Starting with piano at 48, when people ask me, "do you realize how old are you going to by the time you learn how to play?" My answer is "the same age as if I don't learn". The key to the video is Mastery vs. Competence.
Excellent Video! Forgive me for chiming in, I would love your thoughts. Have you heard the talk about - Renndrew Volleyball Victimless (Sure I saw it on Google)? It is a great one off guide for uncovering the simple trick to master the piano minus the hard work. Ive heard some extraordinary things about it and my good mate called Gray at last got cool success with it.
Oystein Soreide for sure, yes the main caveat of the 10000 hour rule is that each one of those hours be deliberate, focused, critical to the point where it can be difficult for many to sustain for more than short periods. Quoting from another CZcams piano channel's video I heard recently - "All you have to do to find out how someone is going to perform...is watch them practice for five minutes"
Yes. I am wasting much time during my practice . unfortunately I can play by ear so I'm constantly playing songs that I have played by ear during my studying and practicing .
I started at 38 in 1997. Been playing fairly regularly since then. Raised a daughter, lots of digs and cats, worked, traveled etc. Now, 21 years later I am level 7 royal conservatory of music grade. I can play some Chopin, Scarlatti, Bach, etc. My practice hours fluctuated some more some less. It's about enjoyment. If you really like it, stuck with it, youl succeed, to a good level.
Good on you! I think some people use age as an excuse to not learn an instrument. I've met people who are just 20 who say, "I'm too old to learn the piano", like, seriously?!
@@flyingskyward2153 I did! I've only had it a couple of weeks but it's been fun, even if I'm only doing real basic stuff atm like scales and learning basic theory. A friend of mine is trying to learn mandolin and we're kinda learning side by side.
When is the best time to plant a fruit tree? Ten years ago. When is the next best time? Today. When is the best time to learn piano? Apparently eight years ago. When is the next best time? I guess I will start today.
@Mi Les Being a programmer and avid pianist I worry about this a lot (arthritis, RSI, etc) even though I'm only 21 at the moment. I was able to go to a physical therapist last year to learn some preventative exercises, hopefully they help!
I started piano about 7 months ago and i took lessons as i started from the second week i could play für elise half the tempo now i can play george gershwin first prelude so if you have the time go for it i didnt know i could do it P.s im 15 years old
I became interested in playing piano during my third year is high school and by my 2nd year at the university, I mastered all the hard pieces (4 years into it). I did the rough math of how many hours of practice did it take me....approximately 8700 hours to get there, yes almost 6 hours daily. I lost interested for the next 20 plus years. Today I had the urge to play winter winds and after 1 hours I could play half of it by memory and with every passing minutes it got better really fast. My point is that once you dedicate this much time to anything, it never leaves you.
Hello !!! My name is Sorin , and I am 53 years old . Three years ago , somebody gave me a keyboard ...so Ive begin to learn to play piano as self taught . My program of training and exercise was 2 hours every day , and 4-5 hours in the weekend . Ive folowed this program for twoo years like a robot !!! It was hard , the left hand independence , and especially reading and singing after musical notes ...butt CZcams saved me . Believe me that , there are few great pages on CZcams , regarding piano lessons ...so Ive had good teachers . Then , after twoo years of training and practice the piano , Ive begin to sing in a restaurant . The rest is history ...now I am playing at keyboard in a band , and I dont regret not even a second the time that Ive spend learning piano . My life as an adult is changed , and I am happy for this. Never wanted to be an expert ...just wanted to learn to play at the piano ... Greatings from Roumania!!!
@@Shichwa I took Formal classes for like 2 months, after which, I left it due to College commute. My progress has been quite slow, at least that's what I feel about myself. Can play some pieces by ear, Can sight read simple pieces, learned one hard piece : "Somnus: Dreaming of Dawn - Final Fantasy XV", some Chopin preludes, Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. Some video game music, from Nier, Nier Automata, Octopath Traveler, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy series etc. Most of them are not at all technically difficult. I am at a point, where most music is approachable, but only if I put enough effort. Keep in mind, I just play for 30-40 mins a day, sometimes about an hour. I am a full time student, doing an internship (Computer Science). P.S. I did play on a 49 key keyboard for a couple of months, that I borrowed from a friend prior to writing the original comment.
I have around 2K hours (over a 10-year period, starting from age 6), and I would say I'm at the cusp of early advanced. Personally, I think it takes longer as a reluctant child to learn vs. learning as a motivated adult. So I'm really hoping to accelerate my skills!
My rough estimate is that I already invested about 2,500 - 3,000 hours in my piano practice (first as a child going to a musical school for 7 years, and now as a returning piano player - have been playing consistently for an hour or so a day for the past year). I'm determined to get close to 10k and become proficient!
I practice at least an hour and a half per day, and usually two hours since I took music back up two years ago. Practice is really engrossing and I don't see the time go by. One of the best decisions I've ever made. 🎹🎶🎵🎼😍
I do not agree with the 10000 hour rule. I'd rather quote the World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. He achieved mastery in an incredible number of things. He was a world class mathematician. He was a doctor. He was a psychologist. He wrote a play. On top of ALL that Lasker was the World Chess champion for 20 years! 20 years! He said about getting better at chess: "The student will learn more from 10 hours of properly tutored instruction that from 10 years of trial and error".
Musical NeptunianYou may not agree but this is the truth. The 10 thousand hour rule came and she figured it out. It take a life time to play. This is the reality of it. Alisha is correct. Listen and pay close attention to this video. Sometimes it is hard to agree with the truth, but this is the reality of it.
I enjoy pool (billiards) a lot, and I had the opportunity to have a private lesson with Mika Immonen, a 9 ball world champion. He is known for not practicing despite being an extremely good player. You often hear of many pro pool players practicing for 10+ hours a day. I'm sure Mika practiced some in his early years, but he said he often doesn't practice for more than couple hours at a time, and only here and there. He didn't have an instinctive play style. He was very calculated and methodical. When I play pool and practice, I often do it because I enjoy it, which means I spend time doing the parts of it that I enjoy and I'm already good at, and I "practice" doing that for hours. What I can do, I can do instinctively. When it comes time to think or try something I'm not very good at, I crumble. I have improved quite a bit over the years, but I don't practice the things I don't like, so I'm still not a great player. Mika wasn't as lackadaisical. Every move he made was deliberate, and nothing was for fun. He wasn't afraid of any of it. He was extremely objective. His nickname is "the iceman", and I can see why. I bet he's no where near the 10,000 hrs of practice mark. In summary: I think he has worked smarter, not harder. I bet he's practiced 3000 hours in an extremely deliberate way, learned what he needed to know, and called it a day. Another 7000 hours would probably be useless filler to him. As Alisha said herself, the 10k hr thing is a theory. It can't be proven. It isn't a "rule".
I wonder whether anyone ever masters anything; I know some expert witnesses who appear in court cases. They are biologists who have spent 50 years studying the same thing and doing experiments. Even they will say in court that they are unsure about certain things and they will disagree with other experts.
Loved this video! I love how down to earth and real you are. There’s a lot of people on CZcams that lie or boast about their piano progression, but you hit the nail on the head perfectly when you explained how someone can rush and get a song played in the correct notes but not play it properly.
The thing about the 10 000 hours, it only work with deliberate practice. it mean getting yourself constantly out of your comfort zone, getting assessment of your weakness and working on them. getting feedback learning (having something to tell you what you are doing wrong and how to correct it). so from there, some people might need 25 000 hours to achieve that 10 000 hours master rule..
I started piano when I was 18. I had 30-minute lessons, once a week, for about 10 months. I practised roughly 2-3 hours a day (let's say 2.5 hours), which works out at 75 hours per month. At the end of the 10 months, 750 practice hours later, I had to quit piano lessons to go to university. At that point, I could play: * Rondo Alla Turca * Maple Leaf Rag * The Entertainer * Fur Elise * Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement If you keep your expectations low (i.e. no Chopin, Liszt or Rachmaninoff), then you can achieve a fair bit. I'm now 43, and I've probably clocked 1 hour a day's practice since age 19. That's roughly 8,760 hours on top of the 750 hours when I was 18... I'm almost there!
Since that time, I can include: * Adagio (Albinoni) * Bohemian Rhapsody, including vocal part (Queen) * The Cascades (Joplin) * Palladio, 1st movement, Allegretto (Jenkins) * The Black and White Rag (Botsford) Currently learning: * Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat (Op.9, No.2) * Sweet Child of Mine, including vocal part (Guns N' Roses) The sheer amount of practice just gives me more confidence, and I play with more finesse. But I'd say with 1,000 hours it's possible to play Grade 6 stuff, maybe Grade 7 if you grind it. But I absolutely failed with anything Grade 8 and above, e.g. Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev). I think if I attempted the Prokofiev piece now, I probably could learn it.
@@squodge when I was 14 I took guitar lessons for about a year or so, and then I bought an electric guitar and learned some fun riffs via CZcams tutorials and stuff, but after I got to a decent level I gradually lost my interest on becoming better at guitar. So at 18 I started piano lessons and now I'm a 21 happy university student, super dedicated on developing my piano skills. From the time I got into classical piano pieces I started appreciating and understanding classical music SO much more. Also I love playing the drums (even though I don't have my own kit). That's it 😁
Steve here 60 yrs old. I've had a piano for about 4 years without learning very much on my own. I enrolled in piano level 1 at the local community college this year. the first semester final is the end of next month, I am going to attempt a simplified version of The William Tell Overture for my selected piece. We are never too old to continue trying new things within reason. Side note I did play Happy Birthday at my mother's 80th birthday, with my adult daughters singing along, last weekend.
