How Long Does it Take for You To Be Good at a song

[Airbum88]

I've been playing George Winston's version of Pachelbel's Canon and it's taking an awfully long time for me to be good at it.  Good as in smooth and not many mistakes....or none at all.

I want to how long does it take average for you to be at that level when u play a song.

[BuyBuy]

First of all, if you wanna survive on this forum, there are certain blasphemies you need to erase from your vocabulary : we play pieces, not songs (songs are sang, pieces are played...). But you seem new to the piano, so hey, it's OK this time... hahaha.

OK, the time it takes to learn a piece (all the way as close to perfection as possible) depends on your ability, the difficulty of the piece and the time you got. Well, that's not revelation for anyone, but still good to remind.

So don't be overconcerned if a piece takes some time. Myself, for example, I recently used a couple of weeks for an easy piece (a Poulenc improvisation), but I am now working on a Brahms sonata for piano and viola that will probabaly take about 6 months to finish and on a Liszt transcription that will with no doubt take even longer... considering my technical defficiencies and the little time that I can practice. And that's all right: some concert pianists can learn tough pieces in a few days when they need to (after all, that's why they're payed, isn't it ?), but sometimes, they need months or even years to totally polish a piece before they dare performing it in public. So you see, ain't no shame...

Of course, you need to love what you play to stay that long practicing the same piece, but try usually to practice challenging stuff at the same time as easier works, so you broaden your repertoire and don't get neither bored nor discouraged.

[frederic]

Exactly!

Oh... and BuyBuy, whats that transcription you are playing? I'm curious to know....

[BuyBuy]

Oh, it's Liszt transcription of Gounod's waltz from the Faust opera. I wanted a show-off piece without having to kill myself, and I found this one nice but not as hard as, let's say, the William Tell or the Rigoletto transcriptions.