Tell us about your piano and musical experience!

The ABF Survey 2011

It's a Google Docs form, which is probably the easiest and quickest and cheapest way to do a survey of a lot of people.

I probably put in too many questions, but only the first one is required

I'll publish a link to responses later, hopefully with some nice charts.

And yes, you can answer the survey more than once, but why would you?

Sam

Hi Sam


Survey was short and sweet and fun. I hope others will participate.

Surveys are pouring in - OK, trickling in. Now you can see some results in some pretty charts:

ABF Survey Summary

Sam

Sam, that is so cool!!!!!

Thanks very much!

Great job, Sam! The graphic display is a really effective way to convey the results.

survey taken

Thanks for doing this Sam. I've completed my survey.

Thanks, Sam. I submitted mine. You are certainly keeping us all organized! This is great!

Thank you Sam for taking the time to do this. The results should be interesting. Add me to the list also.

Thanks, Woody

Sam, this is really great! I am a huge statistics buff myself, and a self-proclaimed Excel guru. I love this.

SPOILER ALERT

At the time of this post,there are only 44 respondents - a fairly significant sample size, but I'd go for 100 before drawing any solid conclusions.

I'm amazed and extremely impressed at the number of "self-taught" and those with "0 years of formal instruction" with any musical instrument. Amazed because I've heard the playing a talent of such people here.

Here is a link, by the way, to the results. I'll be tracking this for awhile:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dDF0a0kwNW90dzFodEtEcFlFc2huUUE6MQ

I think this is great too! Nice to see where people are at. Thanks for posting!

Hi Sam,

Answered the survey

John

Great!

A good idea Sam - have submitted mine too.

Done! Great idea, congratulations.

Done. Interested to see the final results.

This is cool, Sam. What I think is interesting is how many of us restarters have more than 30 years between our piano-playing youth and our re-beganning, as Shiro Kuro would say. Are we cool, or what?

Cathy

Over 60 responses now! There are lots of interesting trends. What surprises me is that, so far, we are about equally divided between adult beginners and re-starters. And most of us are middle aged...

Keep those responses coming!

Sam

Again, I'm amazed at the percentage "self-taught." As I've read in another thread, I prefer the term self-directed since some purists here scoff at the idea of working with no teacher (uh-oh...a controversial can-of-worms thread).

Some conclusions one can draw from this is that many of we "middle-aged" have lots of life commitments, financial obligations, family obligations, and time constraints that prevent us from working with teacher on a consistent basis.

Let's get this survey to 100, so we can discuss the results in further detail.

Done. Brillant idea.

Thank you Sam

Best of all ... I feel young

Thanks Sam!!!

I'm in. But maybe you should add an "over 70" category. Would be interested in how many of us there are. But maybe it doesn't matter, after all ...

Sam, this is really cool!

Looking at the results, I would say at this point, both statistically and scientifically, that a significant majority of adult beginners / beganners / re-beginners are confirmed to be clinically crazy.

Crazy for piano, it appears!

Thanks Sam!! I just did my survey. It made me realize something, which of course I already knew, but don't usually think about much.

I started as an adult, and I have played piano for more than 10 years now, and I have taken lessons almost continuously the entire time. (the except being 4-months at the start of grad school, and during that time I did a lot of "mental music") Anyway, interestingly enough, I started piano in June of 1999, when I got a digital piano. (Although I can't remember the specific date, I have always "celebrated" June as my own person piano-month. I got my upright in June of 2000, too). So I have been playing and taking lessons for 12 years now.

Wow. Just wow. That's either really really cool, or really depressing-- because I should be better than I am by now!

We'll go with "really really cool," I've always been a cup-half-full type. And besides, I have loved everyday of my piano-life the entire time, and, although I definitely get more enjoyment out of playing for others these days (having learned to control my nerves better), I don't think my feelings about piano have changed at all. These days, I am just as excited every time I sit down to play as I was 12 years ago. My love affair with the piano is second only to the love affair I have with my husband!

Anyway....


