, and yet cannot really be said to read. These people are usually called “technically literate”, but they are in fact illiterate people.

So mastering the basic skills is necessary, important and the only step we can control. However it is not sufficient. To be truly literate a mental process over which we have no control, and really know nothing about, must take place. I call it “gelling”, but you can call it anything you want.

Learning the piano is exactly analogous. Playing the piano is not complicated, but it is a very complex process requiring mastery of numerous single skills each in themselves pretty simple to acquire. It is the putting together of all of it that will make a pianist out of someone who can just perform the numerous single skills by themselves perfectly. This putting together will eventually happen if you keep at it. When it happens it will be sudden, unexpected and instant.

A lot of problems connected with the learning of complex skills has to do with not spending enough time mastering the simple skills that make up the complex task. We are impatient. We want to play the whole piece straight away. We want to join hands before hands separate are completely mastered, and so on and so forth.

Now one of the main problems with adult students, is that they expect gradual progress. They are not prepared for the shock that they may get stuck for months with no progress at all. Then the whole self questioning starts: “Why am I doing this?”

And of course, I am assuming that the teacher knows about the single steps and the order they should be approached, since it is very easy to do everything wrong and never get anywhere (the same is true in reading). In fact there are two things that amaze me most of all: that people can actually learn to play the piano, and that babies can be born most of the times perfect. When one thinks about how much can go wrong in these immensely complex phenomena one feels really amazed at how frequently everything turns up all right.

So how long will it all take? As with everything else in the universe, it depends. However the great accelerator is like/love/interest. You will progress very quickly if you like/love/is interested in what you are doing. How obsessed are you with the piano? Do you regret at night having to go to sleep because you would rather practise another hour? Do you wake up instantly in a fit of excitement (think children on boxing day) because you can go to the piano and practise? Look at the books in your house. Are they all about piano playing, lifes of the great pianists, composer biographies and piano music criticism? You never go to the cinema (prefer to practise) unless it is “Shine” which you have already seen 17 times? Look at your videos/DVDs are they all about music/ pianists in concert/music documentaries? Do you call your dogs Liszt and Rach? You get my drive. This sort of attitude will make progress quick. Alternatively if you do not like/love/is interested in what you are doing it will never happen. Some people in the forum confess to dislike of this and that composer (J.S. Bach pops out quite frequently). If so they will never play it well (if at all). By the way this is not a criticism, I myself could not care less for most of Bartok. On the other hand, sometimes someone is so obsessed with a piece/composer that in a few months of lessons they may be playing a very advanced repertory (of that particular composer at least).

Unfortunately such like/love/interest cannot be summoned at will (This is not strictly true, but to expand on it will take volumes). It either is there or it is not. And if it is not that is it. No amount of intellectual rationalisation is going to make up for it. I may be convinced that Bach is good for me, but if I happen not to like it that is pretty much it. And what is worse, if you persist in trying to do something you don’t like/love/is interested in your whole being is going to sabotage you. (Injuries, fatigue, unexpected illness, accidents – how much of this may be unconsciously self-inflicted).
But I digress.

To sum it all up: Piano learning is non-linear. Progress is never gradual. It is sudden but requires times of apparent non-progress to happen. It follows a “plateau” pattern: You get apparently stuck in a plateau for a while (sometimes a very long while) and then suddenly you move up to yet another plateau. These plateaus are of the utmost importance (it is when you are learning the skills at the unconscious level). As Confucius said: “It doesn’t matter how slow you go, what it matters is that you do not stop”.

Fur Elise: Grade 4
Gnossiene: Grade 6/7
Revolutionary: Advanced (but only slightly so: Just above grade 8 )

Grades are of no importance (they are also very subjective). One of my adult students is now playing (amongst other pieces) Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 142 no. 2 (around grade 7). She has started from scratch 5 months ago. She has one hour lesson everyday and practises a lot (she is retired). And she just loves this piece (in fact that was all she ever wanted to learn). And of course she has a great teacher!

