Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum I don't believe this is true

If you read more info on his YouTube channel you'll see he was accepted into a university to study music. He says he had to audition, so I guess somebody liked what he did. I don't know if that really means anything though.

Instead of speculating here what it is he does and does not know, just ask him.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfKUKLeXWjWR5IKVNwxQ_7A/discussion

If he practices 3 hours/day then he's really had more like three years of typical practicing time in one year. This would make his playing good but not quite as impressive. He plays advanced pieces but with some flaws so that's also part of the total picture. His progress is very good and certainly faster than the average amateur. But compared to many pianists who end up studying at good conservatories the graph of his learning is not that great.

I was reading about another piano major at the conservatory who had to audition but he didn't know how to sight read. So he crammed for 10 x 4hrs/day before the audition on sight reading and despite naysayers, managed to pass the sight-reading portion. He's a piano performance major now and prefers to sight-read even harder works now. A little odd, but both these examples show that sometimes "cramming" can work. I consider learning to play piano, practicing 750 hours in one year, and passing a conservatory audition with your new skills to be "cramming" too.


Yes, he has said he played a total of 750 hours. The issue now that he has achieved admission to school, his professors at the conservatory will be much less impressed with him as a wunderkind. He will have to compete and catchup with students who have played piano for 13 years and not 1 (or 3, depending on how you count). Some of those who played 13 years also didn't practice only 1 hour per day either! It remains to be seen how he will adapt to this new environment.

For any conservatory student, it always remains to be seen how they will do... whether they have been playing for 12 yrs of two. FWIW, there is a forum member on another site that had been playing about three years, was accepted to conservatory and has done very well.

We should just congratulate this young man on how hard he has worked and wish him well.
I’m sure he is well aware of the competition and is willing to face it.

I have seen now many examples of people who superficially quite advanced but it appears they have practiced very intensely to play very few pieces. To a skilled pianist do not appear great. I’m not so sure they always become great.

The person who works very hard at novice pieces and slowly works through many more pieces often does not get the attention but I would argue often becomes the better musician over the longer term. I personally have noticed things like tone and control of piano is what is quite hard to achieve. I think this comes with experience at the piano.

As I said in this case the Chopin nocturne I have tried and the technical skills seem ahead of the musical ness so it sounds like a relative amateur who has worked very hard to me rather than a lie.

It's obvious from his playing he would never be accepted to a high level conservatory. Without knowing what school accepted him his "getting into a conservatory" doesn't have much meaning IMO.

Well it does say "something" to me. I doubt there are any conservatories, no matter what tier, that often enroll students with only one year of experience. He did say in his Q&A he had some prior flute experience, but that probably can't be counted except from the perspective of being able to read notes on one staff before he started this 12 month self-improvement program. As bSharp(C)yclist said above, someone liked what he did. No doubt the examiner probably knew better than us all the flaws in his audition performance, probably better than most of us, but they probably saw he had energy, enthusiasm, and potential.

I'm with dogperson. We should congratulate this person on his hard work and wish him the best. Wouldn't it be nice to see an older (relatively speaking - he looks young adult-ish to me) beginner succeed at a high level musically? I thought his op. 66 was fantastic and, if I'm being honest, quite humbling. I've been playing for 3 years and there is no way I could equal his tempo or smoothness if I practiced only that piece for 6 months!

He's special, and that's a good thing. I'm not sure why it merits a thread this long to discuss him. Yet. Let's see him graduate to the concert stage in 5 years and then we can come back to this and be amazed anew. Whatever else he might do, he's managed to pull a lot of interest to himself and that's very important for musical career progression.

Some people set a very high bar on this forum. One year, let's not forget that. Most piano teachers I've come across think you are doing well if you advance two grades (ABRSM) per year. They think 3 grades per year is doing extremely well.

Well, it could be the school wanted to take his money. I have no idea. I couldn't tell you how much a program like that costs

I'm not concerned about any of this per se. Here is what can concern me. You get fellow students who have put in some time and effort in starting to learn to play the piano. Then they post about a child billed as being 3 years old playing what he's still struggling with, or an adult who has been at it a fraction of the time he has, and ditto. You can psych yourself out depending on how you look at it. It can seem to trivialize your own efforts and make them seem silly. You question whether you achieved anything. You question the kind of work you have been doing diligently. Otoh, if it's a full-out cheat by a trained pianist wanting to get hits, then it makes a mockery of your efforts. So my concern is only if somebody ends up feeling miserable. Don't let that happen to you.

The person who uploaded the videos of his journey intended to "inspire" others. He has no idea that it might have the opposite effect. He is not an experienced teacher, and he is also not experienced enough on piano. He's trying to say "Look what I did. You can do it too." and doesn't anticipate, "Omg, he did this in six months and I'm still struggling with it after 2 years. I might as well give up now."

Everybody's path is different - many roads lead to Rome - music is a multifaceted thing. The path this person took probably advanced him in some areas, while leaving holes in others. Your own path (anybody here) may have given you things that will support you, where he has holes, while you will reach things later that he got to first. Each will bring in the missing bits in his own time.

When I was little my parents gave me a little keyboard with "child size" keys and a book meant for adult autodidacts (I was 8). Then I got a piano and a relative's books from a conservatory for "young ladies" in Germany in the early 1900's. I got straight into sonatinas. Fuer Else was one of the first things I every played. It was "mercurial" too. When I came back to piano 35 years later, my abilities and knowledge were all over the place. There are holes in what I can do and know so big you could drive a truck through. There are things I struggled with and still do, because of those fast beginnings. And then there are things I shouldn't know that are as certain as 1+1=2. I don't know if "mercurial" is a good thing. It's just different.

