Musical background, but just starting the piano. Advice?

[overcore]

I guess I'll give a little background. My father is a music professor, and my mother is a piano teacher (ironic that I've never taken piano lessons). They met at northwestern in grad school, and have raised 4 boys on string instruments. I started playing the violin at age 4 or 5, and switched to the viola at age 16 in order to get into a regional orchestra (the Boston Youth Symphony) without having to put in as much effort than if I had auditioned on the violin. At age 16 I also more or less stopped playing solo pieces, stopped taking private lessons, and practiced on my own rarely. When I turned 18 and finished high school, I stopped playing altogether, and over my subsequent gap year probably played a total of 5 hours of violin/viola at easter and christmas mass (my dad plays the organ at the local church and has his boys play with him on special occasions). My first year of college has been similar to my gap year in terms of violin/viola playing. I'm 20 now, about to start my sophomore year of college.

During my gap year I decided to teach myself the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata No. 14 (moonlight sonata). The effort I put in was paltry, and thus it took me just about a year to learn. I would go for months at a time without progressing in the piece, but just playing what I already knew. There were probably 4-5 points where I actually learned a new chunk. Last summer, I stumbled upon Scriabin's Op. 2 No. 1, fell in love with it, and learned it much in the same manner as I learned the Moonlight Sonata (very slowly, minimal effort, just for fun basically). 11 months later, I've just finished it. I'm not quite sure how good it sounds, but I know I'm missing a lot of the musicality, and it isn't up to speed. Not terrible, but not that great either. Needless to say this was probably too big of a jump for me, but I like it, so it doesn't bother me. At any rate, both of these pieces were just for fun.

Earlier this summer I found a few random piano pieces on my iTunes account that I never use. There were a few Beethoven Sonatas, some Scriabin, and some Rachmaninoff. I can't express with words how much I love the Rach 3. Before I scare anyone: No, I have no intention of ever learning it, but it was a major inspiration for me getting serious about the piano. The one piece that REALLY got me excited about the piano was Scriabin's Op. 8 No. 12. It would be amazing if I could play this one day, but I might be getting ahead of myself here.

In short, I want to start getting serious about the piano. In order to take private piano lessons at my college as a non-music major, I need to play in an ensemble (which probably means I have to take up the viola/violin again and audition for a chamber group or orchestra), and pass an audition on the piano. This would mean I would need to practice the piano and violin/viola constantly for the rest of the summer. It would also mean that I would be too busy next semester for my own good, so I've decided to not try to take private lessons.

1) Would depending on my parents (particularly my mother) for occasional advice, using forums like these, using my own musical background, and doing some other reading on piano technique (can anyone recommend a book) be sufficient for me to progress at a reasonable rate? I'm guessing all of these things put together aren't as valuable as a private teacher, but is my plan good enough or do I absolutely need to have a private teacher?

2) What piece should I shoot for next? I've heard the ABRSM grades are a pretty good guide for pieces and their difficulty. I plan on moving my way through the grades by playing somewhere around 5 pieces per grade. Will this plan keep up with my rate of progress? Will I be challenged, or will I start getting bored? Alternatively, will this pace be too quick? Will I find that the pieces become too difficult too quickly? Finally, is there a better way to pick pieces that align with my skill level besides the plan I outlined above?

3) As far as technique goes, are there any particularly outstanding books, guides, etc. that would help me develop proper technique and warn me of any dangerous habits I might develop (or any that I already developed)? I've heard Hanon has a fairly solid collection of exercises. Would I be smart to pick it up, or are there better exercise books out there?

[iansinclair]

You have at least two of the ingredients to being able to enjoy piano -- you like some of the music written for the instrument, and you obviously have a decent ear and can read music (anybody who can play violin without sounding like the cat's night out has to have that!).  I am sure there will be as many opinions given you as there are readers, but since you seem to want to do this mostly for your own pleasure, I would say you would probably be just fine working mostly on your own, but consulting with your mother and dad from time to time to make sure, mostly, that you weren't teaching yourself any really serious technical errors.  The things which are hardest on your own (n my opinion) are hand position and learning basic finger moves for scales and the like (no, you don't have to play scales and Czerny and so on; what you are looking for is making sure that you have certain very basic finger moves available to you).

Then I would select easier music (things like the ABRSM grades aren't too bad as a guide) to work on -- but not too easy; you'll get bored) and learn them.  You might also look at some of the older "popular" music (the old Fireside Book of Folk Songs isn't a bad place to start, if you can find it) to see if you enjoy that.

The main thing, though, is persistence.  Even if you are just doing it for your own fun, which is great, try to play at least a half hour per day; every other day would be the absolute minimum.  You are learning -- as you did with viola -- a muscle skill with your fingers, and there is simply no other way to do that than practicing.