My One-Year Piano Progress

Last year, at the age of 20, I started playing the piano.

The decision was neither an erratic nor an impulsive one. Playing the piano had always been my passion since I was 9, and here, 11 years later, I’m just starting. This is primarily because in this part of the world (I am Nigerian), academic excellence is typically considered top-priority. So I never got much of a chance to follow that passion when I was younger.

For a bit of context, here is my music background before I made that decision last year.

1. This is not my first musical instrument. I played the recorder in my secondary school days and I think I was relatively good at it. Unlike the piano, getting one was relatively cheap, and I did not need to pay for lessons.
2. I did not “touch” the piano for the first time last year. Given enough time, I could play simple melodies. However, I never got around playing fluently with both hands, chords, arpeggios and the likes. I had zero technique.
3. I knew the basics of music theory (because I love learning random stuff :)). Just concepts such as notes and time signatures. I could write the notes for simple melodies.

One could argue that with the above, I was not a beginner in music. I agree, but looking back at it now, I don’t think these factors made much of a difference while learning. For example, I had to re-learn music theory from scratch, as I learnt the basics about six years ago without much practice after that.

So, what happened? Why did I decide to pick up on my childhood passion after so long?

Lots of things contributed to that decision. Unlike 11 years ago, I have the resources to purchase a personal piano. I also have the resources to pay for lessons, though, at the moment, I am self-taught. But the most important factor here was the realisation that I don’t have to start from childhood to be good at playing the piano. This progress video on YouTube was enough inspiration I needed.

Adult beginner progress after one year of practice

I first saw that video on the third weekend of October 2018. I knew I didn’t have to waste any more time. The next Monday, I ordered a piano online and got started with YouTube piano lessons, so I wouldn’t waste any time once the order arrives. Andrew Furmanczyk’s videos were extremely helpful. Thank you, Andrew!

Andrew Furmanczyk’s piano lessons

Due to complications with the online order, I had to resort to purchasing from a local music shop. However, now I knew enough about pianos and the different types to consider all my options. In a nutshell, there are three factors to be considered.

1. The number of keys: A standard acoustic piano has 88 keys. Most electronic pianos (I prefer this term to electronic keyboard, as the keyboard is just a part of the instrument) however have 61 or 76 keys. Not all repertoire can be played on pianos with less than 88 keys, especially music in the Romantic period, such as the music of Chopin and Liszt (probably forgot to mention that I listen to lots of classical music). None of that matters if you don’t intend to be a classical pianist, though.
2. Touch sensitivity: The sound produced by a touch-sensitive piano depends on how hard the keys are pressed. A hard touch results in a louder sound, and a softer touch results in a softer sound. An acoustic piano is touch-sensitive, most electronic pianos are not.
3. Weighted, unweighted or semi-weighted keys: Electonic or digital pianos with weighted keys attempt to simulate the key weight which arises from hammer action in acoustic pianos. Semi-weighted keys do not incorporate full-weight but are still more weighted than unweighted ones (obviously).

Looking at my options, I know either an acoustic piano or a digital piano with 88 keys, weighted and touch-sensitive would be best for me. However, they are relatively expensive. I could hold off purchasing a piano until I had the means to buy a good one, but having one to practice with is better than having none at all. With that in mind, I purchased a Yamaha PSR-E263 electronic piano with 61 keys, unweighted and not touch-sensitive.

With that, day 1 of practice started October 31st, 2018.

Day 1 (October 31st, 2018)

I set up the piano and got started with scales, following what I learnt from Furmanczyk. Afterwards, I played around with different things for about 12 hours, which include trying my hands on various pieces and songs such as The Last Rose of Summer (Irish folk song), Mad World (Gary Jules), Soldiers March (Robert Schumann) and Faded (Alan Walker). I had downloaded lots of music sheets from Musescore and other similar websites.

Of course, things didn’t go as planned. I had difficulty putting both hands together, even after learning them hands separately. I used to think that playing hands together should be easy if you can play hands separately, but it was a bit more difficult than I imagined, even after watching lots of videos and reading lots of forum posts. It was a lot like trying to draw a triangle using one hand and a square using the other (try it out :)).

