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You have received some positive and comforting responses. I would be less positive and bring some questions. The fact that you have been studying piano for 14 years and are still at grade 2 or so is not an encouraging sign. I would actually raise an alert if someone had 5 years of piano and would still be at grade 2. If I were you and before engaging into another 10 years of maybe frustrating process, I would want to actually understand very precisely what it is that is causing this lack of progress which is not usual. I can accept that poor practice can slow down progress but I think the 14 years/grade 2 is beyond the concept of poor practice. I would think that in 14 years with a normal practice and in addition with teachers, you should have been able to reach a grade 5-6.

I do not see in which way ear learning would in any way improve the situation. The question is not how to learn a piece but that at the end you need to be able to seat at your piano and technically execute end-to-end a piece reasonably well. Whether you have learned it by ear, by score or by any other way does not change the fact that eventually you need to be able to play it.

I know nothing of your past practice, but either it has been more than just inefficient or maybe that you and the piano are not made for each other. That said you can enjoy music while not being a proficient piano player. For me I do not have an idealized view of pianists. A good pianist is essentially a good technician like a good mason (I exagerate a bit); a good musician is more than a technically proficient pianist and there are plenty of oustanding singers that do not particularly play well of any instrument.

So all in all, in your situation, I would assess my past experience, root causes and then my objectives for the next 5 to 10 Years. Cheers and good luck.

Certainly, this should be a consideration.

If you adopt the policy of not moving on until you can play the piece at hand, you will perhaps find out.

If the piano is not something you can do …. you may never be able to play it.

At least then you will find out and can engage in something that you may have more ability to learn.

Personally, I believe that the one thing that will keep one on track with learning a musical instrument is the actual music one can play on it (eventually). How much does one want to be able to play the music which the instrument is suited for?

Many people just like the idea of learning an instrument, but not so much the music itself. Or maybe the factors (like camaraderie) that are involved in it. (That's what keeps many singers in choirs too). It's hardly surprising that the best exponents of their instruments live, breathe and eat music. 24/7. I saw a BBC interview with Kiri Te Kanawa a few days ago (in connection with the forthcoming Cardiff Singer of the Year competition), who stopped singing some years ago - completely (not even in the bath, she says) - and immediately took up teaching and nurturing young singing talent. She never left the voice and classical music; she just took a different approach to it, when she felt that her voice was no longer what it once was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuYQ9KRJms

Almost all the student pianists I know who gave up (including my siblings) long before reaching anything like their potential just didn't like the music enough to keep plugging away at practising, improving their technical skills, learning new stuff etc. I took up the guitar before I started piano lessons, but never got beyond playing simple chords to accompany singing. The guitar was just a camaraderie thing for me - being able to pick one up and sing pop songs along with friends around the campfire (which I still do these days - without ever practising). My real love is classical music, but there's very little actually composed for the guitar, which is why I never bothered to go any further by getting proper lessons etc. Incidentally, all the people I knew who gave up piano don't have much interest in classical music either, and they discovered that pop rarely sounds good on the piano........

Which is why when (adult) people ask me about whether they should start learning piano, I want to know whether it's the idea of being able to play it that appeals to them, or whether it's the music that one can play on it.

Because it's often a lonely pursuit, practising an instrument alone, for hours and hours, days and days, months and months, years and years, in one's own time..........

Agree, completely.

When I practice something …. I love listening to what I am playing.

Right now, I am practicing a baseline with jazz chord progression ….. over and over and over and over …..

I love to hear me playing it. It sounds good.

It is not ready for prime time yet but …. eventually ….

I am always hummng or whistling a tune while I do other things.

I am a music person.

I will never quit unless I physically cannot do it anymore.

I do not see how you can do this without that love for music.

Hello again, wow some interesting viewpoints in the last few posts . I’ve had a think and I want to say, I do love music and I would like to explain my situation a little further.
Although I’ve had my piano for 14 years I have been more off than on it.

A friend I was initially learning with suddenly passed away and I just didn’t want to practise after that. I think I was grieving and got out of the practise habit. A long time passed with hardly any practice. Then I had a teacher for about a year, we didn’t gel too well and I didn’t enjoy the children’s books I was learning from and I rarely touched the piano during those lessons, just demonstration and chat.

I went for the Alfreds, worked sloppily through it not liking any of it at all. So another break for a few years.

I tried some online stuff, this was fun but all over the place, I had no idea if I was doing ok or not.

I gave up again for a few years and felt maybe piano wasn’t for me. I had some health issues which affected my mood for a long time too. Listening to lots of gorgeous piano pieces and going to see Ludovico Einaudi twice renewed my interest and I wanted to make some music on my piano.

