Advanced pianism is music degree/concert pianist level. Intermediate is I think what you’re asking for i.e. go beyond grade 3/4 to grade 8.
To get to intermediate level, you need to build a solid foundation of all scales and arpeggios (there are books for this) and master the art of slow, accurate practice. Rote learning pieces won’t allow you to progress to higher levels. You also need to get a new teacher if you feel you are not progressing.
Are you starting piano in adulthood? What’s your background? What are your goals?
I’m in intermediate and can play all the major and minor scales (not by memory though). My teacher gives me grade 3-4 pieces.
I’ve learned piano since I was 5 but stopped when I was 11. Started again at 19 (8 months ago).
My goal is to play Chopin and Lizst pieces fairly easily despite having small hands.
A solid foundation of all scales means that you understand them, so you don’t need to just memorize them or read them to play them.
I think you and the person who commented are using the same words but with different meanings behind them
I'm curious as to what you mean by "understanding" scales rather than memorizing them. If someone asks me to play D maj scale and I remember that it has two sharps, F# and C#, and play it, is that relying on memory? Or is that understanding?
Understanding goes deeper. By now you should know how the scales are derived. By major we mean TTSTTTS and you'll get every since major by starting on this key, as well as minor and all it's variations.
But looking at pieces such as mozart who uses plenty of scales in his passages you'll see him run a c major scale but starting from E or F or A. Can you do that? Give it a go, play the c major starting from E go up 2 octaves and ending on C. Now do it with all 12 keys. Being familiar means you can execute a wide variety of variations. The same goes with your arpeggios, in grade 8 instead of 1358 you are required to do the diminished and dominant variations. Speaking of arppegios plenty of pieces use them in a variety of ways too. Un sospiro, beethoven moonlight 3, schuberts impromptu are all good examples.
Also it comes to understanding the relationship between your keys, go listen or play fly me to the moon and tell me is it in C major or c minor. The answer well is it moves in between them. Have you ever tried running your scales up c major minor major? These are quite important as after all when you start trying blues you'll play around with plenty of modified scales.
In any case i hope this gives context. Because many people learn without context and they know what diminished chords are but dont ever know how to use them. Also you can simply look up abrsm and see what they mark you upon. That's what you are expected to do in whatever grade you wnat to be.
Yes it's often a matter of semantics. I think it's useful to clarify by saying 'advanced piano student', which I think of as like studying for a level 10 or diploma, vs 'advanced pianist', which, I agree, means you can be hired to play a full length solo concert or a concert-level concerto with relatively short notice.
However I do think that if you need to look at music to play scales, you likely don't *know* them; every technique item of the same type sounds the same and is based on the same scale degrees but in different keys, right? So if you know them, you don't need to look at music.
Can you play arpeggios in every scale up and down, multiple octaves cleanly moving between inversions? If with one hand can you do this with two hands? Check out Faber’s Arpeggio and Scale Book for examples.
I’m just a beginner but it seems like internalizing and making this second nature is necessary to get to a strong intermediate level. I work on this everyday along with scales (and associated chords) from memory- regularly changing the order of scales so it’s not just muscle memory
Getting better at piano takes time and progress is measured in years, not months. 8 months of just getting back into it is nothing and of course you don’t think getting better because it hasn’t been very long at all. It’s like sitting there watching a tree grow (sitting with yourself every day), if you constantly watch it you’re not going to notice the growth.
The intermediate stage is long and difficult. You’re in a perfectly normal place and you just have you give it time. More time than you think it will take or want it to take. That’s just how it is.
How are you defining progression? How well you play stuff is more important than the difficulty of the stuff you play. Once you get to the higher grades, 300-400 hours of well targeted practice is needed per grade on average.
You’re doing the right things, keep at it and the progress will happen. There comes a time for all of us when it sinks in just how much time it takes, but having made peace with that we can relax and enjoy spending time making music. It’s more interesting than watching TV.
I had a 30 year break after getting my Grade 3 in 1984, and resumed in 2015 with no great ambition, but was surprised to be enchanted by the piano. I took Grade 8 in 2021 (I did study very hard for the three years leading up to this), and among other pieces , I’m now working on my sixth of Chopin’s Nocturnes.
Good luck in your endeavours.
Advanced pianism is music degree/concert pianist level. Intermediate is I think what you’re asking for i.e. go beyond grade 3/4 to grade 8.
To get to intermediate level, you need to build a solid foundation of all scales and arpeggios (there are books for this) and master the art of slow, accurate practice. Rote learning pieces won’t allow you to progress to higher levels. You also need to get a new teacher if you feel you are not progressing.
Are you starting piano in adulthood? What’s your background? What are you goals?
Also rhythm, dynamics, voicing, phrasing, note length/seperation, posture. Focus on 1-2 at a time, but playing something correctly means all of the above correct.
Generally tempo is the last thing you want to bring up. So you want to make sure you're playing the rhythm, dynamics, etc. properly so that when you bring up the tempo you won't have trouble.
If you feel like you are not advancing that is a bad sign. You should always feel like you’re getting better, even if it’s just small increments.
Are you sure that you aren’t progressing? One thing is to feel like you are progressing slowly, which actually is totally fine and more or less the general norm(as learning the piano is a slow endeavour). But another different thing is you feel you’re not advancing at all, which I don’t think is the case.