We each have our own path. We are where we are, and this gentleman is where he is. As long as nobody ends up stressing because of that video, I have no feelings about it. I like the fact that the young man is enjoying himself and is motivated.

No, the school, no matter which one, did not want to take his money. There are many applicants for every slot, and it does no good for any music program to enroll somebody who will drop out after one year or so.

I haven't, and probably won't, read all the details of this guy's story. And I may have skimmed this thread. So I apologize if I'm off base. And I'm not going to argue with a more experienced person who says I'm wrong or have the wrong impression. You win. I'm just skimmed through the one year progress video and I'm just throwing out my unqualified lay opinions.

I think a lot are making much of his one year progress. But I zeroed in on day one and day four. Where he was trying to read music and play. Sorry, I don't think he looked like someone with zero experience playing the piano. I would more readily believe he was formally instructed as a younger boy, and was trying to pick it up again.

Again, if you know better, you win. But that's my impression. People regularly post misleading things on the internet. Or say things in a way that allows others to read into it something they want, without actually lying. Which is not to say I'm accusing anyone of lying or misleading here. Only that that fact of life on the internet probably informs my opinion.

Again, I'm going to try not to argue with anyone about this. You win.

What pains me about videos like this is that some people will think it somehow lessens their own work, or that their progress is less remarkable. The fact of the matter is that if you follow good instruction on the piano, and it seems like you are not making as much progress as you would like, you don't necessarily realise what is going on somewhere in your brain. Then some day things fall into place, your hands take you on a roller-coaster ride and you ask yourself: "Did I just play that?!?!" Conscious (often slow) deliberate practise can make incredible things happen.

Note to self: Steer clear of this thread.

John, not to take away from any of your points, but your comment about good instruction has me wondering what percentage of teachers do you imagine consider good instruction having students completely new to the piano work on such music reading and playing on day one and four of someone's first exposure to piano playing? I'm not a teacher so could we get a show or hands from those who are and have students new to the piano jump in like that?

And this has nothing to do with any personal feeling of inadequacy or not being able to progress as fast. I began with professional instruction. And on day one no such level of music was put in front of me. Not even close. So I'm wondering if teachers are doing it wrong and this guy got "good instruction"?

He posted on his YouTube channel he had prior experience with flute from a few years before and already knew how to read music before although it had already been a few years. You win too. Perceptive observation.

Most teachers subscribe to the walk before running, crawl before walking school - rightly so too. However, stories like this are not completely unheard of. One was posted to the teacher's forum a few months ago from a student who felt his teacher was dragging him along with material that was too advanced. We've all heard about teachers of real-life prodigies (but in those cases, the teacher probably already got the measure of the student first and understood they could handle a faster pace). The 7yo's playing Moonlight mvt 3 had to learn somewhere - doubt they taught themselves. While we want to think that no piano teacher would conduct "piano pedagogical malpractice" by force feeding repertoire to a student which is not merely challenging but clearly too advanced for the student, I think there are those out there who have their own theories of education/pedagogy.

With a good teacher you might feel you are progressing very slowly, but I see spending time on the fundamentals as like building a firm foundation. You can make tremendous leaps forward if you attend to the basics, and let everything take its time. Concentration during practise is, IMHO, the only thing that matters. Beginners have a kind of mental overload, and it can seem like dragging a rock up a steep hill. Someone who has already studied music just has to concentrate on the peculiarities of the piano.

I studied music in college (without an instrument), and everyone was required to take keyboard skills, which was realising continuo as well as sight-reading scores and transposing at sight. Some people didn't play the piano already, but they were able to do it, as their level of general musical training was at a high level. A good friend of mine is a composer of wonderful choral music. He can sight-read scores pretty well, but he says he can't play the piano.

Beginners at the piano are usually beginning their musical training as well. This is why you have to take someone's full history into account.

John, unlike a lot of commentators above I didn't really pay too much attention to the end result and was trying to emphasize my comments had nothing to do with comparing my own progress. I see now what I wrote might be read as an admission I did not progress as fast. That is not what I intended to express.

My point focuses on day one and day four. When comparing day one and day four I cannot conclude I didn't progress as quickly because that level of playing was not introduced to me. Even though I told my teacher I studied music theory at university.

And I would like to know how many teachers start students with zero experience on the piano with that level of music.

Even if they already play an instrument and can read music.

I don't know, and I admit this above, but I don't see reading music as the whole ball of wax. I think learning the keys and how to play them as being somewhat of a challenge. Especially with two hands. And would personally be very surprised if we get a majority of experienced, full time, pedagogy trained teacher here who start someone new to piano out on that level of music and playing.

I could be wrong. So I'm asking and have no problem being told it would be wholly appropriate for someone who could already play the flute.

But in my experience -- admittedly limited -- I'm guessing that doesn't happen too often. Thus, I suspect he doesn't have good instruction and he's self-taught. Or, my guess, he's played before and is picking it up again. Or both.

My analysis has nothing to do with where he wound up after a year. It's focused on where he began on day one. And it doesn't pass the smell test to me. BUT, I admit I lack the credentials to do much more than use logic and experience to formulate my view.

Carry on.