So do not worry about grades: choose whatever you would really love to play. If it is impossible, learn something that is possible, but that will equip you with the skills you need to tackle the impossible piece you want to play.

Best wishes
Bernhard.

[lani]

Sure wish we had you as a piano teacher, Bernhard.  I would take up piano myself if you were in our neck of the woods.  We are so lucky to have you in this forum. What pearls of wisdom you offer to us all!  Regards, Lani

[jeff]

hey Bernhard

i understand the importance of breaking the learning process into it's individual parts - so that none are overlooked - but i'm wondering if it's possible to train people to approach the learning process in a way where the many different small tasks are unified and given attention at the same time.. basically, "gelled" together from the start.
i'm thinking that could be something that makes the 'talented' people (the argerich's, richter's etc. who don't seem to need much 'teaching') differ from the 'untalented'.

[bernhard]

hey Bernhard

i understand the importance of breaking the learning process into it's individual parts - so that none are overlooked - but i'm wondering if it's possible to train people to approach the learning process in a way where the many different small tasks are unified and given attention at the same time.. basically, "gelled" together from the start.
i'm thinking that could be something that makes the 'talented' people (the argerich's, richter's etc. who don't seem to need much 'teaching') differ from the 'untalented'.

I think of this in two different ways:

1.      Consider the making of a superlative cake. You must get the best ingredients, first of all. Then you must mix them in an exact amount and in an exact order. Them you must put the cake in the oven for the exact amount of time and at the exact temperature. Above all you need a recipe that details all that. Beginner bakers watch the professionals that have been doing it for a lifetime and get several misconceptions. For a start they start doubting that they will need a recipe. They talk about the spontaneity of cooking and similar nonsense. The reason the professionals do not use a recipe is simply because they have done it so many times that it is ingrained in their brains. Then they start resenting the recipe ironclad instructions. “I saw master baker so and so baking a cake and he did not cream the butter with the sugar as the recipe said”. Yes, but master baker so and so has followed the recipe so many times – and in the course of a life in baking – has made so many mistakes (and learnt form them) that now he knows which bits of the recipe can be given some slack and which instructions must be followed to the letter. So to bring the analogy to your question. Would it not be wonderful if we could bake a cake straight away, without having to need to buy the ingredients, measure them, mix them and so on and so forth? Well, yes, it would be wonderful, but one still has to do it: It is the nature of baking cakes. Yet once you do it and put the cake in the oven, what will happen next - namely the transformation of  a slimy dough into a beautiful cake - will happen by itself as a consequence of the chemistry of the several ingredients under heat. Once you put the cake in the oven there is nothing more you can do except wait for the prescribed time (and never ever open the oven door to check how things are going) and hope the cake will turn all right. That is the “gelling” part of the process.

If everything goes according to plan the cake should turn beautifully. If it does not, one must enquire where things went wrong. Was it the ingredients? Was it the amounts? Was it the order and manner of mixing ingredients? Was it the oven temperature? Was it the time it was in the oven? Did you open the oven door? Any of these stages can have disastrous consequences for cake baking.

And yet perfect cakes do exist. We have all tried them. Therefore it is perfectly possible to bake a perfect cake. If your cakes turn out to be disaster after disaster, you must ask a master baker what is going on. But it must be the right kind of master baker. Some master bakers do know how to bake superb cakes, but they do it mostly at the unconscious level. They cannot explain how they do it. They ramble about being creative and not using recipes. They wax lyrical about  the artistry of cake baking and how taste should be ultimate arbiter of all cooking. Stay away from such master bakers (but by all means do eat their delicious cakes) if you are a beginner. Such master bakers learned their craft informally by probably being born into a family of superb master bakers, and by hanging in the kitchen since he was a toddler. This means that he learnt his craft by absorbing the influences around him/her and making a lot of mistakes at an early age. So now that s/he is a master baker himself/herself, s/he cannot even remember the steps s/he went through in the first place. Such a master baker will completely useless to a beginner baker, although he might teach (by simple example) much of value to other master bakers.

