What grade level can I reach at age 60?

[tropicvibe]

I know I'm a little old (just turned 60) but was wondering what grade levels could I possibly reach if i started formal training? Trained in theory, harmony, composition, instrumental arranging, accompaniment, but no piano grade level training. I have the rudiments, fingerings, scales, chords, as I'd need to since I moonlight as a piano player and write music for some groups. Now disgusted I never took formal training since my technical skill does not allow me to play stuff my more advanced peers can. My sight reading has suffered also as I work a lot with lead sheets, fake books. Can probably sloppily worm my way through The Anna Magdalena Notebook not to mention a few days ago I decided to try out Invention #1 and took out my fury on the music stand. How do I start? Is it possible I'm already at some grade level with my current knowledge? Or will I be wasting my time? Thank you so much and I'd appreciate any comments.

[ted]

Why worry about “grades” at all ? I never bothered with them, couldn’t see any sense in them and I think I have done all right. I gather from your post that you are thinking mainly of the physical aspect of playing. That mostly depends on how much work you are prepared to put into your technique and provided it is sufficient to facilitate your own musical expression that is all that matters. A good teacher by all means but the regimentation of examinations and grades, unless you enjoy it, is unnecessary.

[tropicvibe]

Thanks for your response, i was under the impression that i'd need grade levels to gauge my progress. I'm thinking like, if your grade 1 then there are only certain pieces you are capable of playing. Then if grade 2, only those pieces, and so on.

[ranjit]

I'm thinking like, if your grade 1 then there are only certain pieces you are capable of playing. Then if grade 2, only those pieces, and so on.

With a bit of experience, you can often judge the difficulty of a piece based off the sheet music and maybe a recording. Difficulty here is subjective -- people struggle with different things. It is very possible that you can play something which is grade 3 or grade 4 right off the bat because you're just naturally good at a particular kind of coordination. On the other hand, you may struggle a lot with something else. I personally found melody+accompaniment easier to work with than contrapuntal voices, for example. I find certain things at a grade 8 level easy. I find certain things at a grade 5 level difficult. And it's not just about playing the piece, it's about bringing it to a kind of personal standard of interpretation, which is a whole other ballgame.

You acquire skills over time, and your proficiency in those skills relative to what a piece demands will determine whether you are able to successfully conquer it. It isn't a linear gradation of difficulty.

[quantum]

IMO, what is needed is a guided approach to filling in all the holes in your foundation skills.  As you have written, you are able to do certain things at the piano yet are frustrated when doing other things at the instrument.  A teacher that can help bridge what you already know and fill in the gaps, lay a solid foundation, so you can go further.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, grade levels are subjective.  Saying you are grade 1, does not automatically imply that you are unable to play grade 2.  What you really should be focusing on is skill development.  Developing skills and improving areas in which you are lacking.  A better mark for progress is asking yourself, can you do something better today that you were not able to do in the past.  Getting grade certificates does not automatically mean you learned what everyone else taking that grade was studying, it simply means you met the requirements of a synthetic benchmark. 

If you want to improve skills, the most efficient way is to address the skill directly.  For example, if you want to improve sight reading, undertake focused study in sight reading.  Working on the requirements for grade 2, doesn't automatically make you a better sight reader.  You can gauge your improvement by monitoring your proficiency sight reading. 

If it is the structured approach to learning you are after, try to build focused learning around skill sets in which you are lacking rather than depend on grades to tell you how you measure up to a subjective average of all learners.

[lostinidlewonder]

I know I'm a little old (just turned 60) but was wondering what grade levels could I possibly reach if i started formal training?

You are not too old, if it makes you feel better the oldest student I taught who never played an instrument before was late 80s. She was very stubborn and fun to teach and did learn at a good rate while I was with her.

My sight reading has suffered also as I work a lot with lead sheets, fake books. Can probably sloppily worm my way through The Anna Magdalena Notebook not to mention a few days ago I decided to try out Invention #1 and took out my fury on the music stand.

There is certainly a difference between part-writing you find in Bach's music and lead sheets where you mostly play LH support vs a RH melodic line. You of course will hit brick walls since your experience is not with Bach's style. You will naturally have a lot easier time with many works which are of the style you have experience already with. A good sight reading program probably would focus on both sides of your experience, with the styles you have experience with and those that you don't have much with but wish to get better at.

How do I start? Is it possible I'm already at some grade level with my current knowledge? Or will I be wasting my time? Thank you so much and I'd appreciate any comments.

You have to humble yourself and start at an easy level and gradually build from there. How you exactly go through that is quite a loaded question. From my experience those who self learn often overshoot the mark and work with pieces much too difficult for them to learn efficiently. So they are often stuck in a cycle thinking that learning piano must be this difficult all the time. Building from an easy point avoids this problem, it is certainly better by far to do too many easy works than too many difficult ones with plenty of reasons as to why such as: developing your practice craft, constantly practicing reading skills with new material, approaching from a mostly comfortable situation rather than something super tense which requires to be made gentle over excessive amounts of time and effort and so on.

[tropicvibe]

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments as it helped motivate me and have decided to start at the very bottom for my reading practice and any other little kinks i may need to iron out. Not knowing where to begin, i bought several books (hope i made good choices) which are the Paul Harris book, Alfred's book, Thompson's book, and Schafer's sight reading book.

[compline]

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments as it helped motivate me and have decided to start at the very bottom for my reading practice and any other little kinks i may need to iron out. Not knowing where to begin, i bought several books (hope i made good choices) which are the Paul Harris book, Alfred's book, Thompson's book, and Schafer's sight reading book.

There is no reason why you can't  go up to Grade 3,  it gets more difficult from there, in my experience as a senior citizen.  You must have a goal, be determined and committed to  hours of practice.  Leave the dishes in the sink!    But I   could not have achieved this just going it alone  by ploughing through books, or via internet videos. This is just not my scene.   I started with a good tutor, home visits, and we got to know each other so well. Ok  paying for lessons can be expensive, but I consider this a worthwhile  pastime in more ways than  one.   
Try to stick to good time management when you can practice during the day.  Maybe you can do an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.  Scales and arpeggio practice is very important too .   I like to have a good practice on scales before I start with the music piece I am learning.

[dlcvag]

Close to 50 here - I studied piano until I was 18 and was playing Bach's 2 voice inventions-level stuff - restarted 2-3 years ago, and now can play 3-voice and well-tempered clavier, perhaps not very well but definitely better than when I was 18.

My wife, same age, started from the beginning also 2-3 years ago and is moving around 1 ABRSM grade level per year. As adults, we may take longer to learn but we have more discipline and method and this more than makes up for the loss.

I may never be a concert pianist, but I am sure in a couple of years I will have a nice repertoire. So, I would say that 60 is not too late, you can make a lot of progress and with a good teacher, you will be able to play an interesting repertoire in 4-5 years and really nice stuff in 6-8 years.