How can I become a good Pianist

Don't get discouraged. I mean I know it's easy to when you see all those piano geniouses on TV or in the newspaper and you ask "how come I can't be like them?!" Trust me I know the feeling...and I'm going on my 7th year!

Don't get discouraged. I mean I know it's easy to when you see all those kid piano geniouses on TV or in the newspaper and you ask "how come I can't be like them?!" Trust me I know the feeling...and I'm going on my 7th year!

If you want to learn at an accelerated pace I’d suggest Chang’s book, “The Fundamentals of Piano Practice”. (see the link in my signature)

Chang promises to help you become a better pianists 1000 times faster than conventional methods (his claim not mine)

I think that putting a number to it is a bit ridiculous. After all, we can ask a thousand times faster than what? I was stuck trying to learn a piece on the piano. I had been trying to practice it for two months and I wasn’t making any headway at all. In fact, I was just about to quit altogether and just give it up. I thought it was just me!

But then I heard about Chang’s book and after reading it I was able to learn the piece that had me stumped in about 4 days. Compare that with the 8 weeks I had previously tried to learn it? Four days compared to for weeks (28 days) that’s a ratio of 4 to 28 or about 7 times faster.

Not quite a thousand times faster.

Or was it?

In the previous 28 days I had made virtually NO PROGRESS at all. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was basically ready to quit. That represents zero percent progress!

With Chang’s method I learned the piece in 4 days and was actually playing it up to speed COMPLETE! That’s 100% progress.

Well, what’s 100% progress divided by zero percent progress? Sound like infinite progress to me!

Being able to play a piece in its entirety versus not being able to play it at all. Can that really be measured by a number?

I can’t recommend Chang’s book highly enough. To me it’s the Bible of Piano Practice.

Although, he denounces Hanon exercises whilst I feel they are helpful. So I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but still, he’s got some really great tid-bits of information in there that can make the difference between being able to play something easily versus not playing it well, or not even being able to play it at all.

By the way, practice is USELESS if you are practicing incorrectly. Like I say, I practiced a piece incorrectly for 28 days and got NOWHERE with it. Then by applying the correct practice techniques I was able to make complete progress in only four days of practice!

So incorrect practice is like spinning your wheels, and doesn't help much at all. The worst possible thing it to have an incompetent teacher who blames your lack of progress on lack a of practice (or worse yet on lack of skill). Most teachers aren't even going to consider that it might actually be their teaching method that sucks. :thumbsup:

I use to play about 20 hours a week. I noticed that it took me about 3-4 months before I would see improvement. Others would see my improvement quicker.

No one is too late.

You must change your views however - as you set yourself up for failure by them.

Concert pianists never just decide one day that they'd like to become a concert pianist.

The concert pianist becomes them.

The top performers become such performers by passion, drive, and will to do nothing other.

You must center on this drive, and seek out the best concert pianist and study from them. If you want to become a concert pianist - never study with someone who calls themselves a piano teacher - or that is all that you will become. Study with a concert pianist. Seek them out, wherever the best might be - audition for them, write letters, never give up until you are in their apprenticeship, and then never waiver from attention.

I also doubt top concert pianists would waste time on a forum - so turn off the computer and begin your quest.

It's definitely not too late. I'm 18 and I just had my third lesson ever today, and I have similar reasons to yours. Apparantly I'm progressing faster than most first time piano students because I can already read music proficiently in both clefs. The way I practice is I play through some stuff at the piano, get bored and go play on the computer, get bored and go back to the piano, get bored and go back to the computer, etc. I think I'm getting between 30 minutes and 1 hour this way, and it's all productive, not just pounding away at the keys getting frustrated.

I haven't been playing for awhile because my family had some problems with my grandmother.

All last month has been really stressful for me.

I tryed to fit in an our or 2 everyday, which is not enough if I want to become very good at it before next December.

We had to keep running all over the place to help my grandma and my schedule just went nuts. So I missed some practice days and thats bad for me. So all this month I'm working very hard to make up for it and get back in my game of learning to play very well. I love music so much.

I know that I have great potential in the piano I just need hours and months of practice to achieve it.

Good luck to you TurbanToe:D:thumbsup::(:)

One of my goals is to become a very capable, concert level pianist. As of right now I don't know how to plan my practice's every day to achieve this goal as soon as possible. Sadly I'm a late starter, I have only been playing for four months and I'm 16 years old. I practice for seven hours a day but I don't think I'm seeing any progress. However, this may just be because I don't get to see any other pianists practice. Anyway my question is this, am I capable of achieving my goal even though I've started so late. And how should I go about practicing in order to achieve that goal.

it is never to late to learn, i just picked up the piano about a year ago at age 17 =/ i know how you feel about starting late. everyone starts like at age 10 or so.

but yes, practicing 7 hours a day isn't good. my piano instructure says 1 hour a day is good.

and 'tis true, when i try to practice for 3 hours i tend to learn the song less.

i took 1 month to learn "Gretchen Ross" by Michael Andrews *look up on youtube to hear the song*

i'm sure if you belive in yourself you will achive your goal.