The simple fact is that cake baking is a very technical process. Sure there is artistry at some later point. But if your cakes are burnt in the outside and not cooked in the middle, if you can never get them to raise, id they are rock hard, or if they simply taste terrible (a friend of mine once baked a beautiful cake, but she had mistaken the salt for the sugar, so you can imagine the results), what you need is not an intuitive baker, but one who knows the several technical steps. You need a recipe and you must follow it. You need a good oven and you need to make sure the temperature in correct.

Likewise when learning complex tasks, all one can do is assemble the separate ingredients in the correct order and leave the oven to do the rest. We know that superb piano playing is possible. We see and listen to it all the time. So if one’s piano playing turns out to be terrible, one needs to sort out the technique (and I do not mean piano technique here), and use a recipe. What one does not need is advice from superb pianists who have no clue about how they got to play as well as they do, and waxing lyrical about musicality.

2.      Here is the second way I think about this. There are many ways of learning. Unfortunately our modern Western society seems to have forgotten all about his, and concentrates on pure intellectual learning (that is, learning based on comparison), memorisation, and repetition. The idea that there is a recipe for learning in anything, that things should be done in an exact order, and that it is not simply having the components seems to escape most if not all people involved in education.

Here is a good example. Consider the way people learn how to drive a car. First they are given a course in road safety, etc. Then they go into a car with an instructor who gives them verbal instructions to do this or that movement (press the clutch, put first gear, release the clutch and press the accelerator). Is it any wonder that everyone stalls? And is it really safe to get someone on the road who does not know how to drive? Is it any wonder that it may take months for someone to learn how to drive (and some never learn in spite of being given a licence).

What is the alternative? The alternative is to use the correct procedure and get someone to learn in one day. And here is the correct procedure: Get a car which has all the controls (steering wheel, clutch, accelerator, gear stick) duplicated on the passenger side. These do not work. They are dummies. Now the instructor drives around (far safer) and the student imitatesexactly what the instructor does. There is no need for detailed verbal instruction. Add to that a little beep anytime the student does something terribly wrong (or have a second instructor in the back seat so that the instructor driving can concentrate on driving) so that the student has instant feedback and can correct him/herself, and I bet that at the end of this lesson the student will be ready to change places with the instructor at the wheel.

Of course this “imitative” procedure will not be good for all areas of learning (it will be useless for learning maths, for instance) but it is perfect for anything that has to do with co-ordination. I doubt if driving schools be interested, since they will be teaching for one hour instead of a couple of months.

I am also a great believer in dispersive teaching, something almost unheard of in our schools. This means that you approach a subject from as many different angles as you can think of. Instead of the usual focused concentration on one single aspect of a subject, you just explore it in any number of ways some completely absurd.

How many people in this forum learn a piece by simply opening the score, going to the piano and sightreading through it and then simply practising it over and over again? Here is the dispersal way to do it:

i.      Listen to as many versions of it as possible (Is there a pop version of it, e.g Emerson Lake & Palmer have a rock version for Mussorgsky’s pictures at an exhibition)
ii.      Read all the composer’s biographies.
iii.      Go to any concert that has the piece in the programme.
iv.      Watch any documentary that may be related to the piece/composer.
v.      Read all the analyses of the piece.
vi.      Do your own analysis of the piece.
vii.      Play the piece to people of all walks of life and ask about their impressions.
viii.      Visit the places where the composer lived/composed the piece.
ix.      Is there a story behind the piece? Find out.
x.      Get acquainted with the historical period of the piece, not only in terms of history textbooks, but mostly what was day-to-day life then. What interested people? What were their daily difficulties?(e.g. There was no running water IN J.S. Bach’s house, so water had to be fetched daily from the well. He presided over a household of several children – just imagine the demands and constraints on his time).
xi.      When you actually get to work on the piece at the piano, consider the instruments that were available to the composer. If possible try to paly in one of those instruments.
xii.      Digital pianos allow you to alter the tuning system at the press of a button. Investigate the prevalent tuning system at the time of the piece. Play it in that tuning system.
xiii.      Again, you can fix the frequency of a digital piano by the touch of a button. Find out what was the orchestral pitch of the piece, and paly it at that pitch (e.g. in Bach’ time A =415, instead of the current A= 440).
xiv.      Try out the numberless ways and variations of practising procedures.
xv.      This list is endless, its size being limited only by your imagination.

