Hey, I'm fifteen, in last year of school and doing my 8th grade AMEB exam this year. Also learning (and 3 pages into) Ballade no. 4 Opus 52 Chopin, and just beginning Tchaikovsky's March from the Nutcracker Suite as arranged by Pletnev. I have grown up performing with my family and so have played piano in public numerous times.

If I really want to make a career out of piano, and maybe be a concert pianist, do you think I'm at the right stage for my age? What can I do right now to get to the stage I should be for a career like that?

Thanks

I'm turned 16 last summer, and while I'm not necessarily set on a certain instrument, I'm fairly sure that I want to become a musician, and I may ended up focusing on classical piano. I would say that you should do the same thing that I'm focusing on doing: finding a great teacher (I have one now) and getting a good repertoire together for conservatory auditions.

Thanks for that. Do you think it matters what conservatorium you go to?

if your australian, from which i'm guessing you are because of the AMEB, the victorian college of the arts is a fantastic conservatory, here is the website. www.vca.vic.edu.au

8th grade AMEB is quite high for your age, at the moment i am 16 and am studying for my Amusa, but most musicians i know didnt get to this level till uni.

one thing i'm not understanding from your post is how are you able to be 15 and this be your last year of school

Zac

LOL I skipped a year but still have a year to go. And you're right, I'm Australian. That's awesome you're doing your Amusa, can't wait to do my diplomas. Thanks for that.

Hey there
i am 15 also and have very high dreams of becoming a concert Pianist also. i was taking lesson for 8 years at the pittsburgh music academy and been on my own for the past three years. at the academy i wasn't learning anything so i quit and started to teach my self how to read music. i really diddn't really consider piano as a career till last summer when i started to understand music and discovered Chopin and liszt. My tip is just work hard at what you are doing and truly dedicate yourself to the piano, listen to the music, memorise the music(don't sight read all the time the causes less expression in the music in my oppinion). If you are truly good at the piano You can't fail

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.

And get a good teacher. University should take care of that for you, but until then...make sure you have a good teacher.

And then practice.

Dreams are good, but you need a lot of hard work to go along with them. Talent will only take you so far.

As you wish, but all the hard work in the world will do you no good whatsoever without 'talent'. That's what makes hard work pay off. You cannot have one without the other, so don't marginalize the role of talent.

Otherwise: let's put in enough hours of hard work and we can all be a Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Richter or Argerich. After all, they just worked hard, we can do it too, no?

Come to think of it, whilst we're at it, some hard compositional work should suffice to be a Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner. Talent only took them so far...

Notice I didn't say talent will take you nowhere. I said it'll only take you so far. I'm not at all marginalizing the role of talent. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. But as you point out, the two work together. Without hard work, talent will atrophy. Without talent, you'll have to put in a lot more work to catch up with those who do have it.

Just saying, talent or no talent, it's going to take a lot of work, no matter how much one dreams. I think the OP should be prepared for that.

And no disagreement there my good mate.

I think you can do it, if you can put in the time and effort, in other words keeping up the practise. If you can get used to practising around 4 hours every day, there aren´t really any limitis to what you can achieve.

I'll take issue with this statement. Sight reading is a crucial skill and one that only comes with practice. There are many more opportunities for pianists who are excellent sight readers. They may be in a different vein than concert pianist, but not much different. Concert pianists need to be able to learn lots of music quickly, the same goes for piano performance majors in college. Also, the quicker you can learn a piece the quicker you can add expressiveness to it.

I'll second that. I'm no concert pianist, but an excellent sight reader - in my younger days I used to get calls from local singers needing an accompanist for a solo performance. Quite often, the first time I saw the music would be backstage before the performance! As long as it wasn't exceptionally demanding, a discussion on the road map for the song and and a few expression pointers would suffice.

I don't think the person who posted that is using the term sight-reading as what it usually means. They are just using it to mean reading the music, not "sight reading" which I think means reading it without having seen it before, or at least not for a long time or not having studied it for some time. I admit I sightread stuff all the time that I've played before at some time, but if I haven't studied it seriously, it's still sightreading to me (and is sightreading if I haven't played it in a long time, I don't know things any more even if I memorized them years ago).

IN any case, I don't think it's true that reading the music prevents expression, I don't think that at all. It may be true for some people who can't read music very well, and that is certainly the case in many situations from a lot of the things I read on here -- and that kind of person may assume anyone reading music can't be free to express the music. I do happen to sightread very well, and it is virtually automatic to me and not in my conscious at all, it doesn't involve any effort or thought when I am playing from the music on something I've been working on. So there isn't any reason it should inhibit your expression if it isn't requiring any attention or concentration.

IN any case, what you do for a performance is different from things you are just working on, I also think.

I was just reading a biography about Maurice Ravel, and some letters from people who knew him, etc. (I am a Ravelophile, I have about six books on him, some in French and others translated, as well as letters of his) -- and HE was working on CHopin's Ballade no. 4 when he was about 17, so there you go, that's about right. I think he was also working on Schumann's Fantasy. This was just before or his first year in conservatory, as I recall (the Paris Conservatory). He was a very good pianist, which is reflected in his music, of course.

Hi guys, Is there a way to get discovered after learning how to play the piano.

I imagine lots of performances, competitions, etc. Anything to get your name out there.

Yes brob, definitely, if you are a hardworking and talented person or if you are dedicated and aspiring, you will get noticed and your aptitude will be discovered by the right people. Just visit: http://www.stevenixonmusic.net/careermentoring.cfm for great opportunities.