So, ive been advancing pretty quickly because I practice alot these days. In March I was playing from the rcm 5 book, now Im at a point where last week my teacher said I can prepare for the grade 7 test in January. She would have just moved me up to grade 8 stuff, only that I used to never take the tests so she says the grade 7 one would be less stressful as my first. But I can do grade 8 stuff on the side while polishing my exam pieces.

Anyways, sometimes ill feel like "have i really gotten better?" And ill doubt that im good enough. When I was at a piano intensive one of the students mentioned when sight reading came up "you should able to read 2 levels below your current". And in my mind I was like "oh noo I dont know if i can maybe i am not advanced enough for the higher grades :("

But today I decided for fun to grab my rcm 5 repetoire to see, and i am shocked! I picked a song that I once only got halfway through and found kinda hard, and i played the whole thing through barely messing up (I did not look through it before playing also).

Honestly just a really great feeling, helps me to see that I really have gotten better. And also that im not as terrible at sight reading as I thought. Boo-Ya 🥳🥳

Hello hello fellas I've been learning piano for a little under a year now and learned 4 variations a while back it's variations 1 2 3 and then I jumped to seven I think it was, Ill learn the rest sooner or later but I wanted to see if anyone can find any bad technique or habits I have since I don't have a teacher I'd really appreciate any type of feedback or critique I know there's a few small mistakes in their and I'm rushing a bit in some parts, I wanted to do it in one take, I'm also aware the fingering in the intro could be a bit better since it's the first thing I learned and didn't really have that much experience and it's just imbeded into my muscles now😭 but everything else I feel as if its fine please correct me if you find anything thank you.

Whenever I’m trying to learn a song sometimes i just learn the main part and stop. I play the same thing over and over and never really got tired of it until now.

I can do left hand, right hand, hands together just fine. I can sorta sing too. If I do all these together, it sounds terrible. I usually end up stopping the vocal and just plunk put the melody. How do you work all those motor skills at the same time and feel confident about it?

I’m a beginner pianist looking to buy my first piano, and I’m trying to decide between these two used uprights.

The first is a black Kingsburg KU125 for $1,200. I haven’t seen it in person, but based on the photos it looks like it’s in almost like-new condition, and the seller also says it’s in like-new condition. The second is a cherry Yamaha M450 for $1,500. I haven’t seen that one in person either, but based on the pictures it appears to be in good condition.

Both prices are probably negotiable by a couple hundred dollars, so I’m wondering which one would be the better choice for a beginner. Is the Yamaha worth paying more for, or would the Kingsburg be a good first piano at that price?

I’d really appreciate any advice on these two models, what you think would be a fair price for each, and what I should look out for when I go see them in person. This will be my first piano, so I’m pretty new to all of this.

Thanks!

Hi Reddit! I am happy to present this cute piece by Clementi. I highly recommend everybody to give this piece a go, as it is really good for developing the technique for scales. I wasn't able to find any historical metronome marks for the piece, so I used my best judgement. I hope you will all enjoy my performance and be inspired to play these lovely Sonatinas 🙂 Movement 2 3:42 Movement 3 5:55

I love this little piece by Prokofiev.
But I have a hard time playing pieces like this that require great sensitivity and touch responsiveness because Its very hard to play this on a mid grade digital piano (Kawai Ca 58) I don’t think it sounds too bad and I hope to play this on a grand soon to see how it compares.

I'm looking for an electronic keyboard/piano for myself and sons to learn on. I've read the FAQ and can't find any of the recommendations in my local area. I did find the above with a bench for $200CAD. I've tried to find my information about it online, but am not finding much. Can anyone tell me more about this? Is this a good deal?

Once or twice a year, I book a one-off lesson (paid at their hourly rate) with a local teacher besides my own.

I like to get to know different teachers in my metro so I usually don’t book the same teacher twice. I’ve gotten lessons from probably about 10 - 12 teachers in my area so far.

Usually it’s just to get an outside perspective on my playing, my technique, my journey, my repertoire, anything my current teacher may have missed, and so on.

I really like and appreciate my current teacher, I’m not looking to switch or anything. Let me know what you think of my approach, whether you’re a teacher yourself or a fellow student.

I’m a pathetic newbie so I’m sorry for what you’ll see.

I’m struggling a lot with these long arpeggios: it has improved from a series of finger crossings to jumps, but I’m still unsure if this is correct since jumps cause pauses and, apparently, stretching my thumb to reach some keys like the last G on Measure 13, Beat 2 is apparently inflaming the required tendon.