This “dispersive” approach is, at the moment of writing, the most powerful way to speed up the gelling process. (But since I am always looking for other ways, something even better may turn up).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Hazim]

You will progress very quickly if you like/love/is interested in what you are doing. How obsessed are you with the piano? Do you regret at night having to go to sleep because you would rather practise another hour? Do you wake up instantly in a fit of excitement (think children on boxing day) because you can go to the piano and practise?

I am completely obsessed. I regret having to go to sleep, I regret having to go to work, I sometimes wake up earlier in the morning to play s little bit before I go to work, and once I got so lost that I ran late, I regret it when guests come to visit me because I waste valuable time for piano... (However, the other night I had a short concert for my friends who were completely amased.)

Regarding the fact that level of Satie's Gnossienne is 6/7 - I am stunned, because I can play it really well (and even interpret it in my own way). I feel that piece so stronlgy, I sometimes get scared when I play it, as if I will get hurt somehow. When I play it, I hardly fight myself not to burst in tears. However, learning Gnossienne actually took years, because that has long been my favorite piano piece, and I have like 6 different CDs with various pianists playing it, I have studied Satie's life, the background of that very composition, the meaning behind the music... which prooves another statement of yours - that loving and studying the piece can help speed up the learning process. No wonder that I was able to play Gnossienne after only 5 months of piano lessons... At the same time, the melodies that I do not enjoy so much: the ones that my teacher gives me - I find so difficult to play them, even though they are the apsolute beginners tunes... sometimes I feel as if I am wasting my time with that, but I want to believe that it will help me at later stage...

How I wish I had you Bernhard as my teacher!

Hazim.

[bernhard]

Regarding the fact that level of Satie's Gnossienne is 6/7 - I am stunned, because I can play it really well (and even interpret it in my own way).

Gradings are completley subjective and I for one pay no attention to them. In the 60s the ABRSM actually graded Gymnopedie 1 as grade 3. Then they upgraded it to grade 6 in the 80s. I think they probably got a whole load of seven year olds playing it really badly, so they decided to take musicality into account as well.

At the same time, the melodies that I do not enjoy so much: the ones that my teacher gives me - I find so difficult to play them, even though they are the apsolute beginners tunes... sometimes I feel as if I am wasting my time with that, but I want to believe that it will help me at later stage...

Yes, you may be wasting your time. The reason I say that is that most beginners have no idea what they want to play. So it is up to me to give them some pieces that I hope they will like enough to put in the effort to practise/learn them.

I consider it a blessing when a student comes along who knows exactly what they want to play. It does not matter the difficulty, we will tackle it (anyone can do two notes, and by mastering two notes at a time eventually one gets there).

Also you are an adult student, you should perhaps talk with your teacher and ask him/her the reasons for hi/her assignments. Is s/he aware of the music you ultimately want to play? It is possible that his/her assignments are leading towards it.

I personally do not believe in "general technique" theories - namely, let us learn the "basic" techniques and then we will be able to play anything. The fact is that there are no general techniques. Each piece has its own requirements so one must get on with it as soon as possible. (This is going to generate some response! )

How I wish I had you Bernhard as my teacher!

I am also available for birthday parties!

