Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How long would it take for someone to be able to play this?

Sheet music included: http://www.kylelandry.com/?p=sheets
Search for "Disney Mulan Reflection"

Thanks!

It sounds like this when played out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0OXk5BC350

Depends.. as always..
It doesn't seem too hard but Kyle is using some fancy arpeggio runs in 32's.. That's a hard technique for someone at that speed gotta practice a lot (anyone with practice suggestions go ahead :)). Quick look melody is played in octave's with chord tones or filled a lot of the time... so that's harder than just melody playing in RH like "beginners" are used to.

Again depends.. without the fancy arpeggio's one can learn this after a year.. the other one maybe 2 years.

Also depends what you mean with "how long would it take". For someone with less experience it obviously takes longer to learn a piece like this than one who has played alot of stuff like this before.

I hate these types of questions. Let me try to explain why:

I can sight-read most of this score. With a couple run-throughs under my belt, I could probably play this pretty well. Maybe not note-perfect, and I'd improvise part of the run at 2:05, but I'd make it sound good. If I had to read it note-perfect, it might take a couple days.

Someone with zero days of playing experience would take years to learn this piece.

Someone with poor sight-reading skills will take longer than someone with good sight-reading skills.

Someone with good technique will learn it faster than someone with poor technique.

Someone who practices correctly will learn it faster than someone who does run-through after run-through (especially if they only do one run-through per day).


There are far too many variables to be able to say, "You should be able to play this in 'X' number of hours."

Heck, in a year or two, you will learn it faster yourself than you would learn it today. So, there is really no "useful" way to answer the question, unfortunately.

Still, I do hope this helped a little.

I know it's just a terrible question to ask. I just like knowing these things so I can motivate myself. Some people are overwhelmed by the sheet music but I like being overwhelmed; it helps me perform better. Thanks for the quick answers!

I understand it when one is overwhelmed by sheet music at first glance..
But when taking time to look at it, and what the LH and RH are doing seperately instead of HT gives a much better view of how "hard" playing the notes will be. And well.. that's the way how I learn my pieces.. learning the hands seperately. I wouldn't be able to sight read it for yeaaaars from now, but I think memorizing would be more than possible.

EDIT: O and looking at the rhythm always helps me a lot to see how hard a piece is. If there are many triplets, syncopation and other stuff going on it's obviously harder than if it's straight forward quarter and eigth notes. So tapping the ryhthm HS and HT and see if there are any diffulcties rhythmically is a good way to go before diving into a piece which may be to hard.

I think if you don't have enough experience playing in general or playing pieces that seem to be about the same difficulty level as this one to make an estimate, then probably the answer is that this piece will take you quite a long time to learn and you'll become frustrated with it before you finish. Unless it is truly a piece that you love so much you will never tire of it.

You (and possibly your teacher if you have one) are in the best position to estimate how long it will take you to learn. Even so, sometimes you'll be completely wrong. You'll learn a piece in a few weeks that seemed impossible at first, or you'll labour away at at one for over a year never quite perfecting it even though it seems like it shouldn't be that difficult.

And if you're asking how long it would take others to learn this piece, or how long it "should" take take an average person - well, I see no value in that. You're just setting yourself up to feel bad about being worse than average or to inflate your own ego. It's not a competition.

But back to my first point. I would say that if this is a piece you really love and really want to learn, give it a try. But if it seems too hard, don't risk turning into a piece that you will come to hate. Set it aside, work on other things, and take a look at it now and then. You may be surprised at how quickly it starts to look more manageable.

Sorry but what do HT and HS stand for?

HT: Hands Together
HS: Hands Separate

Kyle Landry's style is not exactly easy. He uses a lot of embellishment, such as the aforementioned 32nds run. A more basic score would be far easier too learn to play. Thing is, much of that embellishment is improvised from said basic score, like Derulux would. Someone like Kyle or Derulux has the experience and technique to add those as they play. It requires an understanding of music that comes with the years. But you can study the score to oblivion and play it exactly as written earlier.

Starting from scratch ... having never played at all ...

I will say ... 10 years of lessons and regular practice ... to get to the skill level where you could learn that piece in a month of focused practice.

Just my opinion ... worth exactly what you paid for it.

You can play it right now.
It just won't sound very nice.

It is an advanced piece.
However I cannot say how long would it take you to get there.
Definitely, years of practice.

After 8 years of lessons, someone will be able to learn this piece in 2 months and 3 days.

Someone will, but not me. I play a much simpler so-called "advanced" version of this song that sounds pretty decent. This arrangement would take me the rest of my life to learn and then some.

5 years to life.

Seriously though, no idea because it's different for everyone.

After 4 years you can learn this piece playing at 1/4 or 1/2 speed in one year time and sounding nice, or after 8 years 2-3 months learning and playing at normal speed, or after 10 years, 1 month learning and playing at normal speed. I think. But it's just an estimation.

Now we are getting somewhere!

Pianotimo, crank up your spreadsheet and start entering this data. If enough people respond, you will be able to do a statistical analysis and really zero in on the answer to your question.

The same question I ask myself when I look at the sheet music of Liszt-Paganini Etude no 6, while it's no problem for me to play the Rachmaninov prelude 23/5 gminor or Revolutionary Etude, Brahms Rhapsody 79/2 and other stuff like this

However I know the answer so I am happy: I can play it slowly and bad NOW and with lots of energy to put in playing it, or develop my technique and play it properly after two years with fun, so I will wait

Or better example:
- I don't want to play it like this (however probably I could do this better than this guy, but this is NOT satysfying for me )

So, go to play and smile, everything is only the effort spend on trainings. Wise trainings
Good luck

It all depends on how motivated you are. There is someone here who passed grade 8 piano exam from zero after 3 years. She claim to practice at least 3 hours a day during the week and often 5 hours a day on weekends. How quickly you get there depends on how much effort you are willing to put into it. The year before my teacher auditioned for the conservatory, she practiced 8-10 hours a day.

It would take me years and years, but I have a career, a family, and otherwise a rather busy life outside of this piano hobby. Some days I barely spend 30 - 40 minutes on the piano.

If I was 17 again, I would definitely practice 4 hours a day, no question about it. There are occasional Sundays that I could practice as much as 3 hours, and it feels great.

If you have the opportunity, do it. Don't wait until you have a 60-hour/week job, kids, mortgage, all kinds of obligations and you end up wishing you could be practicing piano while dealing with everything else in life.

Don't think about anything else, play that P-105 8-hours a day until it falls apart, and you'd be better than every other person in this forum before you turn 21.