Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Self-Teaching Support Thread

Hi Joshua, Nice of you to join in!

Most here would agree that a learner will progress better with the help of a teacher. But for some, this is not an option. Money has been tight since my husband and I both lost our jobs. If we have any money to spare, it should go to enrich our children's lives, not my piano-playing.

So this is a place where people who direct their own learning can share experiences, and share motivation to improve.

So, for example, I have noticed that if I just stick at something (doesn't matter too much how), it gets better over time.

The only person I measure myself against is me. There's always someone better than you, and they're also probably younger (and have money for a good piano and lessons, and aren't balding). If I'm playing better--more accurately, closer to tempo, without tension--then I'm happy. (Happy? heck, I'm ecstatic!)

As long as I feel as if I'm doing justice to the music, I know I'm on the right track.

Joshua,
I think measurement can come from many places besides a teacher. Knowing when something has gotten easier is a definite clue. Also, unsolicited reactions of other people - a couple of weeks ago, a friend here for dinner & afterwards, she was in the other room & I sat down to play for a few minutes. & she said "Hey! That's La Bamba!" Then, a few days ago one of my neighbours told me he hears me when he goes by in the hallway, & he thinks I'm starting to sound pretty good.

I think all the ranking stuff isn't terribly helpful because (just like grades in school) it doesn't give any clues how to improve. I can listen to myself, I know what I need to work on when I make mistakes. I just lost a teacher that I really liked - she's moving to another town - & I think the 2 things I'll miss most are that she could often point out easier ways to do things like some fingering, and she "fed" me theory in the context of whatever I was working on. She also empowered me to work on my own, so although I plan to look for another teacher, I'm not panicking, & I'll keep on playing & learning while I search.

In the meantime, I visited a friend yesterday who plays a bit, learned some stuff about jazz & blues from her, played her new Clavinova (never played a digital before). I know a lot of people who used to play, but not many who do, so it was really fun sharing "piano time."

HA! Ben, that is the best so far.

Sorry!

For the benefit of those who really didn't get it I was merely pointing out the "logical fallacies" (for those to whom they were not immediately obvious) as a public service...but is it necessarily a logical fallacy?

There are, of course, an endless number of examples of "people who do x and people who don't do x..." (not to mention y & z).

JF

It's not a fallacy, it's probably a quirk of language - and you still don't get it.

Not a problem rocket.
Er - perhaps we could get back on topic?

I find that I get a very distinctive, pleasurable feeling when I am stretching myself productively to learn something new. It is challenging and absorbing, and I can see definite progress to reward my efforts.

It's like learning to stretch your body -- you need to feel for the point where your stretch is strong enough to expand your body's range of motion, but not so strong that you will be too stiff to stretch further the next day. Material that is too hard leaves me feeling frustrated at my lack of progress, and I fail to get musical-sounding results.

I find that it is important that I judge my progress only against myself, because if I compare myself to others I get frustrated and discouraged. I have a disability which requires strong medications, and those interfere with my concentration and coordination (very frustrating), so I find that I progress more slowly than some here, especially those who are younger, or who had more childhood lessons than I did.

I find that my practice is most enjoyable and productive when I can be patient and absorbed with the challenges of my current skill level, instead of letting myself get involved in feelings that tell me I am slow and unskilled.

+1!

OK, just thinking about this the other way. In what way would it be helpful to hear from a teacher 'You're progressing, but not as fast as the average student'. ????

Why would a teacher say such a thing? How would it be helpful to hear that your progress is faster and slower than some particular benchmark? Why be measured in this way?

Would it even be helpful to hear 'you're progressing faster than I've ever seen' ????

I mean, so what? How would it help?

Yes, I think that it fits as a 'self-referential paradox' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes). Another example would be the Barber paradox: An adult male barber shaves all men who do not shave themselves, and no one else. Can he shave himself?

Going back on topic, I am also a 'self-taught' adult beginner piano player ... Now I am finishing the first Alfred's Basic and AIO Adult Piano. Well, I don't plan to be self-taugh forever and I would like to take lessons in a mid-term future when improving will be harder... for now it seems that going on the self-taught route is working good enough. A good thing of being a beginner is that you improve fast at first.