Although I'm not in the minority as an adult began-er, I think I am in the minority as a lesson-taker and as a long-term lesson-taker. I need to go look at those results again. But that's really interesting to think about... I wonder how my progress would have differed if I hadn't taken lessons the whole time. And, I should mention, I've been a PW member since 2004, which has been and remains without doubt another crucial source of learning for me.

But it's really interesting to think about one's "piano trajectory," as Sam's suvery gives us the chance to do. We can't know how things might have been different if we'd taken a different path, and though we might have ideas about what helped us along the most, we can't really know. The only thing that's for certain is, none of us would be as good as we are today if we weren't still playing the piano today. And in the end, that's all that matters. That we play.

Sam, again, thank you so much for doing the survey! My original post was just a spur of the moment, spontaneous silly thing (and just for the record, I never meant to imply, and don't think I did, that ABF's name be reconsidered. I think this place is perfect. I just wanted to have a grammatical-abomination to describe my own experience!

Anyway, my original post was just inspired by silliness, but I'm so glad it sparked the discussion in the other thread and now this survey. Yay!

P.S. Out of the 81 who've taken the survey so far, only two people (one of them me) have responded that they've taken lessons for more than 10 years as an adult.

Hmmm...

I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.
I am not going to add up that money and see how much I've spent on piano lessons.

Over 80 responses this morning. If you haven't done it yet, don't be left out!

Sam

I'm in and that makes a very symmetrical 88 responses.

Done, thanks for the idea.

It's not directly asked, but you can deduct the number of restarters. I was surprised by the fact that more than a half members are not restarters, as I am.

Fer

I'm amazed at the number of restarters (I thought there were fewer of "us" than 42%), and also the number of those that had other musical training (at the time of this post, roughly a quarter of us). However, I'm amazed but not surprised. I think those with prior musical training are more likely to play intermediate level pieces on piano after just a few months or a year or 2.

It's similar to, say, knowing how to roller-blade and then learning how to ice skate. The principals of rhythm, key signatures, and music theory are still the same regardless of instrument. Those with training are more apt to learn piano quicker. It's not surprising especially after listening to ABF recitals where over half of the pieces are in the intermediate-to-advanced range. (but that's another unknown statistic - just my SWAG).

For the record, I had 5 years of band (percussion) and of course, 3-5 years of lessons as a kid which is why jumping right into intermediate repertoire was fairly seamless. I'm 100% sure as well that hand independence - the thing that true adult beginners seem to struggle with the most - is learned more easily and ingrained in childhood (if you had childhood lessons), making restarting all the more easier.

Another thought....I'd bet there's also a correlation between restarting and then working with no teacher as a grownup. It makes me wonder what percentage of the restarter group is also in the self-taught or working-with-no-teacher group?

Anyway, interesting survey so far. I now have greater insight into "Who is the adult beginner?"

We've had over 100 responses, which is pretty good for a weekend in June. The more people that respond, the more confident we can be that the results are representative of our musical experience.

So what does the survey say? You can look at the results in pretty pictures. Here's my summary of what it looks like with about 100 responses:

Real adult beginners are in the majority, but not by much. A little more than 40% are re-starters.

We're old! A whopping 74% are over 36. 51% are over 46.

We're also fairly new to the piano as adults. 45% have been playing 2 years or less.

A large majority, 65%, have experience with some other instrument.

61% of the re-starters had between 3 and 10 years of experience as a child.

But 60% of the re-starters took a huge break from piano - over 21 years, before starting again.

Here's something interesting - a majority, 55%, are not taking piano lessons now.

For those that have taken lessons or are taking lessons now, most have been doing it for just a few years.

A quarter of us say they have had no education in music theory, harmony, or history.

And 60% of the responders say they have never participated in the ABF recital. Sounds like some outreach may be needed!

I'll leave the survey open - why not? The more responses we got the better the picture we will have.

And I've already thought of some questions I should have asked but didn't, like gender and what playing level you call yourself. Maybe next year...

Sam