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[lani]

Speaking of playing pieces that don't motivate the student, I noticed my daughter was going through a difficult period with a teacher (whom she began lessons with at 6), because she was really bored with the Alfred's Piano Party books.  This instructor never had recitals or workshops. My daughter wanted to play classical music so badly and kept telling her teacher she wanted to play "real" pieces.  After three years of these books, she did not want to practice anymore.  She began Beethoven's Fur Elise, and things got a little better, but the teacher kept plying her with the Piano Party books, which she disliked.  We eventually changed teachers because she happens to really enjoy performing and looks forward to the workshops our present teacher hosts twice a year.  Her present teacher did think she had good basics though( even though he does not use the Piano Party books, but rather uses short classical pieces appropriate for children).  Her playing has vastly improved, she is highly motivated because like Bernhard says, he pretty much lets her choose whatever pieces she wants to play (within a reasonable level of her abilities).  He deferred the Chopin Fantasy Impromptu (very gently told her let's master a few other Chopin pieces).  She still has to play Czerny for her excercises, (she disliked Hanon).  Now she's complaining that maybe we should let her teacher choose some pieces so that she can progress to a higher level (!)  We have come full circle. Finally!  It's quite a balancing act, isn't it, to choose new pieces that a teacher would choose vs. ones you want to play.  I really liked Bernhard's comments and yes, I'd like to sign up for the birthday party.  How about summer camp?

[Hazim]

Also you are an adult student, you should perhaps talk with your teacher and ask him/her the reasons for hi/her assignments. Is s/he aware of the music you ultimately want to play? It is possible that his/her assignments are leading towards it.

My teacher knows all about me - I told her a lot of everything before we even started with lessons, and she knows my background, history, my motivs, and she knows my ultimate goals. However, we started with some typical former-Yugoslavia piano school-book, with some terrible, non-musical tunes, but also with some pretty nice etudes that one can really enjoy playing. These 140 pages of various melodies are supposed to offer the basic entry level of piano technique, after that, we should move to some other level. She said that this is something that everyone must go through. But she also said to me that I can not play Gnossienne and we should not bother with something like that yet .

I obeyed her, did what she asked me to do, but secretly, while doing her borring excercises every day, I kept trying Gnossienne at the same time. One day, I came to a lesson, played Gnossienne, and she was completely shocked , especially with the fact that I played fully, with musicality, dynamics and expression, far beyond the level of those children songs from her book. That day, she decided to finally start showing me the scales, and although I still have to work according to her borring book, now I do not have to do all those songs anymore, just some really important ones and the ones that I like. So that is OK, but I wish, I desperately wish I could learn to play piano by practicing Chopin's Nocturnes for instance. Yeasterday, I have no idea how did 4 hours pass as I was fighting with Nocturne 20 in C sharp minor... at the same time, half hour practice of my homework almost killed me...

There are hundreds of melodies that I so strongly feel and want to be able play, from all genres of music, starting from classical, to Pink Floyd and Abba, to some traditional ones, but if I could shorten the list to the most interesting piano melodies (currently) occupying my brain, those are, not necessarily in this order:

1. Erik Satie, all seven Gnossiennes
2. F. Chopin, Nocturne 20 in C sharp minor
3. L.V.Beethowen, Third part of Moonlight sonata  
4. F. Chopin, Revolutionary Etude
5. F.Liszt, La Campanella

(...and other 2580349573149790390 melodies ). I desperately want to be able to just let my hands do the what brain wants, because, there is this concert, with the above program, continuesly being played inside of my head... I wish I could materialise that.

I personally do not believe in "general technique" theories - namely, let us learn the "basic" techniques and then we will be able to play anything. The fact is that there are no general techniques. Each piece has its own requirements so one must get on with it as soon as possible. (This is going to generate some response! )

This "Gnossienne expirience" of mine prooves your statement: while hardly struggling with general technique book for entry level, I have managed to play a peace that is quite advance (and unique in its own way), even though I am very bad in "general technique melodies". I believe that complexity of emotion can not be simply and clearly devided into some "components". Although we can identify many of these components, there is always more to it...

I am also available for birthday parties!  

My birtday party is on April 24th, I will be 31. Maybe you could come? Anyway, Bernhard, I do not know where do you live, but if you ever come any close to Sarajevo, you MUST let me know!


Best regards,

Hazim.