I am an adult beginner. I read Outliers years ago too. You do a fantastic job. Your channel is very interesting and you are a pleasure to listen to. THANKS.
After 35 days, you can lean to sight read the following songs on Flowkey: Canon in D, Fur Elise, I Giorni, Morning Mood, and Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. If you have any musical aptitude, mental coordination, and dexterity learning to PLAY piano and sight read falls into place with just 60-90 minutes of practice per day.
For me this is actually really motivating! Although I'm majoring in Computer Science I've still been taking lessons on the side and will be minoring in Music. Actually estimating my lifetime hours of practice really goes to show how far I've come! Assumptions: - Conservative average of 250 practice days per year (~50 weeks per year * 5 weekdays) - I started at the end of Kindergarten (7 years old) and didn't have any major gaps between now and then. (I'm 21 now.) - I think during my very first year I was only doing 15-20 minutes of practice per session. Year-by-year that gradually increased to 45 mins by the end of elementary school. Let's average that out to 30 mins. - During middle school I should have been doing full 1hr practices, but I was lazy. :P Let's say I was doing 45 mins. - By high school I was actually doing 1hr practices. - Now in college even though I'm not a music major I started to really enjoy piano and thus practiced more. (Mainly because it's a "productive" way to distract myself from computer science homework!) I'll practice anywhere between 1-3hrs at a time, but let's conservatively average that to 1.5hrs. *Elementary School* 250 days/year x 0.5 hours/day x 5 years = _625 hrs_ *Middle School* 250 x 0.75 x 3 = _563 hrs_ sum: _1188 hrs_ *High School* 250 x 1 x 4 = _1000 hrs_ sum: _2188 hrs_ *College (so far)* 250 x 1.5 x 2 = _750 hrs_ sum: _2938 hrs_ In Oregon there are OMTA (Oregon Music Teachers Association) syllabus exams but the grade levels don't match up exactly to other grading systems. I was taking the grade 8 equivalent exam at about the middle of high school, so in terms of the hours I would have had that actually matches really close with your timeline! If I keep up the routine of 1.5hrs per day at least 5 days a week, I'll reach 10k by the time I'm 40!
Allysia, I agree with most of your comments, by the way, a very good and complete video, congratulations! What I disagree with you is that there is great benefit to studying half an hour a day. Every time I sit down to study, the first 20 to 30 minutes have passed warm-ups, scales and arpeggios, etc. No time left to study the pieces, polish the repertoire, etc.
Great video, I do want to point out a few points, it depends on the person, his background, his environment, his willingness, his motivation, his dedication, and probably most importantly his enjoyment, I student who enjoys playing, working hard and enjoying the results is going to achieve way more than student who isn't enjoying what he is practicing, and some people naturally have a hard time with practice and some naturally have a good sense of practice but it's all in reach, that's kind of a lead to the second point which is its not necessarily how long you practice, it's how EFFICIENTLY you're practicing, it's way more beneficial to do a dedicated, concentrated 30 minutes a day than a pointless meandering 5 hours where your brain is all over the place and you're not getting anywhere, 10000 hours of poor practice and 10000 hours of good practice have drastically different results, also HOW you practice, practicing a tough passage in an organized methodic manner and creatively like doing different touches, practicing with accents or in rhythmic groups can be more beneficial than sitting for an hour with a metronome at 80 bpm only to get to 85 bpm by the end of your session, how dedicated you are to piano and how diligently you practice is also a big factor. Obviously it takes a LONG time, years and years and years to master the piano, but practicing it well and enjoying the results along the way is critical. This might be the longest comment I've ever written!
To calculate the hours of learning the piano, one piano seller told me, we reduce 20 minutes every day, because the first 20 minutes is only for warming up. It is to say, practicing 60 minutes a day, you are going forward 4 times quicker than practicing 30 minutes a day, calculation like: (60-20)/(30-20)=4. If we practice 20 minutes a day, we stay always at the same place.
I think at least 8 years of practicing 1 hour everyday, I was able to play some of the Henle 6 level pieces. That's not even difficult level, it's just medium. I mean I can PLAY it, but doesn't mean it sounds amazing. Ah, piano why are you so hard!!
It's more than 10k hours to get to a virtuosic level. If you want mindblowing rubatos/dynamics, perfect pedaling and voicing on everything you play it's way more than 10k hours.
Honestly, you get out what you put in. I started piano when I was 20. I fell in love with composition and had I really bad obsession with it. I’d spend hours upon hours each day analyzing and practicing Chopin Nocturnes, waltz’s, preludes that by the time I was 22 (I’m 25 now) I had a great bit of his repertoire under my belt with the crowning achievement of that time being his Op. 9 No. 2 Nocturne in E flat. I say all this not to brag but to encourage. It is possible to learn people but, you have to put the time into it. You can even look at my channel if you don’t believe me. Since my channel is new, I’ve only got a small fraction of what I know up but I’m working on uploading the rest. Great book, btw.
Omg! I am exactly like you, I'm 19 and just getting back into competitions. I was feeling discouraged that I only get back into it! Thanks for giving me hope!
I think it depends on the individual. I am 75 now and restarted playing a year ago. I just reached grade three and still struggle with all the requirements. I play a lot, sometimes for fun but mostly to improve. Some days I feel like a have no brain, no skill. Moron! Here is the epiphany! The only way not to make progress is to quit. Besides I enjoy playing so much and then there is a day when pieces just flow and scales are much better. You are so right! Time will pass anyway. My goal is to play amazingly at my own funeral. LOL
I'm sure I have 10,000 hours in and still rough around the edges and never memorized anything. Started playing at 39 still playing today at 57. Never stopped. I began with much enthusiasm and practiced maybe 1.5 hours a day. Kept this level of intensity for the first 10 years. (i'm single).Then lessen my practice as the years passed by. Today most of what I do is play in sing out of a book piece after piece for my own enjoyment and growth too. I turn the page and play the next piece. Once in a while I"ll change to a new book sing and play those pieces that appeal to me. I'm getting more proficient all the time and its been up hill ever since. In the beginning, I was all about scales and Technic. At the start of playing piano, I never cared to play music. Just Technic and it was a good thing. It took a long time to condition my machinist hands into a hand with pianist ability. But It happened. Got so into it that I spent 6 years in my universities music dept full time and took many classes too. I know today that i"m not really music material, that is to say a natural. Nor could I major in music. Its a brain thing. But and this is the thing. . .I'm always getting better at my playing and singing too! I do it for enjoyment and for the Lord too. Some people say "oh you play good! Yeah, I do, but only after a week or so of working out that piece. One benefit to staying with music is that It takes a shorter amount of time to learn a piece. So Its not a matter of playing more complicated pieces as it is just to be able to jump in and play in one or two hours. I never really played but a few classical pieces. I prefer medium to early advanced music with a vocal line. Music like spiritual song, hymns, even Broadway or pop songs with voice accompaniment. If you not sure on what you want to do I would suggest you get into piano music with a vocal line. Its more to learn but hey it makes things more enjoyable. Especially around Christmas.
Playing piano good is hard, very very hard. Good luck everyone! Also theres lot of levels of piano playing...there are concert pianists that does not even have virtuoso technique
I started learning piano during the pandemic and i guess i have practiced for about 600 hours by now. A month ago i started taking lessons and for all i can say they made me improve so much already. Currently I am learning the waltz in Ab major (postum) - Chopin Solfeggio - C.P.E. Bach Adagio - Bach, Marcello 💔Nocturne in C sharp minor - Chopin💕 and Waltz d'Amelie. Thank you for your videos they're really helpful i love them :)
I've had 7 lessons total and I started just before I turned 53. I hope I can play Chopin Op.28 No.4 someday. I practice 20-40 minutes three times a day Mon-Fri.
I leaned the piano for like 4 and a half years since i was 9, completely dropped it at age 13 till last december (i'm 26 now) when i decided to start playing again, so i bought a piano, and in 7 months i went from Moonlight's Sonata 1st movement (first thing i learned since i started to play again -took me a whole month tho lmao-) to Clair de Lune by Debussy which i finished learning it last month. The thing is, I came across some friend -from music school when i was a kid- and he told me he tried to start playing the piano again when he was SIXTEEN, and had absolutely NO IDEA what to do even though "only" 3 years had passed. What's my point? there's absolutely no way to know HOW long does it take until you actually do it. for some people it might be years, for some months, for some people maybe they'll never get to that point.
Great channel. 4,100 hours for me, and in the last month I think I'm BEGINNING to get some idea of how to play piano. I'm years away from 10k. I'll tell you what it's like when I get there!