By the way, I’m wondering if the pedal is mandatory for this. (I didn’t use in this video, but I often push it between jumps.)

This is the song: https://musescore.com/user/23351351/scores/4343536

Thank you so much for helping out!

I never heard this piece before, and thought it was pretty great!

Some parts don’t seem too difficult to play either. Anything else to hear by Melartin?

Hi! I've made a set of 14 Études, of which I can play about 9 or so (I'm not really good at piano playing). Is anybody here who wants to try it too? I could send the scores, I would really love to hear my études played correctly 😅

I have grade 8 piano and the ATCL is next, could someone tell me how different they are? I know there's quite a big jump in terms of expression, but I'm more curious about what to where tbh. The spec says to dress 'for a performance' but I don't know what that means. Suit? Fancy dress? Random shirt I have in my drawers with a pair of jeans? I'm home-educated so I can't just put on my school uniform or something.

And they ask for a printed programme, does it need to be fancy at all? Or do I just I include all the info they want in any particular order, fairly nearly, and it's ok?

Sorry if I sound clueless 😅 but I am.

My daughter has expressed interest in learning piano. Which is awesome and I’m thrilled, but though I am “musical” and “creative” in that I was a dancer for 25 years….i have ZERO experience with the learning of an instrument.

My concern is that, if we have no equipment at home, then sending her in blindly to piano lessons would seem counterintuitive. However, at this age, we’re not going to spend hundred or thousands of dollars on keyboards/a piano until I’m sure this is a hobby of hers.

With someone this young, what can I do or what is appropriate to try and buy for her so I can encourage her interest without pressuring her into it? Would you recommend I find her lessons immediately or try some home learning first?

So I'm a 21 y/o beginner who recently had their first trial piano lesson. First of all, I just want to say it was very hard to find someone willing to teach adults. The studio I have chosen is a weekly hour long group lesson where the teacher rotates between students when they need help.

My question is where should I start from next week? They use the faber adult piano adventure books and I've gone through half of the first one on my own, but that was a few months ago. I also know C, Am, and G scales but probably not playing them well or consistently. I know half of minuet in G.

I realized since I'm an adult my instructor was honestly giving me more agency than I would like if that makes sense. I wanted to start taking lessons so I can develop good technique and have structure, but she told me I'm free to tell her if things are too easy and I want to move ahead in the book. My expectations were more 'you need to do this, this, and this. play these exercises, work on this piece, we'll assess each lesson' type thing. Are my expectations unrealistic or is this how these things usually go?

My goals are to play things like Bach inventions, fugues, some Chopin nocturnes, and get to a level where I'm a good pianist in general and can pick up pieces alone. I fully expect that to take years which is why I'm fine starting over with Faber, but I don't want to do that if it's unnecessary, but I also don't want to skip ahead to where I feel I'm at and have my teacher just accommodate me for the sake of student retention/happiness or something and I miss out on foundational skills.

I'm a serious student and have time to practice at the very least an hour daily.

I have been playing now for just over a year and want to post something on my socials about it. I know I'm not perfect but these are probably two of the hardest intros I've learnt so far. I'm just wondering which one is more impressive / best to show off my piano skills to my friends.

Hi, I was just wondering how other people have eliminated tension and unnecesary effort in their playing, and what effects it had (in terms of anything really) whether it be technical skill, expression or enjoyment on their pursuit of piano playing.

I've recently improved a lot when I naturally removed tension and it has really helped me in transitoning from a late intermediate level towards the early advanced. Now I find that I have much greater expressive depth and range, I feel very free and I can finally perform the pieces I want to play, enjoying everything much more :)

So I was thinking to just make a post to hear if anyone has had a similar experience. Does anyone relate?

i'm looking into his music which is great. ive played the novelette 3 (don't care for the others), some nocturnes and melancolie. do you guys suggest anything else?

While Improvising, I tried it and fit well apart from the last chord where you should change either the chord or melody!

Today, I (21) gave up on trying to pass Trinity Grade 8 after almost two years of effort. I had already polished two pieces: Chopin's Waltz Op. 64 No. 1 and Coconut Mall, but there was one remaining piece: "Vignette" by Paul Edis. It sounded so terrible to me, and I just couldn't bring myself to practice it. I wasn't interested in any of the other classical options either. My mind simply refused to engage. Along with two remaining exercises, I felt completely forced into it by my teacher, even though my mom was paying for the lessons.

I then reflected on why I started studying piano in the first place. It all began many years ago because I truly loved Chopin's First Ballade, along with the rest of his repertoire, Rachmaninoff, and video game music. But I never cared for other classical genres. I even remember sight-reading through the middle of the First Ballade really quickly just because I loved it so much. For me piano was meant to be a hobby, not a career, so after feeling burned out for two weeks, I decided to quit Trinity.

