How many pieces should one expect to learn a year?

[meyerhof]

How many piano pieces should one expect to learn a year?

I am 57 years old and have been taking piano lessons for 5 years.  I practice 7-10 hours a week including a 1-hour lesson.

To give you an idea of my skill level, in the past 12 months I've learned: 1) Beethoven's Sonata No.20, Op.49 No.2; Chopin's Raindrop Prelude, Chopin's Preludes in C Minor, E Minor and A Major; and Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor.

A lot of long work to memorize these, but I'm maintaining them as my Go-To-War-Horses when anyone asks me to prove I'm learning piano.

The Chopin Raindrop Prelude and Mozart Fantasia each took about 2 1/2 months to get pretty good and the Beethoven Sonata about 5 months.

The reason I ask is that my progress seems so painfully slow, and I have nothing to compare it to.  No one in my circle takes piano lessons. 

Is my progress and effort it takes about normal?  Do I need to be practicing 2 hours a day and be learning more?  Or should I just accept my old codger limitations and just enjoy the journey and not the destinations.

[chopinlover01]

Although you should always push yourself, remember that pianistic growth is individual for everyone, or else we'd all be the same pianist, and thus there would be no difference in Lang Lang's playing and Yundi Li's (in my opinion superior) playing.
That being said, set goals for yourself in a couple years, but don't do as I do and dream so much you forget what you have to do today to get there.
A good dream for you right now might be Rachmaninoff's prelude in C# minor. Hell, you may even be able to do that in a year or two. Good goal for now. Or, if you like Chopin, maybe set a dream of Etude op 10/3 or 25/1. Or one of the nocturnes, like 55/1 (f minor) or C# minor Op. Posthumous.
Well, there's my .02 cents

[outin]

The reason I ask is that my progress seems so painfully slow, and I have nothing to compare it to.  No one in my circle takes piano lessons. 

Is my progress and effort it takes about normal?  Do I need to be practicing 2 hours a day and be learning more?  Or should I just accept my old codger limitations and just enjoy the journey and not the destinations.

Your progress does not seem slow at all to me...I am 47, practice about the same amount as you and it usually takes me several months to learn even short pieces to performance level. Some people are good in memorizing things fast, I am not. I really need to get them deeply ingrained before I can trust my memory at all.
Do you still work as well? It takes a toll on one's brain too, at least mine does. My pieces progress much faster when on holidays.
Practicing more daily would only work if you can do it with a clear mind and not just force your tired brain to stay at it. You do know that brain needs the rest as well to actually learn?

Although I too feel my progress in painfully slow, my reason tells me that it is just fine considering everything...

[hfmadopter]

You're doing fine. As a working mature adult actually you are doing quite well. Of course I say this without benefit of hearing the results, but just to get through those pieces is good. You don't want to work at the piano to the point it takes the joy out of it for you ? i know I don't but I have a certain drive and I work up to that expectation and maybe some weeks slightly more where some others is slightly less. Last summer when I was not feeling well I really couldn't work at it at all to speak of and over the winter I made up time willingly.

I tell everyone, piano and especially music are life long ventures, there is no need to rush, it isn't going anywhere unless we discard it.

[pianoplunker]

How many piano pieces should one expect to learn a year?

I am 57 years old and have been taking piano lessons for 5 years.  I practice 7-10 hours a week including a 1-hour lesson.

To give you an idea of my skill level, in the past 12 months I've learned: 1) Beethoven's Sonata No.20, Op.49 No.2; Chopin's Raindrop Prelude, Chopin's Preludes in C Minor, E Minor and A Major; and Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor.

A lot of long work to memorize these, but I'm maintaining them as my Go-To-War-Horses when anyone asks me to prove I'm learning piano.

The Chopin Raindrop Prelude and Mozart Fantasia each took about 2 1/2 months to get pretty good and the Beethoven Sonata about 5 months.

The reason I ask is that my progress seems so painfully slow, and I have nothing to compare it to.  No one in my circle takes piano lessons. 

Is my progress and effort it takes about normal?  Do I need to be practicing 2 hours a day and be learning more?  Or should I just accept my old codger limitations and just enjoy the journey and not the destinations.

If you have all those pieces in your pocket I'd say you are doing great. Regardless of how long it took to learn them.  As far as the past 12 months, yes that is good.  I'm 52 and 1/2, so even though I am younger and friskier, I would be challenged to learn all those in 12 months to a point they would always be there. And that is with already having a bit of experience with a couple of them. Your hour-a-day is probably very efficient. More time practicing wont help unless you know how to organize your time. Have you asked your teacher ?

[kopower]

Yes keep practicing - learning pieces takes lots of time !!

[meyerhof]

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond.  It really helps my morale to know that it's not just me struggling painfully slow to master a piece.

The joy is when after 4 or 5 months I realize I am playing something I never would have dreamed possible almost a 1/2 year earlier.  But boy . . . sometimes it feels like the Bataan Death March to get to that point.

I love piano so much that I keep looking back with regret that my Mom let me quit 2 years of piano lessons in 1968.

I'm trying to make up for 45 years of lost time.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and experience.

[saichoo]

Bernhard (the most (in)famous member of these forums) wrote one should be able to learn at least 20 pieces per year.

Of course, the number of pieces one learns in one year is very personal. It depends on the length of the pieces, the difficulty of the pieces, current ability of memorisation and the way one practises. For instance, at my current level I could probably learn over a hundred of those eight bar pieces you find in beginner books, because they pose no technical challenges, they are probably in C major and they are very short. If you were to give me Chopin's Fourth Ballade, it might take me several months because of the technical challenges.

However, the 20 pieces per year is a good number to compare to. Because it will bring up several questions, the most important being "How can I make the learning and practising process more efficient?" If I were your piano teacher, I would not be happy with you taking such a long time to learn those pieces. It would be understandable if they were way out of your current level of technique and you had bad motor skills and you didn't practise, but you practise 7-10 hours a week. I would then ask "Are you actually practising during those 7-10 hours or is it just playing?" I would then get you to film yourself practising and spend a whole lesson on how to make it more efficient, pointing out places where you are going wrong so you can be aware of this and learn to be self-sufficient.

Having a mixture of really easy pieces and harder pieces is important. The easier ones you'll be able to learn faster, thus have a better sense of progression and more pieces to play. The harder ones boost your technique and are rewarding when you finally get there.