Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Chances to study without any teacher ?

I am wondering if there is a realistic chance
for an adult-beginner to "get somewhere"
if they study alone...
(with the only help of books, Internet etc.),
if, because of their circumstances,
there is - unfortunately - no chance for them
to study with the guidance of a teacher ?

Even if they have to start to read & learn
everything from scratch ?

I am wondering, because it is so often pointed out
that "one needs a teacher to get somewhere" ?

But if there is no chance to have a teacher,
has it been known to be fruitful all the same in the long run?

Thanks from Kristina.

I seem to be doing OK. I started with the Scott Houston book and lead sheets from Wikifonia. It's been a little over two years, and I have a few standards that I can play.

I do get pointers from other players once in a while.

Ever heard of Vangelis? He's self taught and still can't read music.

Macca plays piano and is self taught

*Hack spit * Justin Biebier is self taught.

The thing is the teacher is a guide to steer you away from your mistakes so you use your time more effectively. Therefore I consider them to be catalysts, somebody who increases the rate of your learning.

Like spotting your mistakes and bad techniques and seeing and pointing out where you are going wrong which you often cannot see yourself!

Myself I played for a number of months in an unstructured manner. I learnt some songs, could read most of the top stave (but only the top stave and only inside the ledger lines). In the year since lessons I've grown a lot faster than I could have alone.

I think thats the only difference.

I would hope so because I can't afford a teacher

I think it really depends on where is this "somewhere". If you want to perform in public and become a good interpreter of classical music you will need a teacher sooner or later, while if you just enjoy playing easy to intermediate stuff by yourself or for a few friends I think you can do well on your own. At least I hope so.

Honestly, I think it depends on how you approach your studies. Without a teacher, the beginner piano student needs to have discipline, focus, patience, and time commitment. Additionally anyone learning needs to be able to get good sleep and understand they will be better at the piano the next day. This is a discipline where you can get discouraged quickly and easily.

I am without a teacher and think I am doing okay. But I have had to refocus several times to make sure I am not straying off the path. Small goals each week help with that.

Some students will feel lost without a teacher; they simply need someone to direct them. So it really depends on how you learn. Everyone is different.

Realistically you can do this without a teacher, but you also need to be realistic about how you go about it.

A teacher knows the repertoire and can suggest suitable material for them to teach and can spot flaws in your playing position and mechanical actions that might otherwise lead to injuries, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Not everybody makes ergonomic mistakes. I taught myself for years and had no bad habits to unlearn when I started lessons. Couldn't read for toffees but no bad habits.

At least not related to piano!

Without a teacher you will learn more slowly. But it need not be less thoroughly. There are plenty of sites offering good sources of infomation and you're already a member of this forum, which is undoubtedly the next best thing to a teacher.

You might check out these places:

A compendium of practise methods

Some good tips

There are others.

Great links, thank you!

Kristina, you can certainly do this on your own. But if "circumstances" means you can't afford lessons with a teacher, consider creative options. Maybe you can arrange a barter arrangement with a teacher. I had an impoverished 20ish student propose that, and it worked just fine for a year: she did odd jobs and errands for me for about 3 hours a week in return for her weekly lesson.

Or you could just ask a teacher to give you a free 30 minute lesson once a month to guide you. I wouldn't refuse such a request if I liked the student and believed that he or she had no money. I think many piano teachers might be similarly receptive.

For me, the two main advantages of having a teacher is:

- Feedback on my playing. Sure I could play a piece back when I did not have a teacher but I was never sure whether it was correct and more importantly, how I could improve the playing (put more accent here, less staccato there etc.).

- Closure. When the teacher tells me that we can move on to the next piece I know that the previous piece is done. Without a teacher I would often learn several pieces at a time without real focus and without ever finishing anything.

That being said, I do think that it is possible to learn the piano without a teacher, it's just harder. There are so many great resources out there from Youtube to piano sites and this forum of course.

I recognize that there are advantages of having a teacher but many of us can not do it (like me ...).

Learning alone is an adventure because you are... alone. You have to work "away" of the piano, collecting information on the Internet, studying every detail of the piece, listening tons of pieces, or asking for help in PW. At the same time you have to be able to recover (without expert help) of those moments of frustration we all go through.

One the other hand, you are free to choose what you want to play. For me, this is the major advantage of learning without a teacher.

In short, and looking at my experience, I think it is very worthwhile.

I completely agree. I am more invested in my studies because I am doing this on my own. I read more, listen more, research more than I would have if I was following a teacher. Now, that is not to say a teacher would not be beneficial, for sure they would. After all I still plan to get a teacher. But I have thoroughly enjoyed the process so far as I explore this new world on my own.

+1. Thanks for saying everything I've felt to be true in the three years I've been posting here but somehow never quite managed to say. Though they may have their advantages, teachers can also breed dependence and kill initiative and block the possibility of creative and stylistic breakthroughs.