Then I found my last teacher. Within a year, grade 2 and worked toward grade 3 theory, I loved every lesson, but I didn’t have any pieces memorised.
I do have Martha Meir pieces I almost got through, on my own which I really enjoy, but I tried to memorise them because I thought I ought to have some repertoire. Memorisation was difficult for me so I kept thinking I should try something else.

So, that’s where I am, without my teacher, unable to play anything properly. I have really been inspired by some posts and hope I can get another teacher who can give me some structure.

My initial post was a bit whiny, I felt sorry for myself and quite lost but the responses I’ve had have been so helpful and I’m inspired to get back on track.
Thanks

I had a few lessons as a child but my parents didn’t feel I had the talent for music. I thought that piano was out of my life. A few decades later, I’m practicing on a keyboard everyday. Piano music has become part of my life.

During my school years I learned to play violin and thought that this would be my only instrument. Once a man was playing a few songs on the keyboard in front of a small audience and said anybody can play. The difference between individuals is their playing level. At the time I wasn’t 100% convinced but got myself a keyboard anyway.

In the beginning some suggested at least an hour a day. I never kept a practice log. I’d practice 1 piece about 2m long for an hour for 2 weeks until I’m satisfied with the results. I’d go online and watch instructional videos every week and I still do. A lot of pieces are already posted online so I’d find a few recordings of the piece I’m working on for samples. Practice sessions were slow but there were results. I’d be learning 1 measure of a piece each day and playing for an hour until I get it right. For the first year I limited myself to learning just 3 measures a day. Some pieces I know well I’d learn 1 line of sheet music at a time. Even if I’m able to learn the whole piece in a day, I’d set a limit to make sure I get all the notes right before moving on.

At the end of a practice, I’d do at least 1 recording on the part of a piece I’m working on. The next session I’d listen to the previous recordings before playing. The process is tedious but once I get into a regular routine, the result is measurable and rewarding.

My main problem in the beginning was after playing a piece for many hours, my hand muscles developed the memory for 1 Key such as F major. For many weeks I could play many pieces at an intermediate level as long as it’s in F. And there were short pieces I could play perfectly the first time but mistakes would start popping up the second & third time repeating. I no longer have the problem of getting stuck playing in just 1 Key. and the time taken to learn a piece is much shorter. Now I’d work on between 3 - 5 pieces at a time. Instead of practicing a piece until I get the right notes, I’d think of each practice session as experimenting to get the right sound.

After many years of recording myself. My listening skills improved and I can pick up places I didn’t make a good sound. I’m still learning after years of playing to the point of being comfortable with people around listening.

Everybody has their way of learning. Takes a lot of patience and learning must be systematic.
Good luck...

I know you say what you are doing now instead of the above, but I think you should make it clear that the above process is not a usual or best practice in piano learning, to keep newbies from stumbling on such a method. It is quite the opposite of a best practice! I've never done this. I've only had a teacher for 11.5 months and had been self-learning about 4 months before that. I'm making good progress and never worked on a single measure per day for an hour each. This suggests the piece is way too hard and spending ones time on pieces that are way too hard is just not a best practice... Like trying to have a child read Shakespeare because his reading primers seem silly and simple. If we let children learn this way, how many of them would learn anything?

I should stop talking. There is just so much wrong with this.

I think it's important to not ignore "eventually." In the very early stages, there may be pieces that teach a skill but that you will never hum in the bath tub or even play again after you've learned the skill it taught. If your teacher can find pieces that teach the skill and that you love, great, but sometimes the two don't come together. Eventually you'll have far more to choose from and can pick and choose.

In other words, patience and the ability to defer gratification help a lot if you're in for the long haul.

I was age 66 when I restarted after 56 years gap since learning piano as a child. I have been relearning since September 2017 and have made fantastic progress since. Mostly, because of help from my teacher, but I have a digital piano, and so also use Piano Marvel. I am now 68.

Not sure if you are currently London or Manchester - if London - where? I live in Purley just north of the southern part of the M25. To find a teacher I used https://www.firsttutors.com/uk/music/. I had to pay a small introduction free, but that was trivial compared to lesson costs.

I think the most important thing for me in making progress was what my teacher taught me about how to practice efficiently.
1. Practice Slowly - its more important to play the right notes than go fast. Even if at first you take 20 seconds per note (it will soon speed up)
2. Stop when you make a mistake. Don't go back to the beginning - but just a few notes back. Practice up to BUT NOT beyond the point of the mistake until you can get it right 10 times in a row. Then go back a bit further and check you still have it. (sometimes this means practicing just two notes for a while).

