r/pianolearning

She is in a small group class and at the end of the second “Little Mozarts” book from Alfred. She insists on using the black keys, so explained that she could move everything up a half-step to play in C# instead of C. Now, she insists on doing it with every piece in the book. On one hand, I think it’s neat/funny and maybe good for her. But on the other, sometimes I think it slows her down a bit, because when she sees a B, she has to play a C and so on.

Should I just roll with it, or encourage her to play what’s on the darn page!? 🤣

Hi! My girlfriend and I bought a piano and we've been playing for fun.

We’ve been playing for 4 months now and we can see the results.

She chose to watch YouTube videos of her favorite songs and play them. No theory, no exercises—just sitting down and playing, which fits her personality well.
I, on the other hand, prefer/need a more academic approach with a clearer structure. I have an online teacher once a week and combine it with a paid learning method.
We both play for the same amount of time: 1 hour a day, without fail.

After 4 months, I have slightly more theoretical knowledge than she does, but in everything else she seems to be much better. Her songs sound more impressive, and she definitely learns things that seem super complicated from my perspective. She says I’m exaggerating.
We decided to put it to the test.
We started learning the same piece at the same time, putting in the same amount of practice hours, using the sheet music my piano teacher recommended as my next challenge:

Kabalevsky — Waltz, Op. 39 No. 13

It took her 4 days to learn it from scratch (4 hours), without dynamics and with staccato still needing work.
It took me 12 days (12 hours) to achieve the exact same result, without dynamics and with staccato needing work.
I’m sharing this because, even though it’s not a competition and my enthusiasm for the piano hasn't changed, it does make me wonder. My ego could have accepted her learning twice as fast, but four times as fast seems crazy to me.
In general, she is pretty smart, but I consider myself someone who picks up new things relatively easily as well.

Quick side note: she has a slight background in drums and I have a slight background in guitar.

What do you think? Is it normal to see such a big difference among adult piano students?

Edit 1:

I think I didn't explain myself well. With the post, I wasn't trying to conclude that watching YouTube videos is better than getting a teacher. Quite the opposite—the discussion was aimed at how someone can learn the same things as you three times faster even with worse learning tools.

Also, I wanted to tell you that she doesn't use apps. She does know how to read sheet music. When I say she learns from YouTube videos, I mean she searches for simplified Adele songs and watches a video of someone explaining how to play them, then downloads the sheet music and starts learning it. On the other hand, my teacher gives me sheet music adapted to my level—initially with just a few notes to help me get familiar with the piano and the music progressively.

I think the difference is that she memorizes the sheet music way too fast. She can play a system a couple of times and already have it memorized, whereas I absolutely have to read the sheet music; it takes me several days to learn it by heart.

I started learning the piano ~8 months back with my 5 year old daughter, starting with a yamaha digital piano. I didn't think I'd like it but I've really fallen for it and have been practicing consistently 20-30m a day almost without exception.

When I play an acoustic at the store, I can't help but feel FOMO of real strings and authentic sound, especially the bass. This makes me want to make the leap into buying an endgame acoustic piano ($10k+) and never thinking about upgrading again.

Would it be foolish to commit to an expensive acoustic as a beginner? Is there even a "right time" to upgrade? Would love to hear from others' experiences.

I’m an adult learning the piano. I played guitar and trumpet for a while so can read music and have an ok grasp on music theory.

As a young kid I learnt solfege (from sound of music I think), and it’s stuck with me forever. When just listening to music, I’ll be always following along to the melody with solfege in my head.

But, I’ve been stuck in some songs. Until now, I think of c as do, so i struggle with songs that aren’t in C major. But now ive done research into movable do solfege and want to progress down this path.

I’ve got a good ear I think and a good memory so I can hear and remember a melody in my head quite well in solfege, so I think it might be useful for me to progress with following along in my head with movable do solfege whilst playing songs.

I understand the concept, so I’m not seeking any technical answers, I’m just wondering if following along with the movable solfege method is actually good for an adult, or if I should not progress down this path?

Hi! I'm a high schooler who's been playing for 10 years w/ a teacher. My teacher hasn't really taught me much and I'm kind of embarrassed to say I still don't really know how to practice efficiently and productively. How do you warm up? How do you memorize?

I play nocturnes and I don't know my scales 🫠

How can I get up to playing technical pieces at high tempos, especially with my left hand? Are there exercises that help with this?