I am taking piano college courses for the first time, one because it focuses on helping people teach themselves using the Abersold improvisation materials, the other because it allows for regular live performance opportunities. There are some women in the performance class who study with the same teacher. They have the same strengths, but they also have the same weakness as players.

They are not open to deep harmonic analysis, are afraid to change anything on the sheet, even when playing popular music, and after many years with this teacher one told me was "strict", seem entrenched in their own set of bad habits, like depending too much on muscle memory and losing patterns when have to play pieces publically they've been playing for years. And they haven't been slowed down in being able to to improvise and or play music they create themselves on the fly, they have been programmed into never being able to do it, something that, on my own, I know I am well on my way to learning to be able to do.

Those links are great! I started a notebook for my lessons/practice. And all the different ways of practicing were eye-opening.

Sombody here on the forum once said: The drawback for the self-taught student is, that he has the worst teacher.

Well, keep this in mind and stay very self critical with what you are doing. But you can do it! You can do it! You can do it! Just do it!
Try to record yourself as often as possible and carefully listen to what you have played, maybe send the recording to some friends (or the forum) and ask for feedback.

I have read many comments here that a teacher is necessary to learn properly, advance, and prevent injuries.

After self teaching for a while (through Alfred 1 which I started in a senior group class) I tried lessons with a recommended teacher (many years of experience, MTNA, degree in music performance and pedogogy).

After a few weeks I had considerable pain in my left hand due to making quick jumps to 8th and 9th stretches in the pieces she gave me learn. If I slowed down in my home practice I could make the jumps without pain.

However my teacher complained that I did not play fast enough. She would do one hand and I would have to do the other hand in order to force me to play faster. The only other thing she seemed to do was point out mistakes (of which I was well aware and due to playing faster than I am capable of playing.)

I gave up the lessons and returned to self teaching. My hand pain went away in a few weeks and I am enjoying myself again.

PS: I think the tips in "Piano Practice Methods" are excellent. Many thanks for the link.

Thats what I decided to do when learning guitar! Its useful and a great confidence boost! And boy does mine need boosting!

I did say somewhere here that if you are self-taught, then in fact, you are your own teacher. Actually, my teacher told me this, and she did not mean it in a negative way, realizing that for whatever reason many people simply cannot have a teacher, and that is fine.

Could you get "somewhere"? I think yes. There are a wide range of people though, some could go real far self-taught, then there are those who will go nowhere, with probably a wider group somewhere in between. I think learning piano is like climbing a mountain. If you climb just to see the view at the top, it will be a heck of a journey. If you climb the mountain because you enjoy the climb without regrets if you never reach the top, then you will get somewhere, certainly farther than if you didn't do it at all. If you had a guide, you get there faster with less effort, but a teacher is no guarantee of reaching "your goal".

Except its like hypnosis, it is you who allows yourself to be hyponotised. The other person with the shiny watch or whatever is just a guide, even if you have a teacher, the majority of the teaching and learning is done by yourself.

Lest you can have a Chopin like life with a live in teacher.

Looking at my log of hours. I've for 67 logged hours with my teacher.

I've logged around 750 hours alone.


I also learn pieces alone and only take the bar, just the bar I have trouble with to the teacher. At the moment its large 7 finger chords which need to be rolled.

I've come to learn that what's most important (more important than the best teacher in the entire world!) is...

















strong self-motivation. Without exception, this is what is, and has been, shared between all great pianists (and just great figures in general). Now obviously you need to approach things within reason, learning pieces of which you're capable (ideally capable of mastering), else there will never be success. If the motivation is there, then all that remains is to select and choose roads to go down, them preferably being in some way relevant to your particular end-goal. [begin analogy]The thing about walking such roads alone, though, is that you essentially start out without a flashlight (efficient practice tools) in what is a huge dark forest. Eventually you're likely to stumble across one on your own (through trial and error), but many quit before they do. Many teachers can select roads for you, and most teachers can hold your hand and walk you to the end of each road, but few ironically seem to think of simply providing you with a flashlight instead, allowing you to illuminate your own path down each road.[/end analogy] The instruction of a good teacher is but a single direction - but it is a reliable one. There are many examples of past musicians that successfully traversed their own big dark forests without the initial aid of a flashlight or the even the guidance of a wise teacher, but the fact remains that they were incomparably self-motivated. This quote explains it best: "The road to success is going from one failure to the next with undiminished enthusiasm."

If you can't find or get a teacher, then at least try and get a good book or two to sit down with and garner advice from; it will also help if you know what you wish to be able to do one day with this instrument. Though certainly not nearly the same experience as taking a physical lesson from the [experienced] author/teacher, there's still much that can be learned.