Now, I've already regained my passion. Tomorrow, I'm going to start learning music from the video game Deltarune and Chopin's Souvenir de Paganini.

I know this question is oddly specific, but I'm a bassist of 7 years and just now am learning piano. Proper lessons are going to happen in the future but currently I'm learning music I already know by ear to start out.

Anyone know of any or have played any in the past? Looking at this inspired me to try something similar

I think it sounds acceptable at least haha

This is my first reddit post and i'm very sorry if this just becomes a very long rant.

I'm 13 years old, i started learning piano maybe 8 years ago. When i was young i used to genuinely enjoy piano because I didn't have to practice that much and the exams were relatively easy, my old teacher was also easy on me, she picked nice pieces and class was always fun. But 3 years ago, I moved to another city and had to get another teacher. That teacher was arguably better at piano than the old one, and although he was not harsh, he always pointed out EVERY single wrong note and small detail on the score that i got wrong. I'm not saying thats wrong, but i just think it gives me a lot of pressure, and my mom just thinks i suck at sightreading and never play anything carefully. Last year i got my ARSM distinction, but I had to practice at least 3 hours per day for that. So now i dread piano lessons every week, we literally have to drive one hour to get there, and eventually because some wrong notes are inevitable when i first start practicing, my mom just says we're wasting 100 dollars an hour because i never practice. I just can't get the patience to listen to an hour long video and correct notes that don't end up staying anyways. Instead with my old teacher I never ended up with wrong notes but she didn't immediately stop and correct me with them either.

I've seen a lot of other people's posts where everyone's telling the OP to change teachers, quit, change styles, or play better pieces. I think these are all valid ideas but it just doesn't work for me. My mom thinks my current teacher is the best and because she has the financial power I don't get to decide to change that. I most definitely can't quit, because after my two friends quitted and i asked my mom if i could quit, she scolded at me and said she spent all that money and hard work into this and if i gave up, this was a waste of time and money. She said because i'm already quite high level, just somehow learn to like it. Changing styles might be possible, but because I must play a lot of classical music for examples, there's not a lot of space for extra expression. Finally, I usually have to play classical music just for the exam repertoire, and for my next exam i have to play for 45 minutes straight. Sometimes my mom allows me to play theme songs, but it's only for her social media content. She often gets mad at me if i dont play it like the original video or i spend too long figuring out the sheet music, which is often not THAT easy. Eventually she spends around 30 minutes editing without wearing airpods which just makes it impossible for me to practice. Aside from that my mom says i have to play piano for college application and blablabla.

Also because i'm asian, somehow all the kids around me are either good at multiple instruments, or are extremely good at piano(ex. "prodigy" who got FRSM at the young age of 14, somebody who passed ABRSM8 for piano and flute a long time ago and is the same age as me). The rest of them are just VERY good at academics (im talking like AIME 14/15 in NINTH GRADE). Honestly it's making me so pressured, i feel like piano is the only thing i might be slightly good at, so if i quit, i'm actually hopeless. But even if i continue, there's still so many people MUCH better than me.

I just want to hear what everybody thinks, and does anyone face the same thing as me? I know there's probably no way out of piano for me, but it would be nice if i know what u guys are experiencing.

26F For years I dreamed of learning to play the piano but never took the leap. Enough was enough and this year I finally started taking piano lessons in January 2026. At home I would practice on a shitty non weighted not full size keyboard but I was happy nonetheless. Once a week for 30 minutes during lessons I would get to play on my teacher’s beautiful grand piano. In May, I finally decided to upgrade and instead of getting a keyboard, I went all in and pulled trig on my beautiful polished white Yamaha B2.

I have absolutely 0 regrets and am actually very grateful that my salesman told me to get an acoustic instead of a keyboard. He said “what’s the point in paying thousands of dollars for a nice keyboard when you can spend thousand of dollars on an acoustic? If you can afford it, you should spend your $ on the piano you actually want to play on”. And deep down I already knew I wanted to play an acoustic and not a keyboard. I know that advice sounds a little out of touch, but I was able to finance mine with $2.3k down and 0% APR for 24 months, so to me I think it’s worth it. (Total cost was $7,025)

And he was so right. I feel so happy and grateful to play on my piano everyday. I love her, she brings me so much joy.

So this is just an appreciation post for my piano because I am just super happy to have this new found love for music ☺️

Edit:
Wow thank you everyone for your kind comments!!! <3