Oh no what ever you do, do not turn it down. Even we as pros it takes a life time, and you always learn something new about piano playing. WEll, Paul, do not give up. If that is what you want to do, and go for it, do it!! You can still enjoy as you learn. Do not have doubts. It is great. Yes. Hard work, and demand, but you know, it is a great thing to bee able to play. You never stop learning. That is why we practice. You will always come out of your practice, and learning that much more smarter at the piano. Give it a go, and do not give up. It may bee hard workk, but you know, that is the rewarding thing about getting on the keys. Go for it and give it a go. Do not question yourself, and ask if it is o.k. Because I can reassure you, that you will bee just fine.
Thanks for the video. I also like to think in that way so I can get a perspective and dont get involve in wrong comparations. Also the learning process is a circle so some times is hard to messure your actual state of progress since you may be in your way to the next step by not only learning piano but about music and life in general. I have around 4000 hrs studying piano. I started at age 21 I am 30 years old, last 4 years I studied around 2000 hours. I feel like my improving is speeding, so i guess is harder in the beggining like going to the gym. My goal is to get 20,000 hours of music study by age 50. Studying 750 hours each year.
This is a really good outline. I think it is probably helpful to make the most out of the practicing sessions by setting out what you intend to work on instead of practicing aimlessly. Can be a key factor. This is where having a set plan of action helps. This concept can be applied to other skills also. eg. golf shot execution. Hard work, but rewarding. :)
According to "playground sessions", I have clocked 36 hours of practice time. "playground sessions" tracks actual key plucking (yes, key plucking, because that is what you do as a beginner like me, hahaha) time, so it is extremely accurate. I have had "playground sessions" for just over a month.
I’m 32 and I practice 6 to 8 hours a day six days a week I’ve been playing for 6 months and I can play some pop music and I have been really getting into classical.
Assuming you learn at ‘correct’ pace and there isn’t a thing in the way (had to take breaks for whatever reason) It varies what it means to play the piano It takes at least 18 months to reach level 5 ABRSM (on average 2 years) which is most goals and most accept as playing piano. Anyone with aspirations to get to level 8 ABRSM at least 5/6 years. To really ‘play the piano’ ie concerto master level is obviously beyond that to even arguably lifetime.
Your numbers are spot on. I started about a year ago and have averaged a bit over two hours per day for a total of 850 hours now. I can play fairly well for a beginner now and if I think forward to what 1500 hours will be like in about a year then I agree with your assessment.
There is a book called 'Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise' wrote by the author of paper the 'Outliers' quote from. It says more accurately, that the pure amount of time of practice isn't a single factor for masterly. The feedback that can make yourself correct the error is more important. The feedback By your teachers or self correction like how Benjamin Franklin practice the writing.
I would say I’d be satisfied to reach a level where I can confidently play stuff by Coldplay or the Keane. How much practice do I need to reach that level?
Yes. It is 10 k hours to get their. That is a lot of work, but learning piano and getting good at what you want to, well, it takes really a life time. That does not mean though that you can not enjoy it. No not at all. Like Alisha said. Their is a lot of work to bee practicied in piano, and I can even tell you that as well, due to the fact that I am a pianist for living. It is a lot of hard, and demanding hours to bee their on that bench, and getting things so precise. So Alisha is correct!!
i practiced 1500 hours since i started piano in 2009, i can learn RCM 8-9 songs in 1-2 weeks usually but RCM 10 takes me more like a month. ARCT pieces it depends lmao but i have learned chopin's op 18, op 66 and op 36
I would be 100 by the time I achieved mastery. But I don't want to be a concert pianist I only want to play for my own amusement, I don't want to perform for others. I think after 2 years I will happy. I do about an hour a day, but would like to do more.
I think that if you use Czerny exercises as a means of a standard to measure ones piano ability and over all technique. If one were to practice Czerny 1 hour a day, starting from #30 and working one’s way up to #60, being able to play each exercise in the correct tempo and beautifully, my estimation is that it would take about 18 years to reach a master level. I think it would take the average person with 1 hour of practicing Czerny daily several years to get through each book, each practice taking 1 month in average to more or less to be able to play. With this in mind, it will take you about 20 years to have master technique. Does anyone agree/ disagree?
Do you have any tips on practicing outside of the piano? Would listening to music help? Mentally practicing the piece you are working on? I have a full time job but I try to make some progress in the office during downtimes either through mental practice or listening to music. It'd be cool if you can do a short video on this so other adults like myself can make some progress while we are at work. Just a thought. Thanks for the video!
I can't seem to find the video right now, i thought he uploaded it recently but maybe he unlisted it again? To paraphrase him somewhat: If he wants to practice at times when he doesnt have his instrument on him, or cant practice even if he did have it ( like in a car) he tries to play along to songs on the radio he knows using his right arm as a substitute bass neck. He emphasises that it's important for mental practice to not only picture your movement, but actually moving your fingers as if you were really playing the piece. He quoted studies that support this idea and show that there is little to no difference between actually practicing a piece for X hours and only mimicing the practice without the instrument ( iirc this study was done with piano players)
I've actually seen something similar to this as well. There is a video on youtube called "How to practice effectively...for just about anything - Annie Bosler and Don Greene", it talks about how people that trained mentally gained just as much benefit as the people that trained physically shooting freethrows. It goes back to what you are saying, that mental practice is just as beneficial as actual practice. It also talks about the 10,000 hour theory and talks about how your brain gets better at a certain skill overtime through myelin sheaths. A really interesting video to watch, I would recommend. It would be a amazing milestone for me to play along to songs that I know but I'm still a intermediate beginner and I don't really have the ability to listen to notes and transcribe them yet. But that is a wonderful idea and something I want to try out someday once I get better.
I recall watching a video about a controlled study which showed that music students who visualize practicing their instruments (while away from the instruments) performed better when back at their instruments than students who hadn't done the same. i.e. Visualizing that you are practicing is as highly effective as actually practicing! Also, I personally highly recommend learning & memorizing the Circle of Fifths, and try to visualize and master this incredible musical tool whenever you are away from your piano: ledgernote.com/columns/music-theory/circle-of-fifths-explained/
Yep Jason I am going to give you this one. Nobody can learn even chop sticks in 5 minutes or less. Things take time, and yes. It all depends how far you want to go. The more you practice the more you will gain that skil, and that part does take a lot of time and hours. So yes. I will truly give you this one. Even concert pianists will tell you that it really takes a life time to learn your instrument if it is the piano. I am a pianist for a living and spend many hours on the bench. Actually, when I am not working, which is playing piano, I am at home playing piano. A lot of people do not have the hours to devote to piano like that. That is totally fine. I though on the other hand do this for my work, and was raised up a pianist in a family of musicians. So if I am not playing the piano what am I doing? Well, either eating or sleeping. The whole day when I am not working, I will bee at the keys at home playing.
Specific practice is essential, true, but performance for fun also consolidates skills. As an adult beginner, one simply has to modify ambition. So, no concert performance at Carnegie Hall!
Just came upon this video. Started lessons in 2013 and have been pretty consistent with lessons since then. Practiced very little, but work and LAZINESS, among other things prevented me for years. Thankfully my teacher kept me on this whole time. About two months ago, to my teacher's shock and awe, I finally started putting in more practice work. Now I'm wondering if all those previous years should even be counted at all? My teacher saw how serious I've become and wants to test a baseline before we move further. I am working through RCM Level 1. I can haphazardly get through a Level 1 piece at first sight, and work up to tempo HS in a couple of hours time, but I'm on about week three of attempting trying to perfect three pieces to exam distinction level. Based on your video and just going through my head, even though I can claim about 300 hours of lessons, I would not even give myself 100 hours of practice and that's reaching. I hope I can make up for lost time. For anyone else reading this, don't be me!
Hey Allysia! Loved the video! I know French pronunciation can be hard so I just thought I'd let you know that Comptine d'un autre été (as mentioned at around the 5:00 mark), is pronounced roughly like Cone-tin durn oat ay-tay!
15 months, about 600 hours. Confidence? As long as I don't try things like Moonlight Sonata (3rd Movement), I'm okay with challenges. Recently I've started these 4-finger chords in "Still Alive" by Sheet Music Boss version and immediately was challenged with self-demand of clean picks. There is "f marc." written before that part, and I've heard how it should sound, and... it starts to happen sometimes when I make a short succession of clean picks on slow speed. This is invigorating, yet still challenging.
I play violin and I practice 2-3h a day for 14 years... I feel like there’s so much material and rhythm patterns to learn especially in orchestra and chamber music. I feel no way close to mastery as I get to listen to other violinist play. I’m a bit surprised that people spend 30 mins to an hour...I feel like just the scales major minor, 8th, triplets, 16th and practicing ur piece with slow metronome tempo would take at least an hour (difficult passages) And then you increase the tempo would take another 30 mins...and maybe you have a second piece for a quartet...
If you are self-taught, then you must challenge yourself. Knowing how to challenge yourself without a tutor is not easy. You can't start pieces too easy or ones too hard. Probably why there will always be a demand for piano teachers. It's hard to see where your strengths and weaknesses are from the inside. A teacher would automatically know what would suit and benefit your skill progression. So, what I do before taking on a piece is to try and figure out what the thematic lesson is - it's the best you can do if you're self-teaching. Every piece has a character theme. Speed, time, syncopated rhythm, tricky left-right coordination, jumps, etc. Understand what the piece character is. If you always play to your strengths it will take longer to get really good. Right now I'm playing Gavotte by Gossec amongst other things in my practicing. Sounds easy, but it's tough for me. But I m determined to get it perfect and fast.
