Exercises to become a professional

[kairu ishimaru]

It's been a year and a half since I started practicing playing the piano.
I know how to read music sheets.. BUT I understand them very slowly.
I played a lot of piano pieces just by memorizing them. But after 2 months of not playing, I tend to forget them.
I learn the piano pieces just by studying the notes and memorizing it and it takes months to play them perfectly. Unlike others who can just place the music sheet in front of them in case they forgot a key, they will just look at it and play them.
I posted here because I think that what I'm doing in the year of practice, was just stupid and wrong. I feel like nothing's improving in me. And I can't even call myself a "beginner" or an "amateur".
So what's the best exercise to become a pro little by little?, By which I mean those pianists who can sight read, play songs on the piano just by looking at guitar chords (yeah, my friend can do that, just looking at a song she knows with guitar chords)?

[Bob]

It sounds like you're asking about how to read music better. 

That is something that's a skill itself too.  And there are tricks -- Professionals can make it sound good and not necessarily play all the notes on the page or might not be reading every note on the page.

A teacher helps of course.

The first thing I thought of was to play more music, but not memorize it.  Keep the music in front of you and read off that.  If that's not working, the music might be too difficult, so try easier pieces.  You were talking about reading the music though.  That will help you to read better.

There is preparing the music too.  But you can do the same thing.  Keep the music in front of you.  Learn to play it without having to memorize it.  You won't be able to play it without the music in front of you, but you might need to work on getting the notes under your fingers. 

I think it can be a bit of a flaw with traditional piano lessons if you have difficult pieces all the time, esp at the beginning.  If you're spending six months on a few pieces and you work and prepare them, you're not learning how to read so much -- You're learning how to prepare pieces in six months.  Very different than sitting down and sight-reading something. 

You'll find more on this forum under a term like sight-reading.  That's where you play a piece of music without having seen it before.  You can practice that and it's kind of its own skill to be able to do that.  I wouldn't worry so much if you can't sight-read that well as a beginner.  You've had one year of experience?  That's not a lot.  Sight-reading skills are usually lower for the challenge of the music compared with what you could prepare -- and prepare with six months time.  That makes sense. 

You probably can already sight-read.  You'd have to be able to read music at some level.  Maybe take some beginning method book pieces and try playing through them.  If that's not working, try playing just one hand.  Or try a lower lever level method book.

Sight-reading doesn't have to be all at the first glance either.  There are techniques to get more out of the music -- Look through the whole piece and see what the path is, be aware of the key and any key changes, look for tough spots (and possibly simplify them before playing through), etc.  You could even mentally practice it if you want.  So you might take a minute or so just looking at the music before attempting to sight-read it.  And you can just sit down and play through it without looking at it first too.

[kairu ishimaru]

Thanks for replying.

Yes. I know that 1 year isn't a lot. I just thought that in that 1 year, I haven't learn a thing or two.

What are some examples of easy pieces to practice sight-reading?

[keyboardclass]

Intelligent practice, intelligent practice, intelligent practice.

[kairu ishimaru]

That's the problem. I don't know how to do an "intelligent practice".

[keyboardclass]

If you haven't a good teacher you won't.

[pianisten1989]

Practise both the things you suck at, and the things you're good at. If you only play things you're good at, you wont develop as a pianist. And if you only play what you're not so good at, you'll think you're a bad pianist...
...
That's kind of it.

[b0mbtrack]

I know how it feels, I was in that same boat but have since found good ways to practice and got a teacher.  If I ever had any questions I would search bernhard's posts and that would bring up lots of help.  Also checking out c.c. chang's book helped.  As far as keeping things memorized I make a list of the pieces I know and put I check next to them when I play them.  If I see one piece falling behind I play it till it catches up to the others, this has helped a lot.  But the biggest thing is getting a teacher.