Nevertheless, I made lots of progress. I could almost perfectly play the beginning parts of The Last Rose of Summer and Mad World hands separately, so I figured I probably should focus on just those two for now.

Day 2 (November 1st, 2018)

I watched Marks Piano (PGN Piano) YouTube tutorial on Mad World. If you are a piano beginner, you’d most definitely want to check out Mark. He has lots of beginner-friendly tutorials for piano pieces, including a three-hour crash course on music theory. From his tutorial, I came to the obvious conclusion that playing hands together is just knowing when to use the left hand, right hand and both hands together.

With that in mind, playing much slowly to learn the movements better, I was able to play parts of both pieces hands together. It wasn’t so difficult after all :).

Day 3 (November 2nd, 2018)

More practice. Did more scales, chords and arpeggios. At this point, I could play parts of the pieces relatively well, though the ease was in part because I was using unweighted keys without any touch sensitivity. If I was using weighted keys, I would have needed to put more work in pressing the keys correctly and if I was using touch-sensitive keys, I would have needed to pay attention to the voicing of the notes.

Nevertheless, I needed small wins like this so I would be able to work on bigger wins in the future.

Day 4 (November 3rd, 2018)

Took some time to fix some issues I had while playing the pieces. Also, I noticed that I don’t keep a steady tempo; I tend to speed up once I start playing. Tried practising with the metronome but it wasn’t successful; my brain ignores the regular ticks once I try to concentrate on my playing. I knew this was a long-term problem I would need to solve.

Week 2 (November 5th-11th, 2018)

I was done with The Last Rose of Summer. Mad World took a few more days to learn and master.

I noticed my left hand was still relatively weak, so I decided to learn The Merry Farmer (Schumann), where the melody is in the left hand. This improved my control over my left hand. Finished learning it this week as well. It is a relatively short piece.

During the weekend, I learnt Für Elise (Beethoven), which is considered to be the most popular classical piano piece. I only learnt the A section, which is more or less the part everyone knows; the B and C sections were simply beyond my skill level at the time.

I also started doing finger exercises, especially Hanons, to improve my finger independence, finger strength and finger speed.

Week 3 (November 12th-18th, 2018)

To improve my hand independence, I learnt Soldier’s March (Schumann), which involves some polyphony on both hands, serving as a good hand independence exercise. I used Jane’s Piano Tutorials on YouTube to help with the fingering for the piece.

I decided to push myself beyond my current limits for the next piece I was to learn. Decided to learn Salut d’Amour (Elgar), but came to the sad realisation that I didn’t have enough keys on my piano; there were low bass notes in the piece absent on my piano (kids, get 88-key pianos).

I thus opted for the very beautiful River Flows in You (Yiruma), learning it partly using PGN Piano’s tutorial, partly using Rousseau’s tutorial (another YouTube channel which was helpful) and partly using the sheets directly. It was difficult at first, due to the wide left hand broken chords (I have average-sized hands and can only reach a ninth). If you have small hands, the best option is to move your hands faster and more precisely, which I did. So, this piece went a long way in helping me improve.

Also, I finished Andrew Furmanczyk’s course this week.

Week 4 (November 19th-25th, 2018)

Finally learnt how to use the sustain pedal through some YouTube videos, coupled with a lot of practice. Finally, I can play Für Elise and River Flows in You as beautifully as they should be played.

I used this week to finish up learning River Flows in You. Also, I got a mobile phone stand, so I could record my piano performances. Since the videos are not very professional yet, I can’t upload any on YouTube just yet. However, I intend to start doing so soon.

Phone stand, with my piano and a book I was reading in the background :)

Month 2 (November 26th-30th, December 2018)

I learnt Prelude in C number 1 (Bach) over a weekend, using PGN Piano’s tutorial. It is an extremely easy piece; both hands never play at the same time except at the final chord. It just required a bit more memorisation than I previously expected. It served as good practice for right-hand arpeggios.

