Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Some more "How do you measure progress?" thoughts

If you can't read it hand separate at half performance speed at the first sight, it's out of your league or your ability to read the score is not developed enough for your level
At RCM 6 you should be able to sight read RCM 3 or 4 material at 80% performance speed, hand together with the correct dynamic and articulation.

Hehe, we'll see about that. I was able to do it for RCM 5 exam. Sat down, look at the sight-reading test briefly, and thought "thank goodness". Got all the points for that as I recall. Lost points for the hearing playback test though. I played one wrong note because he didn't start the melody on the tonic or dominant of the key. That's always harder for me. Lost points identifying major and minor intervals by ear too. So terrible.

Sight-read hands separate at half speed is a pretty low bar isn't it? You may not appreciate this since you learn piano as a child. Children are far worse readers than adults. My children cannot read as well as me. However, they can play much better once they learn something. They have superior coordination and they gain it for a piece much faster. Half speed hands separate would be what my children need to learn something. I would need to be able read at half speed hands together to have much hope of learning the same. Admittedly, this is my observation of a sample size of 3, 2 children, 1 adult. Though one of my kids seem to be a clone of me intellectually but 35 years younger with massively more energy. Her teachers ask if she has a photographic memory. The last time someone asked me that was at least 35 years ago.

Sight reading hand separate isn't low bar when the pieces do begin to become more complicated... A 3 voice invention isn't easy at all hand separate, so isn't a Fugue... and some preludes, are so quick that even hand separate at 50% speed they are still scary fast, if you want to hit every single note right and with the right articulation. To me, as test, mean that you are able to do it all, beginning to the end, no errors, no stops.... one hand turns the pages, the other play.

Reading depends, in Italy we have been trained with solfege even before touching the keyboard, by the time I was beginning the clementi sonatinas I was (as anybody else) able to read in 8 different keys (2G, 2F, 4C) in every tone with double accidents and any extremely complex rhythmic combination... It's a way to solve a certain kind of problems pretty much forever. :-)

I have discovered in my relatively short amount of time doing this that some skills come very easy and naturally to me, while others I find extremely difficult to learn and master. For the left handed piece, it contained sixteenth grace notes in multiple sequences, as well as two octave arpeggios. I'm really good at these skills, so there you have it. However, there is another current piece with swinging eighth notes, chord inversions with black keys (D Major), and other goodies that has been extremely difficult to learn, even after many hours of practice. And I'm still only half done. Yet these pieces are side-by-side in my book.

But still, 2-4 weeks is my average right now for the advanced stuff I'm learning, so I guess I'm not over my head quite yet.

I didn't know that to be considered at a certain level, you only need to be able to read and play at full tempo 2 levels lower. I thought to be at a grade, you had to read and play at that grade at tempo sight reading. I've been playing for a little over 4 years. The first 3, I just taught myself. I've been taking lessons for almost a year and a half. I did Thompson's book 1 in 3 months and I did Alfred's Adult All-in-one Level 2 took in about 7 months time. Then I stopped using a book. My reading has definitely gotten faster since I started so I consider that progress. I'm also able to learn songs faster which was my ultimate goal. To be able to play the majority of the songs I want to play purely based on sight reading and to be able to play it within a week or two. But my other goal is to be able to improvise and play jazz which is another beast altogether. It's hard to divide my time up in practicing technique along with theory and improvisation. Practicing technique is straight forward and I know my reading will only get better the more I read but it's the improvisation that will take me a long time to master. And that's okay. Progress does not move linearly. It's not just constant upward movement. You will get onto plateaus stay on plateaus. You may even feel like you're getting worse at times. But that's how learning works. I meant to post that in the "Whats the point" thread but I'll leave this picture here.

I find the speed of learning pieces is not the best measure of progress for me personally. This is because learning them technically happens rather fast, but memorizing takes a very long time. And for "performance level" I have to memorize due to my visual problems.

So I like to measure my progress in the way Ataru proposes above: What level of pieces appear to be immediately "playable" when I put them on the desk. And also if there are many passages in the pieces that I cannot physically learn to play better after the week between two lessons.

Since I do not learn from all eras and styles of music in a balanced way, it's hard to measure my progress by any curriculum or grades. I can play Scarlatti sonatas and some romantic pieces that are graded pretty high, but could not necessarily play a classical sonatina of much lower grade without a lot of work.

I don't have self-pity. In fact, I need to constantly remind myself to be humble. I am glad I practice and progress, but I also need to remind myself that I am never good enough so I will keep on practising and progressing.

At the end of the day, the music learning journey is the important thing for me. I am never going to be a professional musician. So it is ok that I suck at piano without ever achieving professional level. What matters to me is I keep on learning, progressing and playing. Hence the signature.

But thanks for your concerns and noticing :-)

I am speaking from experience. I studied the piano long time ago under ABRSM syllabus. After 1.5 years, I sat for grade 3 and received 138/150. Another year, grade 5, again 138/150, then my teacher prepared me for grade 7. That's when all heck broke loose. I spent 3-5 hours a day practising after school and still it got me nowhere. Sure I was very proud with the progress, but those were false achievements.