The question kept going through my mind, how do you define 'master?' What do you mean by it? I don't mean that to be a smart assed reply. It's just the more you spoke about it I realised I didn't have a tangible image in my mind of what that was. I assume it's not someone with nothing left to learn. (I like your thought-provoking chats, thank you)
If you assume a normal distribution for piano competency then a master would be 3 standard deviations from the mean. Look up the empircal rule. Another way to say that is that you would be better than at least 95% of people who play piano.
I am now starting ABRSM Grade 4... just. (Had health issue slow me down during Grade 2 study, set me back about 3-6 months). I have been learning 4 years this month. I think I have probably got 850 hours under my belt.
How long does it take to learn piano? NO ONE every succeeds at this endevour. The best you can do is spend your life practicing at getting better. At a very old age, Yuhdi Menuin after finishing a ridiculously challenging is reported to have said “I think I am starting to learning how to play the violin”. Everyday you practice you get a little bit better.
I don't think this applies to everyone I've heard that lucas debargue who's a young performer (he's playing really hard pieces) started in his early twenties . He's 27 btw So it depends on the person and his capabilities some people just connect more easily with the music
This is true, there are many factors involved in people's progress but I feel like this video is quite realistic about expected progress for at least 95% of people :)
Time doesn't matter if you don't practice well... you are supposed to take breaks every 20, 25 minutes in order to be concentrate in an optimal way, and even in those 20, 25 minutes, there will be time you will be less concentrated. If you practice 3h in a row, let's just imagine that the "hollow" of concentration will be greater, so maybe you have been optimal maybe 1h in all that. So... 10 000 hours... well, yes and no. If you do not take breaks it will not be effective and maybe someone who had only 5 000 hours of good and focused practice will be better than you. Also never underestimate the time you practice outside your instrument, the time you actually listen to music (not just hearing the music but really listening to it), the quality of your piano teacher, etc. Those are all factors that will greatly affect your expertise, much more than those fictitious 10 000 hours. (btw sorry for my english)
I agree. I read somewhere that Chopin told his students not to practice more than 2 hours at a time because they would not be able to concentrate fully after that. I'm with Chopin on this one. 90 plus or minus 30 minutes works for me. Beyond that my mind gets tired and wanders too much, making practice ineffective.
WEll, you can not compare pool with piano. It is two different things here. But yea, the other thing is you got to practice wht ever it is that you are working at or else you are not going to bee good at it. Sometimes we have to practice things that we don’t like. It is that we want to leran more about what we are doing and get it right.
I finished grade 8 Western Board of Music (Remember them?!!) in Grade 11. :) I don't know how that compares with RCM... But you're right... I've been playing ever since. I'm trying to self-learn Chopin's Nocturnal in E-Flat and did a search on youtube for any tips/tricks, especially the turns and decorations. It's been a while since I played those in my typical church pieces. ;) And I'm so glad I checked out your video on it from 2016! Keep up the good work! You have a new subscriber! :D (I teach piano to kids - do you have any videos on that? I don't have many adults but I have some teenagers who are new to the piano. Would you treat them the same as adults?)
I have 16 y.o. and started to practice like in october of 2020 on my own and now i can play the 3 mvt of 1st clementi sonatina, my averege of practice is like 2-5 hours at day.
This video just made realize that even if i already knew about this 10.000 hours rule, and that it applied to anything you wanted to master, I only took it into consederation when i started learning the piano, and I have a lot of other hobbies, but that never disencouraged me. So i guess even if it's true, it doesn't make sense to think that i'll only be good after 10.000 hours of practice.
Although time practiced does matter, if you practice poorly you may improve slowly or not at all. There really isn't one number because of this. 10 years of diligent good practicing and you could be playing Chopin Etudes well. 10 years of poor practicing and you'll be able to bang out some half passable pop piano covers.
I played my first song "Canon in D" after two weeks about an hour or so a day. using Flowkey All it takes is get your brain to sync with your eyes and hands and that is a matter of methodical practice to learn your notes, sight reading and fingering. Stay with classic tunes like Ode to Joy, Tempest, Jesus Joy of Man. etc. Also, on the side, I try to break down something real hard for a beginner like "Bennie and the jets" to memorize challenging chord structure, rhythm, and dynamics. Make it fun to learn. BTW, I'm 75,
How long have you played? Have you ever been taught by someone in pedagogy? I've played piano for 10.5 years. I'm currently a senior in high school. I tried to calculate it, and it is anywhere from 2,100-4,200 hours. During competition season I practiced like 3-4 hours a day.
Thank you so much for your work, while I disagree with the 10k rule, I agree with your base reasoning that you can reach grade 9 in 5 years if you practice as I already have. Could you do a video on RCM's ARCT and what it means, represents, and whether or not you want and or have it?
I disagree on the grade 8 thing, I was not even close, but I never forgot how to play even after close to 50 years without even touching a piano. Now I do a 1/2 to 1 1/2 hours a day at age 70.
Can you please see if you can make a video on your take on the book "The fundamentals of piano practice"...among other things, the author tries to mathematically prove that practise sessions could be made "1000 times more efficient"... i would love to hear your opinion on that
Might be a conflict of interest in my question, asking a piano-teacher. But, could you make a video about how to learn to play piano without the assistence of a piano teacher or online-training program? Would love to learn to play piano, but due to health issues I cannot follow a set schedule for piano lessons, thus I have to learn to play piano by myself. What I am interested in is if you could recommend piano-books that takes a player from an absolute beginner to a level where one can play most pieces, and even some more advanced pieces with extra training / effort. Preferable also books that are more in the category of modern / known musical pieces compared to classical which probably are good for the sake of practice, but might be detrimental to the enjoyment of the practice, at least in my case.
Im self taught and am at grade 6 in two years. I first learned to read sheet music and basic theory. I've been using graded pieces starting at grade 1 and going through them. I try to play the pieces and if I struggle at something I'll Google it and learn how to do it. I've been doing this up to my current grade. I look through pieces and practice looking up harder techniques and learn the theory. Almost like preparing for the exam without ever doing it with a teacher.
In a video you said it takes years to learn sight reading. are u speaking from a pure classical music perspective? What if one wants to stick with pop?
I just want to know how long it will take before I can stop apologizing profusely when someone asks me if I play a musical instrument? “I sort of, kind of, a little, a very little, I can torture a few things, but…” Ugh. I just want to be able to answer “Yes” and keep a straight face. Is that asking too much out of life? In another matter, it’s disconcerting to watch some five-year-old play something that I’m still stumbling over even though I probably started before they were born. I do take some comfort in the thought that I could probably take most of those punks in a fistfight (at least when they were 5).
I started studying at age 35. Because of my job, I have estimated approximately 300 hours of practicing. I could already read music. The most difficult pieces I have studied are: Benda's Sonatina n. 6; Clementi's Sonatina op. 36 n. 1; Bach's Two-Part Invention n. 4.
people get stuck when they have to memorize notes and learn to read music.Its best to start to learn to play by ear and at some point when youre pretty good at it but annoyed NOT being able to read music ,then you should get into that.
Starting with piano at 48, when people ask me, "do you realize how old are you going to by the time you learn how to play?" My answer is "the same age as if I don't learn". The key to the video is Mastery vs. Competence.
Excelent answer
@@carlosbarreto4695 Besides the fact that it has been proven that the "10.000 hours" premise she bases this whole video on is false...
maybe you should start learning english to..
Excellent Video! Forgive me for chiming in, I would love your thoughts. Have you heard the talk about - Renndrew Volleyball Victimless (Sure I saw it on Google)? It is a great one off guide for uncovering the simple trick to master the piano minus the hard work. Ive heard some extraordinary things about it and my good mate called Gray at last got cool success with it.
Yeah!!! Besides, the main point of learning an instrument should be having joy in the process
"The time is gonna pass anyway, might as well play piano !", my new life motto.
That's exactly how I am living my life currently
Exactly, it beats watching TV.
It's more about what you do when you practice, rather than pure hour count. Quality of the practice is important factor.
Oystein Soreide for sure, yes the main caveat of the 10000 hour rule is that each one of those hours be deliberate, focused, critical to the point where it can be difficult for many to sustain for more than short periods. Quoting from another CZcams piano channel's video I heard recently - "All you have to do to find out how someone is going to perform...is watch them practice for five minutes"
Yes. I am wasting much time during my practice . unfortunately I can play by ear so I'm constantly playing songs that I have played by ear during my studying and practicing .
No shit. That part is assumed.
I started at 38 in 1997. Been playing fairly regularly since then. Raised a daughter, lots of digs and cats, worked, traveled etc. Now, 21 years later I am level 7 royal conservatory of music grade. I can play some Chopin, Scarlatti, Bach, etc. My practice hours fluctuated some more some less. It's about enjoyment. If you really like it, stuck with it, youl succeed, to a good level.
Good on you! I think some people use age as an excuse to not learn an instrument. I've met people who are just 20 who say, "I'm too old to learn the piano", like, seriously?!
I just turned 37 and have been contemplating picking up piano. Thanks for the inspiration!
@@tamanebp Did you?