[jbmajor]

No, learning the piano is not linear at all. People’s experiences in other areas of life and strongly held views make them expect progress in all things to be gradual. This is certainly not the case in piano learning. There are also other areas in life that exhibit the same non-linear/non-gradual kind of progress, but most people seem oblivious to it.

Take learning how to read, for instance. If you ask anyone “How long did it take you to read?” if they remember it at all, the answer will be on the lines of “around one year”. This however is impossible. The fact is that everyone learns how to read in an instant. Think about it. You cannot possibly learn how to read gradually, because you cannot read gradually. Either you read or you don’t. In fact, most people who can remember it (and they will agree with you once you point it out to them) went through something like this:

The family is having breakfast. The father is reading a newspaper. The four-year old shouts excitedly: “I can read, I can read!”. The father and mother smile, since the toddler has just enrolled in school and just the day before was struggling wit letter shapes. But the child insists: “I can read, I can”. So the father, to humour the child says: “all right, what is the headline in this newspaper?” and the child proceeds to read it impeccably. Jaws drop, great commotion, a prodigy in the family!

So, this is just one of many instances of what I call instant learning. And trust me, the majority of learning is actually of this kind.

Now, if you can learn to read in an instant, what was that whole year in school for? That was a very important period. It was preparation for instant learning. The important point here is that during the whole year not much seemed to be happening. And then suddenly it all came to fruition instantly. It is specially important for adult students to realise this, because if you spend a year doing something and nothing much seems to be happening, you are likely to become demotivated and believe that you are going nowhere. This is not true.

Let us go back to reading and understand it a bit better. Reading is what I call a “complex” task. It is not complicated or difficult. But it is complex. This means that it is made up of a huge number of simple and easy skills, but each of these simpler skills need to be thoroughly mastered before it can all “gel” into the complex task we call “reading”. So one needs to be able to recognise the letters of the alphabet. One must associate the letters with sounds. One must be able to recognise strings of letters as patterns we call words. One must know the words and their meanings (we often forget how poor children’s vocabularies necessarily are – just imagine the difficulty of trying to learn to read in a foreign language). Now although we know quite a lot about the teaching and learning of isolated simple skills, we know next to nothing (I am not exaggerating here) about the gelling process. All we know is that it will happen if we persevere with the drilling of simple skills that make up for the complex process. And this gelling of simple skills into a complex whole will happen suddenly, instantly and unexpectedly. It is actually perfectly possible to be a master of every single skill needed for the complex process of reading, and yet be unable to gel them into reading. Anyone who teaches literacy (specially to adults) will know what I am talking about here: a person who can laboriously join letters, who may be able to sign one’s name, and yet cannot really be said to read. These people are usually called “technically literate”, but they are in fact illiterate people.

So mastering the basic skills is necessary, important and the only step we can control. However it is not sufficient. To be truly literate a mental process over which we have no control, and really know nothing about, must take place. I call it “gelling”, but you can call it anything you want.

Learning the piano is exactly analogous. Playing the piano is not complicated, but it is a very complex process requiring mastery of numerous single skills each in themselves pretty simple to acquire. It is the putting together of all of it that will make a pianist out of someone who can just perform the numerous single skills by themselves perfectly. This putting together will eventually happen if you keep at it. When it happens it will be sudden, unexpected and instant.

A lot of problems connected with the learning of complex skills has to do with not spending enough time mastering the simple skills that make up the complex task. We are impatient. We want to play the whole piece straight away. We want to join hands before hands separate are completely mastered, and so on and so forth.

Now one of the main problems with adult students, is that they expect gradual progress. They are not prepared for the shock that they may get stuck for months with no progress at all. Then the whole self questioning starts: “Why am I doing this?”

And of course, I am assuming that the teacher knows about the single steps and the order they should be approached, since it is very easy to do everything wrong and never get anywhere (the same is true in reading). In fact there are two things that amaze me most of all: that people can actually learn to play the piano, and that babies can be born most of the times perfect. When one thinks about how much can go wrong in these immensely complex phenomena one feels really amazed at how frequently everything turns up all right.