Next, I learnt Spring Song (Mozart), which was relatively easy, serving as practice for left-hand arpeggios.

To push myself like I previously did with River Flows in You, I decided to learn Nuvole Bianche (Ludovico Einaudi), another beautiful and touching piano piece, using PGN Piano. I had serious difficulties with the wide left-hand arpeggios (average-sized hands, remember), making me feel like it was probably too advanced for me at that point. Previously feeling the same for River Flows in You but seeing consistent practice make all that irrelevant, I didn’t drop the piece.

Turns out that all I needed to get more comfortable with it was 1–2 weeks of practising the arpeggios over and over again, correcting the mistakes one at a time and slowly building up speed.

I experimented with Faded (Alan Walker) as well. Learnt the theme in very little time, but didn’t proceed much further.

By the end of December, I could feel that I was already getting better. I could feel the strength in my fingers, I could play scales faster with both hands and after “defeating” Nuvole Bianche, I had the confidence that given enough time at that point, I could play any piece I wanted to (except, of course, that piece is La Campanella or the likes).

Given that I had been practising four to five hours on average every day for the first two months, contrasted with the two to three hours average practice time I had afterwards, I had accumulated about 270 hours of practice time at this point. So my progress was justified.

Month 3 (January 2019)

After abandoning scales for so long, I finally learnt, in addition to C major, the scales of D, E, F, G, A and B major, hands together. I also learnt the major chords corresponding to these scales. And I got more comfortable with using the metronome and keeping a steady tempo.

I learnt Touch, a beautiful piece written by Mattia Cupelli. Afterwards, I started to experiment with various smaller pieces and excerpts from songs, such as pieces from the levels The Piano and The Plains from the mobile game Dancing Line (seriously, try the game out, it is cool), and Shape of You by Ed Sheeran.

Sometime within the month, I realised that I may not be able to play a lot of the pieces I had learnt once I move on to more advanced repertoire. This was evident when I could no longer play The Last Rose of Summer perfectly. It worried me for a while, but then I took comfort in the fact that the piece had served its purpose in making me a better pianist. Also, I decided to keep a few which I would keep practising regularly, including River Flows in You and Nuvole Bianche.

I went back to classical music and learnt Minuet in G major (Bach), a relatively short but instructive piece. Then, I decided to push myself again, learning a piece I knew was way beyond my skill level.

Turkish March (Mozart), one of the most popular classical piano pieces, is one of the most difficult and technically demanding pieces I have learnt so far. Till date, it has not been perfected, especially the Coda (the last section) and the part immediately before with broken octaves (my wrist rotation technique still sucks). However, it has served as a good technical exercise over the months and will be perfected, soon.

Months 4–5 (February-March 2019)

After lots of hours of practice, I became comfortable with lots of the technical aspects of Turkish March, including the fast octaves pounded on the right hand in the C section, the arpeggio-like grace notes on the left hand accompanying the octaves and the fast D and E sections (this took lots of practice).

Not much happened other than more scales practice, Hanons (at this point I had done the first three) and more practice of the 15+ pieces I had learnt so far. I was back in school so I didn’t have much time to practice anymore.

Month 6 (April 2019)

I picked up another piece, coincidentally by Mozart as well. Sonata number 16, also known as Sonata in C major K545. Mozart himself says this is for beginners but I don’t quite think so.

It was not as technical as Turkish March but it still posed some difficulties. The fast scales, fast left-hand movements at the beginning of the second theme, the use of my left-hand ring finger (which was, and still is, my weakest finger) in playing some arpeggios, fast Alberti bass and trills (which I still don’t think I play perfectly yet). Nonetheless, this was the first piece I learnt which made me pay attention to these things, so it helped me improve.

At this point, I was only learning the exposition part of the first movement of the sonata. I finished up the first movement in later months.