@@flyingskyward2153 I did! I've only had it a couple of weeks but it's been fun, even if I'm only doing real basic stuff atm like scales and learning basic theory. A friend of mine is trying to learn mandolin and we're kinda learning side by side.
When is the best time to plant a fruit tree? Ten years ago. When is the next best time? Today.
When is the best time to learn piano? Apparently eight years ago. When is the next best time? I guess I will start today.
The best answer
Very interesting and helpful. By age 74 I should be a Grade 8! Thank you!
John A
Lol
You have to factor things like arthritis :(
@Mi Les
Being a programmer and avid pianist I worry about this a lot (arthritis, RSI, etc) even though I'm only 21 at the moment. I was able to go to a physical therapist last year to learn some preventative exercises, hopefully they help!
Mi Les Yes, and the need for more naps!
I started piano about 7 months ago and i took lessons as i started from the second week i could play für elise half the tempo now i can play george gershwin first prelude so if you have the time go for it i didnt know i could do it
P.s im 15 years old
I became interested in playing piano during my third year is high school and by my 2nd year at the university, I mastered all the hard pieces (4 years into it). I did the rough math of how many hours of practice did it take me....approximately 8700 hours to get there, yes almost 6 hours daily. I lost interested for the next 20 plus years. Today I had the urge to play winter winds and after 1 hours I could play half of it by memory and with every passing minutes it got better really fast. My point is that once you dedicate this much time to anything, it never leaves you.
THISS. Have the same journey kinda
Hello !!!
My name is Sorin , and I am 53 years old .
Three years ago , somebody gave me a keyboard ...so Ive begin to learn to play piano as self taught . My program of training and exercise was 2 hours every day , and 4-5 hours in the weekend .
Ive folowed this program for twoo years like a robot !!! It was hard , the left hand independence , and especially reading and singing after musical notes ...butt CZcams saved me .
Believe me that , there are few great pages on CZcams , regarding piano lessons ...so Ive had good teachers .
Then , after twoo years of training and practice the piano , Ive begin to sing in a restaurant .
The rest is history ...now I am playing at keyboard in a band , and I dont regret not even a second the time that Ive spend learning piano . My life as an adult is changed , and I am happy for this.
Never wanted to be an expert ...just wanted to learn to play at the piano ...
Greatings from Roumania!!!
Congratulations, Ion! You have much to be proud of!!
Im finna be a beast at piano!! hard work beats talent when talent dont work!! let's gooo piano peeps!! we got this!!
LEST GO BABY !
Practice technique...lots of hours of technique if u really want to make a name for yourself
PQ yessir 🔥🙏🎹
I finally bought a 76-keys keyboard after months of convincing myself to start! Excited to be disappointed by my skills :p
Surya Kant
Out of curiosity, Can I know how have you been after a year now?
Answer him you Kant!
@@Shichwa I took Formal classes for like 2 months, after which, I left it due to College commute. My progress has been quite slow, at least that's what I feel about myself. Can play some pieces by ear, Can sight read simple pieces, learned one hard piece : "Somnus: Dreaming of Dawn - Final Fantasy XV", some Chopin preludes, Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. Some video game music, from Nier, Nier Automata, Octopath Traveler, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy series etc.
Most of them are not at all technically difficult. I am at a point, where most music is approachable, but only if I put enough effort.
Keep in mind, I just play for 30-40 mins a day, sometimes about an hour. I am a full time student, doing an internship (Computer Science).
P.S. I did play on a 49 key keyboard for a couple of months, that I borrowed from a friend prior to writing the original comment.
I have around 2K hours (over a 10-year period, starting from age 6), and I would say I'm at the cusp of early advanced. Personally, I think it takes longer as a reluctant child to learn vs. learning as a motivated adult. So I'm really hoping to accelerate my skills!
hows it going with that?
@@icareg not good haha
My rough estimate is that I already invested about 2,500 - 3,000 hours in my piano practice (first as a child going to a musical school for 7 years, and now as a returning piano player - have been playing consistently for an hour or so a day for the past year). I'm determined to get close to 10k and become proficient!
I practice at least an hour and a half per day, and usually two hours since I took music back up two years ago.
Practice is really engrossing and I don't see the time go by. One of the best decisions I've ever made. 🎹🎶🎵🎼😍
I do not agree with the 10000 hour rule. I'd rather quote the World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. He achieved mastery in an incredible number of things. He was a world class mathematician. He was a doctor. He was a psychologist. He wrote a play. On top of ALL that Lasker was the World Chess champion for 20 years! 20 years! He said about getting better at chess:
"The student will learn more from 10 hours of properly tutored instruction that from 10 years of trial and error".
Musical NeptunianYou may not agree but this is the truth. The 10 thousand hour rule came and she figured it out. It take a life time to play. This is the reality of it. Alisha is correct. Listen and pay close attention to this video. Sometimes it is hard to agree with the truth, but this is the reality of it.
I enjoy pool (billiards) a lot, and I had the opportunity to have a private lesson with Mika Immonen, a 9 ball world champion. He is known for not practicing despite being an extremely good player. You often hear of many pro pool players practicing for 10+ hours a day. I'm sure Mika practiced some in his early years, but he said he often doesn't practice for more than couple hours at a time, and only here and there. He didn't have an instinctive play style. He was very calculated and methodical. When I play pool and practice, I often do it because I enjoy it, which means I spend time doing the parts of it that I enjoy and I'm already good at, and I "practice" doing that for hours. What I can do, I can do instinctively. When it comes time to think or try something I'm not very good at, I crumble. I have improved quite a bit over the years, but I don't practice the things I don't like, so I'm still not a great player. Mika wasn't as lackadaisical. Every move he made was deliberate, and nothing was for fun. He wasn't afraid of any of it. He was extremely objective. His nickname is "the iceman", and I can see why. I bet he's no where near the 10,000 hrs of practice mark. In summary: I think he has worked smarter, not harder. I bet he's practiced 3000 hours in an extremely deliberate way, learned what he needed to know, and called it a day. Another 7000 hours would probably be useless filler to him.
As Alisha said herself, the 10k hr thing is a theory. It can't be proven. It isn't a "rule".
In piano it's 10k hours to have some expertise. Real mastery takes much longer.
I wonder whether anyone ever masters anything; I know some expert witnesses who appear in court cases. They are biologists who have spent 50 years studying the same thing and doing experiments. Even they will say in court that they are unsure about certain things and they will disagree with other experts.
I don't play piano. It looks too hard to ever be mastered to me.
Loved this video! I love how down to earth and real you are. There’s a lot of people on CZcams that lie or boast about their piano progression, but you hit the nail on the head perfectly when you explained how someone can rush and get a song played in the correct notes but not play it properly.
This video very much appealed to my statistics-loving brain.
The thing about the 10 000 hours, it only work with deliberate practice. it mean getting yourself constantly out of your comfort zone, getting assessment of your weakness and working on them. getting feedback learning (having something to tell you what you are doing wrong and how to correct it). so from there, some people might need 25 000 hours to achieve that 10 000 hours master rule..
I started piano when I was 18. I had 30-minute lessons, once a week, for about 10 months.
I practised roughly 2-3 hours a day (let's say 2.5 hours), which works out at 75 hours per month.
At the end of the 10 months, 750 practice hours later, I had to quit piano lessons to go to university.
At that point, I could play:
* Rondo Alla Turca
* Maple Leaf Rag
* The Entertainer
* Fur Elise
* Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement
If you keep your expectations low (i.e. no Chopin, Liszt or Rachmaninoff), then you can achieve a fair bit.
I'm now 43, and I've probably clocked 1 hour a day's practice since age 19.
That's roughly 8,760 hours on top of the 750 hours when I was 18... I'm almost there!
And what pieces can you play now, after 8 thousand hours?
Since that time, I can include:
* Adagio (Albinoni)
* Bohemian Rhapsody, including vocal part (Queen)
* The Cascades (Joplin)
* Palladio, 1st movement, Allegretto (Jenkins)
* The Black and White Rag (Botsford)
Currently learning:
* Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat (Op.9, No.2)
* Sweet Child of Mine, including vocal part (Guns N' Roses)
The sheer amount of practice just gives me more confidence, and I play with more finesse.
But I'd say with 1,000 hours it's possible to play Grade 6 stuff, maybe Grade 7 if you grind it.
But I absolutely failed with anything Grade 8 and above, e.g. Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev).
I think if I attempted the Prokofiev piece now, I probably could learn it.
@@squodge Very interesting, congratulations sir! Keep it up!
Thanks! Do you play the piano yourself? Or another instrument?
@@squodge when I was 14 I took guitar lessons for about a year or so, and then I bought an electric guitar and learned some fun riffs via CZcams tutorials and stuff, but after I got to a decent level I gradually lost my interest on becoming better at guitar. So at 18 I started piano lessons and now I'm a 21 happy university student, super dedicated on developing my piano skills. From the time I got into classical piano pieces I started appreciating and understanding classical music SO much more. Also I love playing the drums (even though I don't have my own kit). That's it 😁
Steve here 60 yrs old. I've had a piano for about 4 years without learning very much on my own. I enrolled in piano level 1 at the local community college this year. the first semester final is the end of next month, I am going to attempt a simplified version of The William Tell Overture for my selected piece. We are never too old to continue trying new things within reason. Side note I did play Happy Birthday at my mother's 80th birthday, with my adult daughters singing along, last weekend.