I have learnt in two ways simultaneously. With my teacher I learn in depth to a polish. It takes about 3 months a piece. Funny thing is - I switch to a new piece and within a couple of weeks the older piece starts to disappear again. However with one piece (2nd Movement of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata) after dropping for 10 months (it was just the second piece I learnt) I tried to relearn it. It took just a couple of weeks to be back better than before. Now I am loosing it much more slowly. I have participated regularly in the quarterly ABF recital here - that is a great incentive to meet the deadline.

At this age I am in no hurry to learn. I progress where I can and enjoy the practice and progress it brings. I am not planning to take anymore exams

The second way has been with Piano Marvel - these I learn just long enough to play the notes almost correctly. In 2018 I learnt approximately 100 pieces that way. A lot of these were trivial pieces at the bottom levels of piano marvel - but towards the end of the year they were more substantial - although nothing like as complicated as what I was attempting with my teacher. I continue to use Piano Marvel daily to take a sight reading test. This is definitely still working for me to improve my sight reading (I am boosting my learning by taking the piano marvel sight reading bootcamps). I also take pieces from the Piano Marvel library and learn them (recently picked Beatles Let it Be as one example - very simple piece, but just a chance to learn something new).

I think the problem is exactly the absenсe of repertoire. To keep your passion for piano glowing you need at least a couple of pieces that you play well and that you enjoy playing. So every time when you're in the mood you could just sit at the piano and play, enjoying the music and enjoying yourself playing it well.

At your level you obviously can't read music well enough, so memorization is a must. I understand how difficult it may seem to memorize at first, but it is absolutely necessary. With experience you will memorize easier.

I'd recommend you to choose a couple of pieces that you like very much, probably some of simpler Einaudi's pieces, even if it'd be a little stretch, memorize them, start playing slowly and work on them every day for as long as you will need to get to the point when you can play them with ease (not necessarily at the full tempo), enjoying the music and enjoying your mastery.


The idea of playing by ear seems to me inappropriate at this time. You won't be able to play by ear well any time soon and your disappointment will likely just grow bigger because of it.

Best explanation for learning theory that I have heard.

What keeps an adult motivated to keep playing the piano? (Notice I didn't say: 'keep improving')

As a keen observer of the species homo sapiens - in recent years, especially the tiny number of the species who tickle the ivories (because people often open up when they feel they have something in common, after they see me play), I don't doubt any more that the percentage of those who have my kind of mindset (i.e. want to keep improving, keep learning & playing more and more difficult stuff) is actually quite small.

Many are happy to keep playing the music they like, at their current standard. Some have been playing the same few pieces for years and years, and never bother to learn anything else. And then others have their favourite books from which they play from again and again, without ever trying to memorise any piece from them, or trying any other book. They don't want to put any more effort into what is basically their pastime, and why should they? (Think of the joggers you see pounding the streets daily, or the trainspotters..... )

That assumes that they have reached a standard which enables them to play the music they like, and/or a reading standard that allows them to reach for their volumes and play straight from the music. Or play by ear the tunes they like, as the case may be.

So, if an adult learner hasn't reached the standard that satisfies her, and already starting to lose her motivation to practise and progress, what should she do? A good teacher will be able to find appealing pieces that fill the 'void' which also develop her skills. In fact, the learner might even find that those pieces are sufficient, and once mastered, can be enjoyed again & again, and decide that is sufficient for the time being, maybe even for the next few years..........

So, how about one or more of these (in chronological order, not in order of difficulty), which deserve consideration simply because they are all original - and appealing - piano/keyboard pieces, and (mostly) by great composers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZhvlc_FpVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U37SB4i54JU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpnl8w0fBmE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzGOWyYXmYY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkLHdmcMU0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG6IuRGA34A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95RixflcHUY

Maybe it's me and maybe times have changed since I first had piano lessons some 50 years ago, but I feel for the original poster and whilst I think there's lots of really good advice been given I've found some to be very different to my own experiences. I've recently fallen in love again with the piano having for no good reason largely ignored it for the last 30 years, and whilst it's a long time since I had piano lessons, I have been having lessons for a couple of years on a second instrument. Here's what I know.

My memory is truly dreadful. For sure whilst it might be handy to just turn up at a piano without music and play some pieces it's just not going to happen the way my brain works. It's not ideal but it doesn't alter the joy I get from playing from written music. I don't get why anyone would say it's essential. I was in a well known music store evaluating a new piano and there was a fellow customer there whose standard of playing was to a reasonable advanced level. He had a plastic bag full of music and couldn't play a single thing without it.