Then I had to stop lessons because of high school, uni, career, migration, career etc.

After returning to piano 5 years ago, I was shown all the terrible playing habits by my current teacher. It took me 2-3 years to slowly unlearn them and relearning the proper ones. Now and then, the bad habits creep back into my playing and my teacher would bring me back to the basics. The results show. I get to play pieces I previously thought was out of my reach and impossible (think Rachmaninov's G minor prelude, Chopin's fantaisie impromptu, Ravel's Jeux Deau). Sure they aren't at performance standard, but making me believe that it's possible gives me hope to carry on :-)

For example, I would not dreamed this to be possible back then:



I'm taking AMEB grade 8 exam in 2 weeks, and I hope this time my patience will pay off!

@BrianDX: If you want to try an easy Chopin piece for fun why don't you try the posthumous waltz in A minor (B.150)? It's musically much more satisfying than Op. 74 No. 2 and only one grade higher.

I think that is an arbitrary concept, although it does not seem too onerous to me.

Since I do not study under programs like RCM or ABSRM that have level "numbers", the concept of "two levels down" does not 100% relate to my studies.

If I take the Faber Lesson Book numbers instead, then two levels down would be my Adult Accelerated Book 2. I'm not sure I could sight read one the older pieces right away at full speed, but thanks to the Faber Sight-reading supplements I'm getting much better.

I'll check this out. Thanks!

I forgot to mention that Wiosna was rated Grade 3, and according to another graded piece reference guide that I use, the toughest thing I've tried so far is a Grade 2.

So these pieces should not be too too far in the future?

No, that's a misunderstanding. Your sight-reading should be good enough to manage music a couple of grades or so below your main repertory pieces, that's all that means.

The upshot of this is that the difference that practise should make on your playing ability is spending a month or so ironing out technical difficulties and another month or so bringing weaker areas up to the level and tempo of the stronger areas.

Your sight-reading should be reasonably strong, and commensurate with your playing ability, and your repertory material should be close enough that it only takes a one to three months to master the technical difficulties and memorise well enough to play at tempo.

It's not about assessing overall ability by looking at one skill.

Richard said in one short sentence what took me two long ones to say in the "What's a Beginner..." thread.

Yes, definitely. There are many many facets in measuring one's ability to play an instrument. That's why I'm not really too caught up on the "What grade am I?". In fact, I have no idea what grade I am at but I will assess what music I can play and learn in a reasonable time vs what will take me way too long to learn. If I find I am making progress too slowly on something, I will move onto something else and come back to it months down the line. I usually find it to be easier which tells me I must have made some progress during that time. Recently, I've tried to start some pieces that a little bit more challenging and I find myself actually making progress faster than I had anticipated which is a pleasant surprise.

While I understand those who enjoy the challenge of taking the exam route in studying piano, the happiest day in my piano life was when I stopped devoting any time or thought to "levels".

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade or minimize their efforts. But the constant chatter I hear about "what level am I" and "how long till I'm at such-and-such level" just seems so non-productive, or worse, counter-productive....and I include myself in the group that has entertained such thoughts many times in the past. Just suggesting some of the readers may be better served by ignoring "level" questions as just an unnecessary or unproductive waste of their piano-related time.

Must be my day for curmudgeonly commentary. Sorry.

Jim

JimF, may I join you on your curmudgeon bench?

I have mixed feelings about the exam route. If you can do it without it sucking the joy out of your piano endeavors, and if going that route helps, motivation-wise, then go for it. If "what level am I at" and "what level is this piece" is on your mind a lot, then it wouldn't hurt to step back and re-examine what piano means to you.

For myself, I just don't have the hunger for it. At my age, as a true late starter, it's just not in the cards. And, like JimF, I can heave a big sigh of relief and get back to practicing.

I would agree completely with the lack of interest for many in taking formal exams. At my age and technical abilities I'm not destined for the concert stage for sure.

However, I think it is natural that when you put the time, effort, and financial investment into learning something like the piano, you would like to think you are progressing, and for me (as much as it is possible) I would like tangible evidence of such progress.

Besides, there is a practical side to it. Hopefully at some point in the not-too-distant future I will "graduate" from my method books. At that point, picking a repertoire that is ability-appropriate is made easier if you know somewhat where your abilities lie.

But it's also so much fun to explore and experiment, pick out pieces you hear and like an see if they are playable or nor. The key is to admit to youself when it's not and move on.

But it must be a personality thing. Some people clearly enjoy seeing their progress in a linear way, whether in method books or with exams. I OTOH enjoy spreading it out, jumping from harder pieces back to easier pieces and just expand my general knowledge of repertoire and building my skills in a seemingly random order (it's not really random of course, but it can appear to be to an outsider). For example right now I am studying a Franck fugue (which is a bit of a strech but still seems to be doable as a long term project), couple of Chopin preludes and at the same time I am practicing a children's study which probably would be a grade 3-4 piece.