How marvelous, Steve! You have brought tears to my eyes!!
Your mother is proud of you!
I am an adult beginner. I read Outliers years ago too. You do a fantastic job. Your channel is very interesting and you are a pleasure to listen to. THANKS.
I have played a little over about 120 hours and I already feel really cool and confident xD
Sometimes, I feel like you've made every video that addresses the questions I ask myself about the piano on this channel. Better yet, i love them all.
I started last week. I’ll be at 5 year pace by May next year....
After 35 days, you can lean to sight read the following songs on Flowkey: Canon in D, Fur Elise, I Giorni, Morning Mood, and Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. If you have any musical aptitude, mental coordination, and dexterity learning to PLAY piano and sight read falls into place with just 60-90 minutes of practice per day.
For me this is actually really motivating! Although I'm majoring in Computer Science I've still been taking lessons on the side and will be minoring in Music. Actually estimating my lifetime hours of practice really goes to show how far I've come!
Assumptions:
- Conservative average of 250 practice days per year (~50 weeks per year * 5 weekdays)
- I started at the end of Kindergarten (7 years old) and didn't have any major gaps between now and then. (I'm 21 now.)
- I think during my very first year I was only doing 15-20 minutes of practice per session. Year-by-year that gradually increased to 45 mins by the end of elementary school. Let's average that out to 30 mins.
- During middle school I should have been doing full 1hr practices, but I was lazy. :P Let's say I was doing 45 mins.
- By high school I was actually doing 1hr practices.
- Now in college even though I'm not a music major I started to really enjoy piano and thus practiced more. (Mainly because it's a "productive" way to distract myself from computer science homework!) I'll practice anywhere between 1-3hrs at a time, but let's conservatively average that to 1.5hrs.
*Elementary School*
250 days/year x 0.5 hours/day x 5 years = _625 hrs_
*Middle School*
250 x 0.75 x 3 = _563 hrs_
sum: _1188 hrs_
*High School*
250 x 1 x 4 = _1000 hrs_
sum: _2188 hrs_
*College (so far)*
250 x 1.5 x 2 = _750 hrs_
sum: _2938 hrs_
In Oregon there are OMTA (Oregon Music Teachers Association) syllabus exams but the grade levels don't match up exactly to other grading systems. I was taking the grade 8 equivalent exam at about the middle of high school, so in terms of the hours I would have had that actually matches really close with your timeline!
If I keep up the routine of 1.5hrs per day at least 5 days a week, I'll reach 10k by the time I'm 40!
Allysia, I agree with most of your comments, by the way, a very good and complete video, congratulations! What I disagree with you is that there is great benefit to studying half an hour a day. Every time I sit down to study, the first 20 to 30 minutes have passed warm-ups, scales and arpeggios, etc. No time left to study the pieces, polish the repertoire, etc.
I started playing at 68 and I use the stop watch on my cellphone to time myself. I average 5-7 hours a week now for 10 months.
And how are you doing now? What have you achieved?
Great video, I do want to point out a few points, it depends on the person, his background, his environment, his willingness, his motivation, his dedication, and probably most importantly his enjoyment, I student who enjoys playing, working hard and enjoying the results is going to achieve way more than student who isn't enjoying what he is practicing, and some people naturally have a hard time with practice and some naturally have a good sense of practice but it's all in reach, that's kind of a lead to the second point which is its not necessarily how long you practice, it's how EFFICIENTLY you're practicing, it's way more beneficial to do a dedicated, concentrated 30 minutes a day than a pointless meandering 5 hours where your brain is all over the place and you're not getting anywhere, 10000 hours of poor practice and 10000 hours of good practice have drastically different results, also HOW you practice, practicing a tough passage in an organized methodic manner and creatively like doing different touches, practicing with accents or in rhythmic groups can be more beneficial than sitting for an hour with a metronome at 80 bpm only to get to 85 bpm by the end of your session, how dedicated you are to piano and how diligently you practice is also a big factor.
Obviously it takes a LONG time, years and years and years to master the piano, but practicing it well and enjoying the results along the way is critical.
This might be the longest comment I've ever written!
TheGreenPianist his willingness women can’t play the piano there’s a women as a host
To calculate the hours of learning the piano, one piano seller told me, we reduce 20 minutes every day, because the first 20 minutes is only for warming up. It is to say, practicing 60 minutes a day, you are going forward 4 times quicker than practicing 30 minutes a day, calculation like:
(60-20)/(30-20)=4. If we practice 20 minutes a day, we stay always at the same place.
I think at least 8 years of practicing 1 hour everyday, I was able to play some of the Henle 6 level pieces. That's not even difficult level, it's just medium. I mean I can PLAY it, but doesn't mean it sounds amazing. Ah, piano why are you so hard!!
It's more than 10k hours to get to a virtuosic level. If you want mindblowing rubatos/dynamics, perfect pedaling and voicing on everything you play it's way more than 10k hours.
Its at least 20k, maybe 30k hours and thats if you do it good from the start too.
Honestly, you get out what you put in.
I started piano when I was 20. I fell in love with composition and had I really bad obsession with it. I’d spend hours upon hours each day analyzing and practicing Chopin Nocturnes, waltz’s, preludes that by the time I was 22 (I’m 25 now) I had a great bit of his repertoire under my belt with the crowning achievement of that time being his Op. 9 No. 2 Nocturne in E flat.
I say all this not to brag but to encourage. It is possible to learn people but, you have to put the time into it.
You can even look at my channel if you don’t believe me. Since my channel is new, I’ve only got a small fraction of what I know up but I’m working on uploading the rest.
Great book, btw.
Omg! I am exactly like you, I'm 19 and just getting back into competitions. I was feeling discouraged that I only get back into it! Thanks for giving me hope!
I think it depends on the individual. I am 75 now and restarted playing a year ago. I just reached grade three and still struggle with all the requirements. I play a lot, sometimes for fun but mostly to improve. Some days I feel like a have no brain, no skill. Moron! Here is the epiphany! The only way not to make progress is to quit. Besides I enjoy playing so much and then there is a day when pieces just flow and scales are much better. You are so right! Time will pass anyway. My goal is to play amazingly at my own funeral. LOL
I'm sure I have 10,000 hours in and still rough around the edges and never memorized anything. Started playing at 39 still playing today at 57. Never stopped. I began with much enthusiasm and practiced maybe 1.5 hours a day. Kept this level of intensity for the first 10 years. (i'm single).Then lessen my practice as the years passed by. Today most of what I do is play in sing out of a book piece after piece for my own enjoyment and growth too. I turn the page and play the next piece. Once in a while I"ll change to a new book sing and play those pieces that appeal to me. I'm getting more proficient all the time and its been up hill ever since. In the beginning, I was all about scales and Technic. At the start of playing piano, I never cared to play music. Just Technic and it was a good thing. It took a long time to condition my machinist hands into a hand with pianist ability. But It happened. Got so into it that I spent 6 years in my universities music dept full time and took many classes too. I know today that i"m not really music material, that is to say a natural. Nor could I major in music. Its a brain thing. But and this is the thing. . .I'm always getting better at my playing and singing too! I do it for enjoyment and for the Lord too. Some people say "oh you play good! Yeah, I do, but only after a week or so of working out that piece. One benefit to staying with music is that It takes a shorter amount of time to learn a piece. So Its not a matter of playing more complicated pieces as it is just to be able to jump in and play in one or two hours. I never really played but a few classical pieces. I prefer medium to early advanced music with a vocal line. Music like spiritual song, hymns, even Broadway or pop songs with voice accompaniment. If you not sure on what you want to do I would suggest you get into piano music with a vocal line. Its more to learn but hey it makes things more enjoyable. Especially around Christmas.
Playing piano good is hard, very very hard. Good luck everyone!
Also theres lot of levels of piano playing...there are concert pianists that does not even have virtuoso technique
I started learning piano during the pandemic and i guess i have practiced for about 600 hours by now. A month ago i started taking lessons and for all i can say they made me improve so much already. Currently I am learning the
waltz in Ab major (postum) - Chopin
Solfeggio - C.P.E. Bach
Adagio - Bach, Marcello
💔Nocturne in C sharp minor - Chopin💕
and Waltz d'Amelie.
Thank you for your videos they're really helpful i love them :)
I've had 7 lessons total and I started just before I turned 53. I hope I can play Chopin Op.28 No.4 someday. I practice 20-40 minutes three times a day Mon-Fri.
You should be able to play that before a year and a half
I leaned the piano for like 4 and a half years since i was 9, completely dropped it at age 13 till last december (i'm 26 now) when i decided to start playing again, so i bought a piano, and in 7 months i went from Moonlight's Sonata 1st movement (first thing i learned since i started to play again -took me a whole month tho lmao-) to Clair de Lune by Debussy which i finished learning it last month.
The thing is, I came across some friend -from music school when i was a kid- and he told me he tried to start playing the piano again when he was SIXTEEN, and had absolutely NO IDEA what to do even though "only" 3 years had passed.
What's my point? there's absolutely no way to know HOW long does it take until you actually do it. for some people it might be years, for some months, for some people maybe they'll never get to that point.
