Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum I'm a beginner but i can play....

I feel like a total dork when I think about how much delight I got out of just playing chords from my favorite songs. Not even a full measure, just a chord!

What's his YouTube channel?

It's really as simple as they are playing outside of their general skill level. A year and a half ago I could play fairly well the first half of the Maple Leaf. Now I still can't play the whole piece. I was playing this way outside my skill level a year and a half ago.

However, it was fun and exciting to be able to do that so early on. I think it is good for motivation, but it's bad to continually learn stuff outside of your skill level, because I don't think you will learn as quickly.

The 1st section of MLR is quite simple actually, and it gave me a false sense of being better than I actually was. I skipped to the 3rd strain (the trio), and was humbled instantly. The trio is known as one of Joplin's most difficult sections. I still can't play it at tempo.

MLR will be the 4th rag that i learn. I would've never attempted it as my 1st. YOu should give it another go now that you're more experienced.

PS-This very topic is a highly debated discussed topic here. Just look up "playing pieces over your head."

In my case, I started by taking a piano class in high school, where I went through one of the adult beginner's books (maybe Alfred's)... very easy stuff.

Then within a year or so, I was playing Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody along with some Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, etc.

I think it helped that I had grown up playing trombone, so I naturally had an "ear" for music and could read bass clef without a problem. Still, I'd put myself in the category of technically able, but not musically mature enough to play those pieces at the time. I could get through the Hungarian rhapsody at tempo, but it wasn't very nuanced.

Now, I've mellowed out a little, and I'm working my way back up through pieces that I can actually expressively play (currently polishing off Clair De Lune properly), and working on some pieces at the level that I can sightread (Bach and such). That seems to be helping. In the meantime, I've forgotten how to play most of the Hungarian rhapsody and the rest, but someday I'm sure I'll be ready for them again.

I'm guilty of this.

I was never in band and had no musical training.

I've played on my own without lessons by ear on a digital piano since 2001-2002. My repertoire consisted of children's songs for my daughter and a few basic renditions of pop songs. I learned to read the treble clef but not in real time.

When I started actual lessons last year my teacher found my dynamic control and finger skills were well beyond someone just starting lessons because of all of the "by ear" simple stuff I did.

I now play original versions of Maple Leaf Rag, Linus and Lucy, and a lot of other non classical intermediate stuff really well, yet I consider myself a beginner. I learn those things just as quickly as simple stuff because I hate the simple stuff because it's boring to my ears. I play over my level but I know that and am fine with it.

So when I do this I'm trying to give an accurate description of my "beginner" status as well as acknowledge that I in no way think I'm nearly as good as many of the people posting in recitals etc.

Our of curiosity by playing do you mean they were at performance level after a year?

I never performed them except for family. I've never actually performed anything, so I'm not exactly sure what it means. I could play them, but like I said, I was just playing notes, more than I was playing the music. I was practicing a lot though at the time.