As an adult student about to embark on my third year of lessons, I am interested to hear from others in a similar situation. What level of play are you at and what pieces would you recommend.

Hi MrDownTempo, welcome to the forum. I'm not taking lessons and I've been playing longer than 3 years, so I can't really answer your first question. But I do think it's important that when you choose pieces to learn that they be (a) not too advanced, otherwise it's an exercise in frustration, and more important (b) pieces you love. Life's too short to be playing stuff you hate.

What kind of music do you want to be able to play? If you narrow it down for us, we might be able to make some useful suggestions for what to tackle next.

I agree with monica. I was taking lessons for 8 years now, and I'm currently studying level 7 conservatory, which I find is perfect for my ability.

To answer your second question, play what you feel like playing. Don't go too far over your limit. Trust me, I've tried and almost gave up on piano because of being so frusterated. Monica pretty much stole the words from me so I don't have much left to say

Monica, your youTube were beautiful and what I was really interested in seeing was that you had no music. Do you mem orize everything after you have worked from the sheet music or is this playing by ear?

I would enjoy a mix of classical, blues, jazz and popular music - I love it all.

MrDownTempo, I've been at it almost 5 years now as a late Adult starter and always with a teacher (still). I've come a long way. I remember that 3 year period being particularly crucial. Like things start to click and improvement accelerates. At this point, my teacher increased the challenges significantly. Some stuff I was working on at 3 years, I still do but obviously doing it better. I think the clue is that at 3 years, my family stopped complaining about my playing. At 5 years they actually start clapping

Jazzwee, thats one of most encouraging things that I've been told in a long time. I started a piece a few weeks ago and was amazed by how quickly I was able to grasp the reading, rhythm and dynamics of it. I felt that I was at a crucial point of learning.

When things click like that you see the rewards of many hours of practice. My teacher has told me that he plans of pushing me beyond my ability as he knows that I will put in the work.
I'm delighted, thanks

Thanks, MrDownTempo. I can't play by ear to save my life, though I wish I could. I memorize virtually everything I learn, which is not as impressive as it sounds because it simply happens as a consequence of playing it over and over. It's muscle memory, though, so if something happens and I blank out, I'm hopelessly lost.

Well, if you love it all, I will of course recommend that you look into the works of Ludovico Einaudi. His sheet music transcriptions are exact, and his works fall in wide range of difficulty, from pretty easy to wicked hard.

But, really, the best approach would be for you to identify those pieces that you listen to and it grabs you, and you feel an overwhelming need to learn to play it yourself.