Surely I would advance faster with a good teacher, but I am not in a hurry and my main objective is to enjoy playing piano, even when practicing... so I am taking it easy, without rushing.

I would like to take the improvisation and jazz route, but I think that won't be able to self-teach that, so my plan is to look for a teacher in the future... somebody that would show me how to advance when I will be lost... and I will be , as I've been before . For now I've found a path to follow with Alfred's AIO.

Thanks kurtie.

Hey kurtie, if you've finished the first volume of Alfred's, you should ready to start with Tim Richards' Improvising Blues Piano, which apparently prepares one for his 2-volume Exploring Jazz Piano. I'm working from _Improvising Blues Piano_, and I think it's the single best example of music instructional media I've ever run across. I've been having great fun with it.

I attended Tim's class at Goldsmith's years ago. Teaching something that's traditionally self taught is challenging.

I am at the point in my self teaching to realize the keyboard I have has accomplished it's goal...to get me hooked and now needs to be replaced.

I bought a simple Yamaha Introductory level keyboard (61 YPT 220) and it has served it's purpose. I am now looking at the YPG-635...much nicer 88 key weighted keyboard. A friend has one and wow what a difference and still within the budget.

Geez, what happened? Does everybody else have a teacher now except me?

I don't have a teacher. Never plan to have a regular teacher. I can see getting a one-shot lesson if I bring a piece to near-polish and would like a teacher to help do a final tuning of the piece. That greatly appeals to me. If its a Beethoven sonata one could try to find a high-level teacher that has a background in Beethoven. That would be insightful. Rachmaninoff piece, teacher, etc. Teachers absoltely have their place, even for those that are supposedly self-taught. Furthermore, I greatly respect a number of teachers in the piano teacher forum with mad pedilogical skillz.

x2 on what Kreisler said eailer in this thread. That everyone is self-taught basically but teachers can bring more structure and support to those that want it. I enjoy playing the pieces I want in an unrushed manner. Maybe giving them a break for 2 weeks when my attention wanes only to bring them back when I want to prove something to myself. I'm a self-taught runner, swimmer, kendama player, badminton player, writer etc. For some reason I need very little stucture and have oddles of self-motovation to sit down for years on end to learn and master something.

What I find most fascinating and satisfying about self-directed learning is being free to follow my intuitive sense of what I am ready to learn more about in any given point in time. There are so many different aspects to music making, so many layers of skill and awareness to cultivate, so much to learn more about, but my time and mental absorbency are limited. Choosing what to work on when can be gratifying, when some new or familiar aspect of playing decides to blossom into a whole new level of detail in my mind, and I am free to take a sudden left turn and immerse myself in a period of accelerated learning on that particular topic.

I wrote about something related to this in another thread



Perhaps because I have been a self-directed learner for so many years, I enjoy the process of following my muse in the learning process. One of my great pleasures in life is the process of becoming fascinated by something, and learning perceive, understand, and/or execute it in finer detail. And there's a particular draw to ideas whose time have come in my mind, a sense of ripeness. I feel a strong hunger for an influx of new information to enhance my growing sense of detail, and a sense of great peace and patience with the process of building a new filing system my brain to hold this new learning. And then after a bit, my brain starts to feel over-full, and I need to back off for a while and digest what I've learned.

My experience has been that teachers prefer to prescribe a steady diet of balanced doses of this and that, and I just don't learn as well that way.

You are correct. A lot of teachers, including myself, do prefer to provide a "balanced diet" because that has proven to be a good way to "grow" balanced players. That's our job. Certainly the balanced diet is important in the beginning.

However, I have numerous students (mostly teens and above) who, once they have become solid in their playing, choose to explore side-tracks of study, and may stay there for quite a while. And I help them with that. That is also part of my job.

And most students find that, after they have spent that time on the exploration, for lack of a better word, want to go back to the steady diet for a while, probably at a higher level, to continue their growth. And then, after a while, they may want to go back to exploring.

So one does not have to forego piano teachers in order to spend time focusing upon an area of study outside of the traditional areas.

And one can always explore even if their teacher does not want to be involved in that exploration. There is no rule that says that cannot happen.