So how long will it all take? As with everything else in the universe, it depends. However the great accelerator is like/love/interest. You will progress very quickly if you like/love/is interested in what you are doing. How obsessed are you with the piano? Do you regret at night having to go to sleep because you would rather practise another hour? Do you wake up instantly in a fit of excitement (think children on boxing day) because you can go to the piano and practise? Look at the books in your house. Are they all about piano playing, lifes of the great pianists, composer biographies and piano music criticism? You never go to the cinema (prefer to practise) unless it is “Shine” which you have already seen 17 times? Look at your videos/DVDs are they all about music/ pianists in concert/music documentaries? Do you call your dogs Liszt and Rach? You get my drive. This sort of attitude will make progress quick. Alternatively if you do not like/love/is interested in what you are doing it will never happen. Some people in the forum confess to dislike of this and that composer (J.S. Bach pops out quite frequently). If so they will never play it well (if at all). By the way this is not a criticism, I myself could not care less for most of Bartok. On the other hand, sometimes someone is so obsessed with a piece/composer that in a few months of lessons they may be playing a very advanced repertory (of that particular composer at least).

Unfortunately such like/love/interest cannot be summoned at will (This is not strictly true, but to expand on it will take volumes). It either is there or it is not. And if it is not that is it. No amount of intellectual rationalisation is going to make up for it. I may be convinced that Bach is good for me, but if I happen not to like it that is pretty much it. And what is worse, if you persist in trying to do something you don’t like/love/is interested in your whole being is going to sabotage you. (Injuries, fatigue, unexpected illness, accidents – how much of this may be unconsciously self-inflicted).
But I digress.

To sum it all up: Piano learning is non-linear. Progress is never gradual. It is sudden but requires times of apparent non-progress to happen. It follows a “plateau” pattern: You get apparently stuck in a plateau for a while (sometimes a very long while) and then suddenly you move up to yet another plateau. These plateaus are of the utmost importance (it is when you are learning the skills at the unconscious level). As Confucius said: “It doesn’t matter how slow you go, what it matters is that you do not stop”.

Fur Elise: Grade 4
Gnossiene: Grade 6/7
Revolutionary: Advanced (but only slightly so: Just above grade 8 )

Grades are of no importance (they are also very subjective). One of my adult students is now playing (amongst other pieces) Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 142 no. 2 (around grade 7). She has started from scratch 5 months ago. She has one hour lesson everyday and practises a lot (she is retired). And she just loves this piece (in fact that was all she ever wanted to learn). And of course she has a great teacher!

So do not worry about grades: choose whatever you would really love to play. If it is impossible, learn something that is possible, but that will equip you with the skills you need to tackle the impossible piece you want to play.

Best wishes
Bernhard.

Excellent post.

[pies]

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[Chris_Repertoire]

I'm an adult learning, started at 21. I've been playing less almost a year, about 2 hours a day six days a week.  The last few months are the only ones I've been practicing in a really good way.

I'm working on the Bach C minor prelude right now,  I'm about to learn the 'easy' Beethoven sonata.

There is so much music out that I want to learn that is within my skill level.  I think if you are concerned with playing music - music with serious artistic value - you will easily have enough for a life time after playing for around a year.   I'm not so much concerned if I can ever get to Chopin Etudes or late Beethoven sonatas ... I care about learning as much really good music as I can ... from as many musical periods as I can.  

Hope this helps

[Tash]

it'll take how long you want it to take (or forced to)
well i've been playing for 10 years now and i wouldn't say that i'm incredibly advanced due to the fact that 1)i didn't start taking piano seriously til about 4 years ago and 2) my teacher likes to stick by the grades and won't let me skip them (except for a few of the earlier grades but that was with a different teacher). so basically if i didn't do grades then i could probably play a lot more difficult stuff. but there's plenty of time for that in the future so i'm quite happy with my fantasie-impromptu and whatever else...