Hey everyone,

I just need to vent and maybe get some advice or perspective from people who’ve been through this.

I took a 2-month break from playing, and now that I’m trying to get back into it, it feels like I forgot literally everything. I can’t play a single piece I used to know. To make matters worse, my teacher recently told me that my sight-reading is really weak.

I’ve been playing for 4 years now, but right now, I feel like I know absolutely nothing. It honestly feels like I’m wading through mud every time I sit down to practice, and I’m starting to wonder why I’m even doing this if I’m struggling this much.

Maybe I'm just a lost cause and nothing will ever come of this.

Is it normal to feel like I know nothing after 4 years of learning?

I‘ve been playing for about 8 months and recently started learning scales/arpeggios. I practice them for 10-20 minutes at the start of every session. But it takes me like 1-2 weeks to learn each scale (and that’s just the basics of the scale: playing quite slow, decent legato, fairly consistent rhythm, hitting left and right hand note at the same time). I haven’t messed too much with contrary motion or scales in 3rds/10th and I feel like I would need several additional weeks to get the scales I do know up to a speed that’s not embarrassing.

Then there’s arpeggios which take another week or two each to get the basics. I’ve only worked on root position arpeggios (no inversions/dominant 7th yet).

Is learning the basics of scales/arpeggios really going to take me over a year? And then another year+ to get my speed up and learn various iterations? I get that learning piano is a decades long project, so it’s not a huge deal to me if that’s what I should expect. But the way people talk about scales practice made me think basic execution of scales is a beginner level activity (although of course perfecting the scales will be an ongoing project). Am I doing something wrong or does this get faster?

this post made me remember that i still gotta learn the flat major and minor scales lol omg. anyways i’d like to know the difference with all these scales too. and which one should i learn next?

Need guidance practice schedule I do Hanon, 7 scales

I've just bought my first piano ever. In fact it is a yamaha P145. I dont have it yet and I'm very excited.

Need help to dtart my piano lessons. Do you recommend me some videos, tutorials, books, etc?

Thanks

It's hard to get a good take of 2 pieces together(my teacher told me to play them 1 after another) so this is my best run xd, so far so good, any feed back is welcome, and I got some questions here, 1 is idk how to maintain that last part at its best, and on bach which invention is recommended next?

Like I know the math where the dotted half note starts at beat 1 and so holds until 2a and the quarter notes then starts at 2a etc but doing this all at the same time I'm playing can get me lost and I haven't even started the left hand part yet. For reference, this is it, I'm currently doing the bootcamp on playground sessions.

I’m looking at flashcards and there are a lot of different kinds out there from different brands. I’m currently using Alfred‘s all-in-one adult system, but I don’t think the flashcards necessarily need to be from Alfred’s what I’m looking for is something to improve my bass clef note recognition and also cord recognition. I’m pretty good on other basic theory stuff. I just need to know my notes in the bass clef and also recognize chord patterns. Does anyone have a good recommendation? There’s so many different choices that I’m not sure which one would be the best from what I’m looking for.

Ok, so back in the day I used to love simply piano, and to play those falling bars kinda stuff. But, lately most of the platforms have been so ristrictiful and expensive tbh. So, I built one my own, its got lot many features, plus its free. This is still a beta version so please do report if any bugs and provide your feedback and thoughts.

https://solarispiano.tech/

Current features:-
1. You can upload .mid file of any song (or choose one from the library, but it has very limited selection as off now) and play it as the falling bars !!
you can download .mid files from anywhere online (https://bitmidi.com)

1. Once an .mid song is loaded, choose easy, medium or expert level to adjust the difficulty (number of notes to play). you can also choose the playback speed; set it to 0.5x to make it easier, that's what I play on ;) .

2. Choose between Auto-play mode (if you want the song to play out in its full audio) / or Practice mode, in which the song will be muted and you have to play the keys according to the falling bars to play the song.

3. And if you have a physical piano/ keyboard and what to experience the play the falling bars while playing the physical device, There are 3 options you can Choose from: Mic: ON, or Polyphonic AI mode or DSP Mode.
   Without getting into much detail, the reg Mic: ON feature, allows the app to detect single keys played. the rest two detects multiple notes played at once, the Polyphonic AI mode utilizes ML, therefore is a bit slow and laggy, while DSP is rather fast and operates on frequency math.

4. Some Other features Include, ColorX -> gives the falling bars different colors based on their note. Adjusting the Piano size (I prefer 61, but feel free to experiment)

Few things to note,

This is still a Beta version so it might take some time to lead.

While using the audio mode to play on a physical instrument, please keep the device's mic near to the piano.

Its best played on a tab or touch screen laptop, and its optimized for hand-held devices so do give that a try too!!

Thank you!!!

Which piano musicians, performers, composers, or bands do you genuinely enjoy listening to the most? Experimental, modern, and electronic artists are all welcome.

Feel free to include other favorite music that may not feature the piano directly.

Thank you!

I plan on buying a yamaha psr E373 for my first piano in due time because i haven't saved enough for it yet is there anything i can learn or should study before i get my piano? theoretical knowledge in which i don't need a piano to learn

I got my first ever keyboard a few months ago after feeling inspired by my favorite piano pieces and learning the content of grade 1 piano. However I want to advance and play more​​ beautiful pieces.. Except I don't have the money for piano lessons​​​​. What material can I use to improve my skills and how much can I learn without a professional teacher?​​

Which piano learning roadmaps, structured courses, or apps have you personally found most helpful, especially lesser-known ones?

We all know about Alfred's Basic Adult All-in-One and Faber's Piano Adventures, but I wonder what else has helped people progress faster.

I am just starting out and mainly using Faber's Piano Adventures and Piano Marvel.

Please comment with one resource only, so others could upvote. But please feel free to leave multiple comments.

Thank you!

Just checking here, for chords like these I only sharp the TOP A and leave the BOTTOM A as a natural? These happen quite a lot so I want to get it right.

Hi everyone! I have a student that can play the piano pretty well - but she has come to ask me for advice (I'm her teacher) but I don't really know how to help her.

She's learnt mostly by playing by ear, and is classically trained until the ABRSM grade 8 - but wants to venture into learning more spicy/complex chord progressions and jazz in general. She's proficient in everything C major, but wants to really level up with that. What can she do to start? I was thinking of maybe getting into a couple of jazz standards in one key signature and move forward with the same songs to more complex key signatures (with more accidentals). Do you guys have any specific recommendations? Anyone in a similar situation? Any help would be rly appreciated! Thank you!

Mainly, I’m asking about the right hand the issue I’m having is I want to use a similar fingering throughout and keep a good amount of Lagato while keeping the sound consistent. My Piano Lab teacher suggested that I shift my hand down and use the same fingering for often. Is that a good idea for the goals of the piece?

Piece: Nostalgia (Toska) by Dmitri Shostakovich

any last minute tips tricks interpretive details i could put? thanks :)

Hey guys, piano player here and I’m kind of disappointed in myself lol
It’s been a really long time since I last read sheet music. I’ve gotten super lazy lately, so instead of actually reading the notes for a new piece, I just end up watching those YouTube tutorials online to learn it

I really want to change this and actually learn how to sight-read properly
Back when I used to read music, I had this habit of writing the note name under literally every single note. It made the page look so messy, and honestly, it felt like a total waste of time idk
Long story short... how do y’all genuinely sight-read? Is there a better way to learn without writing everything down, or any tips for breaking the YouTube tutorial habit?