Months 7–8 (May-June 2019)

I got more comfortable with Sonata number 16, and I could play it relatively fast at this point. Revisited Für Elise as well and learnt the B and C sections which I previously left out, as my fingers were fast enough to play them now.

At this point, I knew that if I wanted to improve, I had to switch to a digital piano with weighted, touch-sensitive keys. Moreover, lots of pieces I wanted to play required more than 61 keys. With that in mind, I decided to get a used Yamaha P80 digital piano.

Playing on it was initially difficult; I was simply not used to the weight. Hence, I spent most of this period trying to adjust by playing scales, Hanons and my entire repertoire.

After spending enough time adjusting to the new piano, I went back to my pieces and started learning the remaining parts of the first movement of Sonata number 16. Some of the scales were even harder, especially the ones done by the left hand. With time, I became more comfortable with them.

I also started learning To Zanarkand, a beautiful piece composed by Nobuo Uematsu for the game Final Fantasy X. It didn’t pose much of a difficulty as the most recent pieces I had learnt; the fast arpeggios later in the piece could, but I left them out for now.

I then took another big decision. I decided to start writing music. It is an effective way of pouring out my emotions. By June, I had written two piano pieces. I used the Musescore software for this purpose.

Excerpt from one of the pieces I wrote

Month 9 (July 2019)

I wrote another piano piece this month. I also continued perfecting some of the pieces I had learnt.

Excerpt from another piece I wrote

I learnt Minuet in G major (Anhang 116) by Bach as well. It was not very difficult, although a bit more difficult than the one I learnt months ago (Anhang 114). I also learnt the themes of Bluestone Alley (Congfei Wei), an original piece written for the game Piano Tiles 2, and Little Star Variations K265 (Mozart). I initially planned to learn all 12 variations of K265, but I figured it was going to take a lot of time, plus some of the variations were probably too difficult for me at that point. So I learnt just the theme.

Afterwards, I took another challenge to work on left-hand jumps. What better genre is there for this than Ragtime? With that, Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin) joined the list of pieces to be defeated by me. I started learning it and was slowly getting used to the left-hand jumps.

Month 10 (August 2019)

I wrote another piece, and I started learning how to play one of the pieces I had written. I also made progress with Maple Leaf Rag, learning up to the C section (the two-octave left-hand jump was pretty annoying, but I love it :)).

This month I realised that I may have perfect pitch. I can sing or hum several music pieces I know in the exact key they were written in, without any reference note. However, I still make occasional mistakes. I think if I take my time to hone this skill, it could work out. In the meantime, my relative pitch skills had improved over the months.

After months of practising and performing in the comfort of my room, I took up a big challenge which, months ago, I never imagined I would take. I decided to apply for a Talent Show in my hall of residence here in school, to show off the piano skills I had garnered over those 10 months. After playing the pieces River Flows In You, Für Elise, Sonata number 16 and Turkish March, I ended up as the first runner up. Not bad indeed for 10 months of practice!

Month 11 (September 2019)

I finally decided to start with sight-reading! Purchased grades 1–5 of Paul Harris’ book series “Improve Your Sight-Reading” and it became a part of my practice routine. It was difficult (still is, after two months) but I have started getting the hang of it.

After ignoring my scales for so long, I finally decided to finish up my major scales collection by learning the scales of C#, Eb, F#, Ab and Bb, hands together, with appropriate fingering. These new scales taught me a thing or two, especially the Bb scale which contains some left-hand movements I had never done in any of the pieces I had learnt.

Finished learning Maple Leaf Rag and while taking my time to perfect the piece, I decided to learn Minuet in G major (Beethoven). I think it is funny that this is the third “Minuet in G” I was learning, by the second composer (maybe I should learn the one by Mozart :)). Nonetheless, it is a beautiful piece, one of my favourite works from Beethoven.

And yeah, I wrote two more pieces. Six in total now. I also took a classical music composition course on Coursera, Write Like Mozart (WLM). It taught me even more music theory and gave me lots of ideas I could apply in my music compositions.

Month 12 (October 2019)

I started my final exams for my undergraduate programme this month, so I didn’t get to practice much.

