I'm returning to playing regularly after years of lessons in my youth, followed by many years of playing infrequently. My background was entirely in the blues/pop/jazz, at which I am intermediate. I've never done a lot of sight reading, as you can imagine - lead sheets or by ear were my comfort zone.

Upon returning to the piano, and hanging out here in these fora, I've been introduced to lots of music I never really paid attention to before. While much classical piano never interested me very much, some pieces delight me and I've decided to learn them.

What's been a bit of a surprise is how difficult it is to learn some pieces that don't sound all that hard, or even look that hard when I see the music.

Take two contrasting examples: First, the classical-sounding Nocturne by Billy Joel. For me, it was as easy as it looks, simple to play more or less right off the bat but allowing room for expression that makes it interesteing nonetheless.

Case two: Chopin Nocturne Op 20 - for me, not so easy! I've only been at it a few days, but I'm surprised at my slow progress. I'm pretty much still on page one, mostly hands-separate.

Is it my underdeveloped ability to play in C#m? Or is that one of those pieces that's just harder than it looks? What's the typical (if there is a typical) path on a new piece - does the shape of the learning curve change with more experience?

Larry

Hi Larry,

I'm familiar with Chopin's Nocturne #20 but not the Billy Joel piece.

Many people find that a composition that seems manageable and straight-forward will have musical (i.e., interpretive) difficulties that surpass the technical challenge, so in that sense a great many works are much more difficult than they might appear.

As to technical difficulties being more daunting than one would think, I imagine that lack of fluency with score reading to be the element that affects your learning curve the most. In any case, a few days is very little time to get the notes in your fingers whether one is a good reader or not. (At this point, a key signature may be an additional impediment to reading the score, but there's nothing inherently difficult about playing in keys with lots of accidentals once the notes are learned.)

I encourage you to work on building your sight-reading ability in addition to your current piano routine. There have been many discussions in the past about specific ways to approach it in terms of suitable music to use and strategies to maximize your progress. Being a better reader won't just help you feel more comfortable sooner with classical scores; it will open up a whole world of music that you will be able to explore just by sitting down and playing through it.

A wealth of great music is in the public domain and freely downloadable from many internet sources. As you get better at it, sight-reading will become fun. Looking at scores while listening to YouTube performances is a great way of getting exposed to new music from which you can choose pieces to learn.

To return to one of your basic questions, though, a few days is very small in the scale of learning new classical music. Depending on a piece's length, its technical challenges and the performance level (including memorization) one is aiming for, the process typically takes a matter of weeks to months.

Steven

Hehe...I had to chuckle at this as it reminds me that I actually had to look up the symbol for a double-sharp to see what it meant!

Larry,
It can take me weeks or months (depending on my practice time which varies wildly) for me to learn advanced piano pieces.

I have found since returning to the piano after a 20 year absence, that composers whose work I have not played much (or at all) before can be hard for me to read. Debussy, for instance...I *loved* his music when I was a kid taking lessons but never got to play any. When I first started to play his pieces now, I had a *really* hard time reading them, although once I learned them I didn't find the pieces horribly difficult to play (compared with how hard I found them to read). Bach is another, altho I find that the more I play his music, the easier I find it to read his writing.

My teacher refers to this as "learning a composer's language." The more unique a composer's language is, musically, the more difficult you may find it to read when you first start playing it.

My guess is that music in the genre you played as a kid is going to be easier for you to read thru than music of equal difficulty that is in a different genre. There is a tremendous amount of classical piano literature out there of various difficulty levels. Rather than starting out with classical pieces that are at the same difficulty level as the stuff you're more familiar with, I would suggest looking for classical music that is of an easier level. Especially if you are wanting to learn it well enough to play thru it with the music, rather than memorize it for public performance? Start simpler and work up, just like you did with the other genre(s).

My problem is my time is very limited, and I've decided to focus on composing rather than practicing, so I've written a lot of stuff, but my playing has suffered.

I don't know quite what it is but I really just feel like I need to keep writing, and that if I stop I'll fall into a slump of uncreativity like I had from 2007-January 2009. I don't want to do that again.

It would be nice if I could do more with music but the reality is that my job and other demands on my time make this currently impossible. I had a very frustrating experience yesterday as I came up with four or five or even more great ideas for music, but I couldn't score them because I was at work, and I tried to record them as tablature in my cell phone, but it didn't work out.

I should have tried calling myself and humming it into the cell phone as a message and getting it later. I'll see if I can remember to do that next time. But I did experience a frustrating sense of loss over not having that music and also frustration that because of my job my ability to write has been pretty much frustrated. I did go home after that day and ended up writing a completed piece but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it again tonight. I think I've become addicted to writing because it's the only thing that makes me feel good about myself anymore; not sure if that's good or bad but that seems to be how it is.

Wow, I kind of went off topic there but I guess that's ok. I think.

I understand that lack of time issue. Kind of ironic -- when I was a kid and no "real" responsibilities and nothing but time, I resisted practicing. Most of my adult life, I wanted to and couldn't.

It's only now that my kids are mostly grown that I can spend anything close to the time required to get back into playing form. That, and that (thankfully) my wife loves to hear me play. That helps a lot!

Larry

It depends. I tend to learn one smaller and easier piece over the period of about a month. But if I'm for example going to learn a full sonata (all movements) I tend to spread it out over a longer period of time.

How long to learn a piece?
Every pianist will have a different answer.

Just learning the notes etc can take, depending on ability, maybe some months even.
But to play well even the simplest classical pieces , can take years of practice.
And I do mean years.
I learnt Beethovens Pathetique Sonata notes about 12 years ago.
Many,many years prior to that I learnt Moonlight Sonata.
Only now do I feel I can play them reasonably well !

Having a day job really interferes. I think I have been trying to learn Chop's waltz in C#m for years now.

Like the original poster I learned when I was younger, then had many years of not playing much, and it's definitely my ability to learn as opposed to my actual playing that has really suffered the most (as much as one can separate those things).

ie, I'm playing pieces now of a similar standard, but learning them takes longer than when I was 18. I do think it's at least in part connected with a somewhat poor sight-reading ability, especially when it comes to putting hands together. My teacher is a great help, finding little ways to encourage my reluctant brain (!), but it can still be frustrating not getting through that stage quicker.

It's different for every piece. Some seem to fit my hands very well and click, even when they are considered to be difficult. Others: I struggle. Sometimes I have to give up and move on. I admit to fudging over difficult measures. I don't play for anyone but myself so it's ok.

Really depends on the piece (and the pianist). When I was studying at the university and could devote 4-5 hours a day to practice, still it took me a year to get the Liszt concert etude "Un Sospiro" reliably learned, memorized and up to speed on the cadenzas - then with some credible interpretation that made it performance-ready. Having recently returned to playing after about a 15 year hiatus, I have at most an hour a day to practice with somewhat more on the weekends, and it took only a few months to get a Bach prelude learned and memorized, although now, nearly a year later, I don't know if it's pretty enough to be ready for prime time. I imagine when I start to resurrect the Liszt it will take me six months or so, most of that on the cadenzas (i.e., technical work). Really depends on you, your time and how the piece works for your particular strengths.

(difficulty of piece divided by skill of pianist) multiplied by time available.

Shouldn't that be divided rather than multiplied?