Great channel. 4,100 hours for me, and in the last month I think I'm BEGINNING to get some idea of how to play piano. I'm years away from 10k. I'll tell you what it's like when I get there!
As a beginner if it takes 27 years, I’ll be 96. Sounds good, I can do that
You make my day La Maestra!
Oh no what ever you do, do not turn it down. Even we as pros it takes a life time, and you always learn something new about piano playing. WEll, Paul, do not give up. If that is what you want to do, and go for it, do it!! You can still enjoy as you learn. Do not have doubts. It is great. Yes. Hard work, and demand, but you know, it is a great thing to bee able to play. You never stop learning. That is why we practice. You will always come out of your practice, and learning that much more smarter at the piano. Give it a go, and do not give up. It may bee hard workk, but you know, that is the rewarding thing about getting on the keys. Go for it and give it a go. Do not question yourself, and ask if it is o.k. Because I can reassure you, that you will bee just fine.
Thanks for the video. I also like to think in that way so I can get a perspective and dont get involve in wrong comparations. Also the learning process is a circle so some times is hard to messure your actual state of progress since you may be in your way to the next step by not only learning piano but about music and life in general.
I have around 4000 hrs studying piano. I started at age 21 I am 30 years old, last 4 years I studied around 2000 hours. I feel like my improving is speeding, so i guess is harder in the beggining like going to the gym. My goal is to get 20,000 hours of music study by age 50. Studying 750 hours each year.
Ling Ling does 40hrs a day
If you practice 40 hours a day it'll only take 250 days to get to 10,000 hours.
This is a really good outline. I think it is probably helpful to make the most out of the practicing sessions by setting out what you intend to work on instead of practicing aimlessly. Can be a key factor. This is where having a set plan of action helps. This concept can be applied to other skills also. eg. golf shot execution. Hard work, but rewarding. :)
According to "playground sessions", I have clocked 36 hours of practice time. "playground sessions" tracks actual key plucking (yes, key plucking, because that is what you do as a beginner like me, hahaha) time, so it is extremely accurate. I have had "playground sessions" for just over a month.
I’m 32 and I practice 6 to 8 hours a day six days a week I’ve been playing for 6 months and I can play some pop music and I have been really getting into classical.
6-8/day, 6 days a week, that is HUGE!!!!!
Assuming you learn at ‘correct’ pace and there isn’t a thing in the way (had to take breaks for whatever reason)
It varies what it means to play the piano
It takes at least 18 months to reach level 5 ABRSM (on average 2 years) which is most goals and most accept as playing piano.
Anyone with aspirations to get to level 8 ABRSM at least 5/6 years.
To really ‘play the piano’ ie concerto master level is obviously beyond that to even arguably lifetime.
Your numbers are spot on. I started about a year ago and have averaged a bit over two hours per day for a total of 850 hours now. I can play fairly well for a beginner now and if I think forward to what 1500 hours will be like in about a year then I agree with your assessment.
There is a book called 'Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise' wrote by the author of paper the 'Outliers' quote from. It says more accurately, that the pure amount of time of practice isn't a single factor for masterly. The feedback that can make yourself correct the error is more important. The feedback By your teachers or self correction like how Benjamin Franklin practice the writing.
I just play for fun. I don’t want to play at recitals. Just play for friends and family.
I would say I’d be satisfied to reach a level where I can confidently play stuff by Coldplay or the Keane. How much practice do I need to reach that level?
Yes. It is 10 k hours to get their. That is a lot of work, but learning piano and getting good at what you want to, well, it takes really a life time. That does not mean though that you can not enjoy it. No not at all. Like Alisha said. Their is a lot of work to bee practicied in piano, and I can even tell you that as well, due to the fact that I am a pianist for living. It is a lot of hard, and demanding hours to bee their on that bench, and getting things so precise. So Alisha is correct!!
i practiced 1500 hours since i started piano in 2009, i can learn RCM 8-9 songs in 1-2 weeks usually but RCM 10 takes me more like a month. ARCT pieces it depends lmao but i have learned chopin's op 18, op 66 and op 36
I would be 100 by the time I achieved mastery. But I don't want to be a concert pianist I only want to play for my own amusement, I don't want to perform for others. I think after 2 years I will happy. I do about an hour a day, but would like to do more.
I think that if you use Czerny exercises as a means of a standard to measure ones piano ability and over all technique. If one were to practice Czerny 1 hour a day, starting from #30 and working one’s way up to #60, being able to play each exercise in the correct tempo and beautifully, my estimation is that it would take about 18 years to reach a master level.
I think it would take the average person with 1 hour of practicing Czerny daily several years to get through each book, each practice taking 1 month in average to more or less to be able to play.
With this in mind, it will take you about 20 years to have master technique.
Does anyone agree/ disagree?
Do you have any tips on practicing outside of the piano? Would listening to music help? Mentally practicing the piece you are working on?
I have a full time job but I try to make some progress in the office during downtimes either through mental practice or listening to music.
It'd be cool if you can do a short video on this so other adults like myself can make some progress while we are at work. Just a thought. Thanks for the video!
I like sight singing and it helps with reading.
Check out Adam Neely's Channel he made a great video on that recently (the one where he is in his car)!
I can't seem to find the video right now, i thought he uploaded it recently but maybe he unlisted it again? To paraphrase him somewhat:
If he wants to practice at times when he doesnt have his instrument on him, or cant practice even if he did have it ( like in a car) he tries to play along to songs on the radio he knows using his right arm as a substitute bass neck. He emphasises that it's important for mental practice to not only picture your movement, but actually moving your fingers as if you were really playing the piece.
He quoted studies that support this idea and show that there is little to no difference between actually practicing a piece for X hours and only mimicing the practice without the instrument ( iirc this study was done with piano players)
I've actually seen something similar to this as well. There is a video on youtube called "How to practice effectively...for just about anything - Annie Bosler and Don Greene", it talks about how people that trained mentally gained just as much benefit as the people that trained physically shooting freethrows. It goes back to what you are saying, that mental practice is just as beneficial as actual practice. It also talks about the 10,000 hour theory and talks about how your brain gets better at a certain skill overtime through myelin sheaths. A really interesting video to watch, I would recommend.
It would be a amazing milestone for me to play along to songs that I know but I'm still a intermediate beginner and I don't really have the ability to listen to notes and transcribe them yet. But that is a wonderful idea and something I want to try out someday once I get better.
I recall watching a video about a controlled study which showed that music students who visualize practicing their instruments (while away from the instruments) performed better when back at their instruments than students who hadn't done the same. i.e. Visualizing that you are practicing is as highly effective as actually practicing!
Also, I personally highly recommend learning & memorizing the Circle of Fifths, and try to visualize and master this incredible musical tool whenever you are away from your piano: ledgernote.com/columns/music-theory/circle-of-fifths-explained/
I'M READY!!!!!!!!!!!
Yep Jason I am going to give you this one. Nobody can learn even chop sticks in 5 minutes or less. Things take time, and yes. It all depends how far you want to go. The more you practice the more you will gain that skil, and that part does take a lot of time and hours. So yes. I will truly give you this one. Even concert pianists will tell you that it really takes a life time to learn your instrument if it is the piano. I am a pianist for a living and spend many hours on the bench. Actually, when I am not working, which is playing piano, I am at home playing piano. A lot of people do not have the hours to devote to piano like that. That is totally fine. I though on the other hand do this for my work, and was raised up a pianist in a family of musicians. So if I am not playing the piano what am I doing? Well, either eating or sleeping. The whole day when I am not working, I will bee at the keys at home playing.
Specific practice is essential, true, but performance for fun also consolidates skills.
As an adult beginner, one simply has to modify ambition. So, no concert performance at Carnegie Hall!
That starting facial expression lol loved it
Just came upon this video. Started lessons in 2013 and have been pretty consistent with lessons since then. Practiced very little, but work and LAZINESS, among other things prevented me for years. Thankfully my teacher kept me on this whole time. About two months ago, to my teacher's shock and awe, I finally started putting in more practice work. Now I'm wondering if all those previous years should even be counted at all? My teacher saw how serious I've become and wants to test a baseline before we move further. I am working through RCM Level 1. I can haphazardly get through a Level 1 piece at first sight, and work up to tempo HS in a couple of hours time, but I'm on about week three of attempting trying to perfect three pieces to exam distinction level. Based on your video and just going through my head, even though I can claim about 300 hours of lessons, I would not even give myself 100 hours of practice and that's reaching. I hope I can make up for lost time. For anyone else reading this, don't be me!
Good for you . you are young .keep at it .
Hey Allysia! Loved the video! I know French pronunciation can be hard so I just thought I'd let you know that Comptine d'un autre été (as mentioned at around the 5:00 mark), is pronounced roughly like
Cone-tin durn oat ay-tay!
15 months, about 600 hours. Confidence? As long as I don't try things like Moonlight Sonata (3rd Movement), I'm okay with challenges. Recently I've started these 4-finger chords in "Still Alive" by Sheet Music Boss version and immediately was challenged with self-demand of clean picks. There is "f marc." written before that part, and I've heard how it should sound, and... it starts to happen sometimes when I make a short succession of clean picks on slow speed. This is invigorating, yet still challenging.