I finished grade 1 of the sight-reading course, but I think I would go over it again, carefully. I don’t think I am doing a good job with my sight-reading just yet.

I also wrote two more piano pieces. Eight in total now.

Not like it matters much, but I watched the anime “Your Lie in April” and it was awesome! I’d strongly recommend it to anyone interested in classical music, or music in general.

Other than doing those, I did brush-up on my scales and continued perfecting the pieces I had learnt. I also became more conscious of the fact that I experience tension on my left ring finger sometimes when I play. Fixing it is a work in progress, but I can see remarkable improvements already.

So yeah, I can say with confidence that I have had a productive year. From my estimates, I accumulated about 1000 hours of practice time. Not bad.

Next Steps

I would be moving to the UK soon, so this would be a great opportunity to get a good classical piano teacher (they are rare in Nigeria). I have made this much progress on my own, but I believe there are some things I would learn better with the help of a teacher.

• Technique: My wrist rotation technique still isn’t very good, as I previously mentioned. My trills are not perfect. My arms and hands are not as fluid as they should be just yet. Lots of other aspects which I probably have not noticed would be pointed out by a teacher as well.
• Articulation: I have a vague idea of what to do for most articulation styles, but I think I don’t go about it properly. I accent notes at random sometimes. I have been ignoring most articulation markings when learning from sheets, but not anymore.
• Music interpretation: How to create an appropriate interpretation of the works of different composers.
• Sight-reading: Goes without saying. I don’t think I would get very far by just following books without any feedback.

Most importantly, I intend to start taking music exams. I plan to take the Grade 7 or 8 (depends on how ready I am) ABRSM exam in 2021. For a bit of context, ABRSM grades range from 1–8. The guidance of a teacher would go a long way.

For the remainder of this year and next year, I intend to

• Take my scales, chords and arpeggios more seriously. I have ignored them for far too long, especially chords. With my relative pitch skills, knowing chords and being able to play them instantly would enable me to play along to any song there is, as long as I know the harmonic (chord) progression. This is something which is not much relevant as a classical pianist, but it is a skill I wish to have nonetheless. Scales and arpeggios, however, would come in handy when sight-reading.
• Take my sight-reading more seriously: I want to be able to confidently play grade 5 material by the end of 2020.
• Do more performances. I don’t want to play the piano for myself only. I want to share my music with others.

I would learn the pieces

• Twelve variations of Little Star, K265 (Mozart). I would learn one variation each month (such a coincidence that twelve variations exist).
• Fantaisie Impromptu (Chopin). A very difficult piece (look it up on YouTube), but I believe I can do it.
• Liebestraum number 3 (Liszt). One of the first classical pieces I got to love. Moderately difficult though.
• Minute Waltz (Chopin). Very fast, but other than the speed, I don’t think it would be that difficult.
• The Harmonious Blacksmith (Handel). My favourite Handel piece. I would learn all five variations.
• Clair de Lune (Debussy).
• Nocturne op. 9 number 2 (Chopin).
• La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin (Debussy). One of the most beautiful classical piano pieces I know.
• Kiss the Rain (Yiruma).
• The Entertainer (Scott Joplin).

along with any other which comes to mind.

For my long term goals, I want to be able to play Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude (op. 10 number 12) and Winter Wind Etude (op. 25 number 11) by the end of 2021.

I also want to be able to play at least one (or both) of Liszt’s La Campanella and Hungarian Rhapsody number 2 by the end of 2022. Both pieces are well known to be some of the most difficult pieces ever written for the piano. If it comes to it, I could focus on just those pieces for the entire year :).

And yes, my compositions. I intend to publish them, but I would need to do more research into the logistical and legal aspects. For now, I would just keep writing.

Conclusion

It has been an exciting year, but there’s even more to come. I would post updates on my progress as time goes on.

I hope I have been able to inspire someone to pick up the piano or any other musical instrument.

Most of all, I hope I have been able to inspire someone to pursue a long-forgotten childhood passion.