u/RaiseEmotional5303

Hi all, i've been playing piano for several years, cumulatively, but only been serious about lessons in the past year or so, playing somewhat intermediate repertoire (2part inventions etc) but nothing advanced yet.

one thing i thought i was missing was ear skills so over the past couple of months, i taught myself, using apps, some ear skills:

- scale degree recognition (benbassat method) and am pretty accurate for all diatonic degrees of the major or minor scale (>95%) but not chromatic degrees.

- melodic interval recognition (harmonic feels much harder to me): more around 80-85% accurate whether within one octave or for compound intervals (the 10th feels like a major 3rd but 'wide', etc)

- chord quality: still sometimes struggle with augmented vs diminished

- scale type recognition: easy as long as we stay with major and the 3 minors (i cannot do modes)

- 7ths: only ones i find easy are dominant ones to tell by ear.

you get the idea. now the thing is i don't know what to do with...that? how do i make use of these skills at the keyboard? what improvements should i expect from this if i'm just gonna be playing repertoire by the sheet?

i can remember a piece of music and more or less plod along a single note melody on the keyboard with a bit of trial and error (i have done this for some main themes in chopin's 2nd and 4th ballade for example - right hand only).

in some cases, i have accurate pitch memory (but not perfect pitch overall) and will start on the exact right notes (happened to me with pathétique's intro chords because i played something else that started on the same C minor progression, or so i thought, and i was right), but not always. i would struggle to reproduce the bass/harmony, and i certainly can't play by ear anything more than incomplete fragments.

my teacher is doing some harmony and improv work with me, (basically simple right hand melodies with I V I V or I IV V chords in the left hand) but i feel like there is a bridge to be gapped here i just... don't know how, exactly? the app training 'works' and i'm not displeased with my progress within strictly the app context but it feels...disconnected ?

if anyone has tips or ideas i would love it :). TIA !

I'm an amateur who's had years of lessons as a teen and then in my 30s got back to it seriously, and started private lessons again last august with teacher 1.

teacher 1 would make me work on all detailed aspects of music (rhythmic accuracy, voicing, phrasing, interpretation, etc) and would also essentially go make me go through music relatively fast (i would say 'but i hear things things to improve on' and he answered 'diminishing returns, get faster with more music'). august to december we went through 1 little prelude by bach, 1 moment musical by schubert, part of a chopin mazurka and a beethoven allegretto, to give you a general idea.

then teacher 1 moved out of the country so within 3 weeks i found teacher 2. teacher 2's style is less holistic, very intensely focused on my weaknesses (rhythm and stable pulse), but i've come to appreciate it as a way to work on the most bang for my buck and get the most significant progress possible, but january to july, we have ended up broadening the scope of things we work on and are now doing some theory, harmony and easy improvisations, a bit of figured bass realization and such. however, between january to july, we have worked on 2 pieces - the beethoven allegretto, rescued from previous teaching, and a bach invention (the chopin mazurka is more or less forgotten).

i appreciate i am far from perfection and probably always will be, but is it normal to spend this much time on ONE piece of music...3+ months with only one piece of repertoire (the invention being barely 1min of music). even if doing other things in parallel (which is the case in the last couple of months but wasn't from january to say, april or may), am i missing something or should i just consider this to mean i am very slow learning.. i don't struggle with the notes or anything to be clear, most of the time is spent improving my rhythm issues (he says i've improved a lot in 4 months) and then using the piece as a lab for things like improving technique and such.

to be entirely fair i have not asked to add more repertoire, the 1hour lesson already goes by so fast, and i would feel awkward asking for it. but it leaves me a bit wanting to work on just one piece of proper music for such a long time. i supplement on my side with sightreading but i don't know.

is such a slow movement through repertoire normal?

I'm an amateur who's had years of lessons as a teen and then in my 30s got back to it seriously, and started private lessons again last august with teacher 1.

teacher 1 would make me work on all detailed aspects of music (rhythmic accuracy, voicing, phrasing, interpretation, etc) and would also essentially go make me go through music relatively fast (i would say 'but i hear things things to improve on' and he answered 'diminishing returns, get faster with more music'). august to december we went through 1 little prelude by bach, 1 moment musical by schubert, part of a chopin mazurka and a beethoven allegretto, to give you a general idea.

then teacher 1 moved out of the country so within 3 weeks i found teacher 2. teacher 2's style is less holistic, very intensely focused on my weaknesses (rhythm and stable pulse), but i've come to appreciate it as a way to work on the most bang for my buck and get the most significant progress possible, but january to july, we have ended up broadening the scope of things we work on and are now doing some theory, harmony and easy improvisations, a bit of figured bass realization and such. however, between january to july, we have worked on 2 pieces - the beethoven allegretto, rescued from previous teaching, and a bach invention (the chopin mazurka is more or less forgotten).

i appreciate i am far from perfection and probably always will be, but is it normal to spend this much time on ONE piece of music...3+ months with only one piece of repertoire (the invention being barely 1min of music). even if doing other things in parallel (which is the case in the last couple of months but wasn't from january to say, april or may), am i missing something or should i just consider this to mean i am very slow learning.. i don't struggle with the notes or anything to be clear, most of the time is spent improving my rhythm issues (he says i've improved a lot in 4 months) and then using the piece as a lab for things like improving technique and such.

to be entirely fair i have not asked to add more repertoire, the 1hour lesson already goes by so fast, and i would feel awkward asking for it. but it leaves me a bit wanting to work on just one piece of proper music for such a long time. i supplement on my side with sightreading but i don't know.

is such a slow movement through repertoire normal?