I play violin and I practice 2-3h a day for 14 years... I feel like there’s so much material and rhythm patterns to learn especially in orchestra and chamber music. I feel no way close to mastery as I get to listen to other violinist play. I’m a bit surprised that people spend 30 mins to an hour...I feel like just the scales major minor, 8th, triplets, 16th and practicing ur piece with slow metronome tempo would take at least an hour (difficult passages) And then you increase the tempo would take another 30 mins...and maybe you have a second piece for a quartet...
Sounds to me like they pulled the figure of 10,000 hours straight out of thin air.
If you are self-taught, then you must challenge yourself. Knowing how to challenge yourself without a tutor is not easy. You can't start pieces too easy or ones too hard. Probably why there will always be a demand for piano teachers. It's hard to see where your strengths and weaknesses are from the inside. A teacher would automatically know what would suit and benefit your skill progression. So, what I do before taking on a piece is to try and figure out what the thematic lesson is - it's the best you can do if you're self-teaching. Every piece has a character theme. Speed, time, syncopated rhythm, tricky left-right coordination, jumps, etc. Understand what the piece character is. If you always play to your strengths it will take longer to get really good. Right now I'm playing Gavotte by Gossec amongst other things in my practicing. Sounds easy, but it's tough for me. But I m determined to get it perfect and fast.
The question kept going through my mind, how do you define 'master?' What do you mean by it? I don't mean that to be a smart assed reply. It's just the more you spoke about it I realised I didn't have a tangible image in my mind of what that was. I assume it's not someone with nothing left to learn. (I like your thought-provoking chats, thank you)
If you assume a normal distribution for piano competency then a master would be 3 standard deviations from the mean. Look up the empircal rule. Another way to say that is that you would be better than at least 95% of people who play piano.
@@rangerdanger222 I'm glad that question is being asked!
Interesting perspective, thanks 😊
I am now starting ABRSM Grade 4... just. (Had health issue slow me down during Grade 2 study, set me back about 3-6 months). I have been learning 4 years this month. I think I have probably got 850 hours under my belt.
That was very helpful. Thank you.
How long does it take to learn piano? NO ONE every succeeds at this endevour. The best you can do is spend your life practicing at getting better. At a very old age, Yuhdi Menuin after finishing a ridiculously challenging is reported to have said “I think I am starting to learning how to play the violin”. Everyday you practice you get a little bit better.
I don't think this applies to everyone
I've heard that lucas debargue who's a young performer (he's playing really hard pieces) started in his early twenties . He's 27 btw
So it depends on the person and his capabilities some people just connect more easily with the music
This is true, there are many factors involved in people's progress but I feel like this video is quite realistic about expected progress for at least 95% of people :)
Time doesn't matter if you don't practice well... you are supposed to take breaks every 20, 25 minutes in order to be concentrate in an optimal way, and even in those 20, 25 minutes, there will be time you will be less concentrated. If you practice 3h in a row, let's just imagine that the "hollow" of concentration will be greater, so maybe you have been optimal maybe 1h in all that. So... 10 000 hours... well, yes and no. If you do not take breaks it will not be effective and maybe someone who had only 5 000 hours of good and focused practice will be better than you. Also never underestimate the time you practice outside your instrument, the time you actually listen to music (not just hearing the music but really listening to it), the quality of your piano teacher, etc. Those are all factors that will greatly affect your expertise, much more than those fictitious 10 000 hours. (btw sorry for my english)
I agree. I read somewhere that Chopin told his students not to practice more than 2 hours at a time because they would not be able to concentrate fully after that. I'm with Chopin on this one. 90 plus or minus 30 minutes works for me. Beyond that my mind gets tired and wanders too much, making practice ineffective.
Been out playing for 1-3 Months already but like 2 weeks hardcore because I just bought a piano worth $2,600 for $300
in my opinion you should start slow and build momentum first than accelerate.
WEll, you can not compare pool with piano. It is two different things here. But yea, the other thing is you got to practice wht ever it is that you are working at or else you are not going to bee good at it. Sometimes we have to practice things that we don’t like. It is that we want to leran more about what we are doing and get it right.
I finished grade 8 Western Board of Music (Remember them?!!) in Grade 11. :) I don't know how that compares with RCM...
But you're right... I've been playing ever since. I'm trying to self-learn Chopin's Nocturnal in E-Flat and did a search on youtube for any tips/tricks, especially the turns and decorations. It's been a while since I played those in my typical church pieces. ;) And I'm so glad I checked out your video on it from 2016!
Keep up the good work! You have a new subscriber! :D (I teach piano to kids - do you have any videos on that? I don't have many adults but I have some teenagers who are new to the piano. Would you treat them the same as adults?)
I have 16 y.o. and started to practice like in october of 2020 on my own and now i can play the 3 mvt of 1st clementi sonatina, my averege of practice is like 2-5 hours at day.
This video just made realize that even if i already knew about this 10.000 hours rule, and that it applied to anything you wanted to master, I only took it into consederation when i started learning the piano, and I have a lot of other hobbies, but that never disencouraged me. So i guess even if it's true, it doesn't make sense to think that i'll only be good after 10.000 hours of practice.
At 10k hours you are beyond good, you are expert. Mastery takes longer.
Although time practiced does matter, if you practice poorly you may improve slowly or not at all. There really isn't one number because of this. 10 years of diligent good practicing and you could be playing Chopin Etudes well. 10 years of poor practicing and you'll be able to bang out some half passable pop piano covers.
i have my computer on my piano so i practice durging ads or whenever im getting an itch.
I played my first song "Canon in D" after two weeks about an hour or so a day. using Flowkey All it takes is get your brain to sync with your eyes and hands and that is a matter of methodical practice to learn your notes, sight reading and fingering. Stay with classic tunes like Ode to Joy, Tempest, Jesus Joy of Man. etc. Also, on the side, I try to break down something real hard for a beginner like "Bennie and the jets" to memorize challenging chord structure, rhythm, and dynamics. Make it fun to learn. BTW, I'm 75,
How long have you played? Have you ever been taught by someone in pedagogy? I've played piano for 10.5 years. I'm currently a senior in high school. I tried to calculate it, and it is anywhere from 2,100-4,200 hours. During competition season I practiced like 3-4 hours a day.
Thank you :)
Thank you so much for your work, while I disagree with the 10k rule, I agree with your base reasoning that you can reach grade 9 in 5 years if you practice as I already have. Could you do a video on RCM's ARCT and what it means, represents, and whether or not you want and or have it?
Not everybody can acheive grade 9 in 5 years.Some will never reach grade 9 no matter how long they practice.It depends on natural ability.
I disagree on the grade 8 thing, I was not even close, but I never forgot how to play even after close to 50 years without even touching a piano. Now I do a 1/2 to 1 1/2 hours a day at age 70.
Can you please see if you can make a video on your take on the book "The fundamentals of piano practice"...among other things, the author tries to mathematically prove that practise sessions could be made "1000 times more efficient"... i would love to hear your opinion on that
Might be a conflict of interest in my question, asking a piano-teacher. But, could you make a video about how to learn to play piano without the assistence of a piano teacher or online-training program? Would love to learn to play piano, but due to health issues I cannot follow a set schedule for piano lessons, thus I have to learn to play piano by myself. What I am interested in is if you could recommend piano-books that takes a player from an absolute beginner to a level where one can play most pieces, and even some more advanced pieces with extra training / effort. Preferable also books that are more in the category of modern / known musical pieces compared to classical which probably are good for the sake of practice, but might be detrimental to the enjoyment of the practice, at least in my case.
Im self taught and am at grade 6 in two years. I first learned to read sheet music and basic theory. I've been using graded pieces starting at grade 1 and going through them. I try to play the pieces and if I struggle at something I'll Google it and learn how to do it. I've been doing this up to my current grade. I look through pieces and practice looking up harder techniques and learn the theory. Almost like preparing for the exam without ever doing it with a teacher.
Most techniques do not take more than 2 weeks each, putting them togheter can take forever however.
In a video you said it takes years to learn sight reading. are u speaking from a pure classical music perspective? What if one wants to stick with pop?
I just want to know how long it will take before I can stop apologizing profusely when someone asks me if I play a musical instrument? “I sort of, kind of, a little, a very little, I can torture a few things, but…” Ugh. I just want to be able to answer “Yes” and keep a straight face. Is that asking too much out of life?
In another matter, it’s disconcerting to watch some five-year-old play something that I’m still stumbling over even though I probably started before they were born. I do take some comfort in the thought that I could probably take most of those punks in a fistfight (at least when they were 5).
I started studying at age 35. Because of my job, I have estimated approximately 300 hours of practicing. I could already read music. The most difficult pieces I have studied are: Benda's Sonatina n. 6; Clementi's Sonatina op. 36 n. 1; Bach's Two-Part Invention n. 4.
Gladwell's 10,000 hour requirement to expert level has been debunked.
I started playin guitar at 43 and have about 1000 hours practice. I started Piano toady at 45.
people get stuck when they have to memorize notes and learn to read music.Its best to start to learn to play by ear and at some point when youre pretty good at it but annoyed NOT being able to read music ,then you should get into that.
I dropped out at Grade 1 35 years ago :-)
"time gonna past anyway" exactly, i would rather spend the time doing something practical rather than watching tv...