You're in a big city so finding the perfect teacher should be doable for you. PLEASE be open with them and explain the music you want to play and problems you have with learning. If you're presented with children's books or a strictly classical approach when you want something more modern I don't think the teacher has listened to you and I'd find another. I did a quick google on Martha Mier and the first track I came across sounded like a great little piece - if that's what you like playing fantastic.

This whole thing about whether you have to perfect a piece or not. A good teacher will know when it's time to move on. It's about whether any extra time spent trying to perfect it at this stage is time best spent. I'm a perfectionist so I found it hard to move on to a new piece when my teacher wanted me to but having found a teacher I trusted I bowed to their experience - it's what I'm paying them for.

The idea of spending the majority of the time in your lesson on theory also seems very alien to me, and I wonder if it's because neither you or your teacher were feeling great about the way the practical bit was going.

Finally surely if you're on the same piece for more than a month it's either a piece chosen to deliberately stretch you (and one you're unlikely to master but see above), or it's not a good choice for you. If you're playing so slowly that you've time to think about what's for tea I'd also suggest the piece isn't a good choice for you.

So please reach out and find a good teacher, don't hold back when chatting to them and I'm sure you'll enjoyment will increase.

Good luck.

Dave

dhts thank you for your insight. I had a an awful moment when it was suggested earlier the piano may not be for me. It actually upset me a lot and I lifted the lid on my piano and played something from Martha Mier from memory! It wasn’t great, or in good time, but it made me feel that I just need to get back at it. I think I have been hard on myself, working with theory, didn’t really help with my actual playing even though I enjoyed it. My memorisation wasn’t great, but I never worked with it properly. I expected after playing a piece several times it would just be there in my fingers, but of course I didn’t work with it properly.
My mind would just wander off, so as some have said I ought to be playing something I want to play. Seems obvious now.

I’m getting my requirements sorted to put to a new piano teacher and I really hope this will solve some of my problems with learning and focus etc.

Once again your help here is so encouraging, thank you.
Shey

Nobody has suggested this to me, but I have had a couple of awful moments when my own mind told me this. Working consistently with a teacher and noticing that I am slowly improving - that I understand what I should do, and feel more in control, has made these thoughts go away.

Although I disagree when it was said, I think that was said thinking you were learning piano for 14 years straight. Then you explained it was off and on, which makes it perfectly reasonable that you might not have made the progress you were hoping. For example, m in another subject, I've been learning the Russian language for close to 30 years off and on, and have not made the progress I was hoping!

I disagree because even if it had been 14 years straight, there is such a thing as you said in the title of this thread, "losing one's way." And when lost, it's perfectly reasonable one might go in circles rather than a straight line toward a destination - this being further compounded by inconsistency ("off and on" learning).

I wish you well in this next phase of piano learning on finding such a straight line and hopefully this thread, overall, has helped a bit!

Yes Tyrone, everyone here has been nothing but helpful.

I’m looking forward to my next phase in my piano learning,

A lot of sensible comments. When it comes to language learning, in the beginning it is a slow process and seems like you are taking baby steps. Once you start getting up the learning curve, you pick up a new language faster and faster. However, the process needs to be continuous. If there is too much time lapse in between, your progress is going to slow down.

People who are polyglots would devise a systematic way of learning a new language such as pushing for 5 new words / phrases a day. Something that is not very demanding and easy to maintain. He / she would do it consistently over a few years.

When it comes to playing music, you just find pieces & exercises that are not demanding but repetitious. Just keep doing it a little bit at a time but try not to skip more than 1 day of practice per week unless you are really busy. If you're too busy to learn new pieces, just play the ones you already know to keep your hands moving.

There is no better way to learn than visualization. People who learn new languages would think in the new language and find native speakers to communicate with. When it comes to music, listening is the key. I'd spend as much time listening to online recordings of pieces I'm working on as well as my own recordings.

Good luck...

A bit OT, but at my age, with my memory, the 5 new words / phrases a day would not be a problem. On the hand, remembering the 5 words or phrases that I learned 100 days ago, and 101 days ago, and 102 days ago... They would all be gone unless I would have used them several times.


The best way of learning is very individual. When it comes to the piano, part of the process of learning to play the piano is finding out what works best for you. For me as a beginner, listening to recordings of pieces that I play is far less helpful than listening to my teacher's instructions and try to carry them out. That might change though, when I am no longer a beginner.

I'm afraid I completely disagree. The only way to learn how to play the piano is to put in the requisite hours at the keyboard. Listening to other people play may be enjoyable, but it won't improve your playing as a beginner. If you're an experienced pianist then perhaps it may aid in picking up hints about musical performance, but beginners just need to establish the muscle memory to make the fingers obey the brain, and there's no shortcut for doing that. You need daily practice. Every day!