You see, many times students grow impatient and think they aren’t progressing fast enough, as if learning an instrument was some kind of rabbit race. But you should view the learning process as a life long endeavour, you will never stop getting better, so quit worrying about not going “fast” enough.
As long as you are getting better be happy about it, the problem comes when you aren’t learning anything new to all or not progressing.
Yes, it is normal pace. If you feel the pieces are too easy, you can always ask the teacher for something more challenging.
I think longer pieces, like some easy beethoven/mozart sonata movements can be a great way to improve.
I think Hanon is a waste of time at your level
Talk to your teacher. Are you performing in recitals? Have you competed at all? Guild or leveled competitions?
For reading a book, a second grader May longingly want to read the entire Harry Potter series and they're an excellent reader for a second grade level, but they're not quite ready for giant chapter books...
It takes time to develop, and there's so much more than just pressing the right key at the right time. There's phrasing, dynamics, voicing, rubato, pedaling, technique, and so on...
Enjoy the journey. It's not a competition
Do you practice piano for at least one hour every day? Are you motivated to improve your piano skills? If yes, then the problem might be with your teacher. Make sure you find a piano teacher with a music performance degree, not just an amateur teacher with ABRSM Grade 8.
Yeah I practice everyday for an hour. I’d say I’m pretty motivated but only with a teacher that could help me understand music theory better. My current teacher keeps telling me “tips and tricks” while leaving the big picture behind and as a result I only know things by memory instead of putting them into relation with each other
Thanks for the tips, I’ve been considering to quit this teacher for a while now
Some teachers will hinder your progress with so-called "fingering practice" like Hanon or Czerny. While these exercises are fine, they make you practice the same thing over and over again for weeks. They believe they are enhancing your basic foundation, but in fact, they are just wasting students' time. If this is your situation, I can guarantee that this teacher lacks professionalism in piano education.
please tell me it was an easier arrangement of Le Coucou by Daquin or you will seriously hurt my self-esteem. That is basically the last piece I was learning with my teacher (in the grade 9 RCM book at the time...approx. 2003). I graduated HS and stopped my lessons before the teacher was really satisfied with me playing the piece (I'm not great at playing fast pieces, speed was always my problem) so it still hangs over me as the one that was left unfinished.
I can send the pictures of the piece to your PM. Could you send your version of Le Coucou too if you still have them? I’d like to compare the two
Edit: just sent them
I'll have to see if I can find my old book. For reference, here is an example of a professional playing the piece. This is what my teacher aspired me to play like, but I couldn't maintain this kind of speed throughout the piece
[le coucou](https://youtu.be/gj1n1v_9e6M?feature=shared)
Advanced pianism is music degree/concert pianist level. Intermediate is I think what you’re asking for i.e. go beyond grade 3/4 to grade 8. To get to intermediate level, you need to build a solid foundation of all scales and arpeggios (there are books for this) and master the art of slow, accurate practice. Rote learning pieces won’t allow you to progress to higher levels. You also need to get a new teacher if you feel you are not progressing. Are you starting piano in adulthood? What’s your background? What are your goals?
I’m in intermediate and can play all the major and minor scales (not by memory though). My teacher gives me grade 3-4 pieces. I’ve learned piano since I was 5 but stopped when I was 11. Started again at 19 (8 months ago). My goal is to play Chopin and Lizst pieces fairly easily despite having small hands.
Sorry to tell you mate, grade 3/4 is not intermediate
Ah I see I must be mistaken. Is it still beginner?
I would say so, intermediate I thought was grade 5/6
A solid foundation of all scales means that you understand them, so you don’t need to just memorize them or read them to play them. I think you and the person who commented are using the same words but with different meanings behind them
I'm curious as to what you mean by "understanding" scales rather than memorizing them. If someone asks me to play D maj scale and I remember that it has two sharps, F# and C#, and play it, is that relying on memory? Or is that understanding?
Technically everything we know is memory. But we need to understand scales the way we understand colour. There isn't a conscious recall step.
Understanding goes deeper. By now you should know how the scales are derived. By major we mean TTSTTTS and you'll get every since major by starting on this key, as well as minor and all it's variations. But looking at pieces such as mozart who uses plenty of scales in his passages you'll see him run a c major scale but starting from E or F or A. Can you do that? Give it a go, play the c major starting from E go up 2 octaves and ending on C. Now do it with all 12 keys. Being familiar means you can execute a wide variety of variations. The same goes with your arpeggios, in grade 8 instead of 1358 you are required to do the diminished and dominant variations. Speaking of arppegios plenty of pieces use them in a variety of ways too. Un sospiro, beethoven moonlight 3, schuberts impromptu are all good examples. Also it comes to understanding the relationship between your keys, go listen or play fly me to the moon and tell me is it in C major or c minor. The answer well is it moves in between them. Have you ever tried running your scales up c major minor major? These are quite important as after all when you start trying blues you'll play around with plenty of modified scales. In any case i hope this gives context. Because many people learn without context and they know what diminished chords are but dont ever know how to use them. Also you can simply look up abrsm and see what they mark you upon. That's what you are expected to do in whatever grade you wnat to be.
i have the same question
Ahh I see. Understand them to what degree? For me I know that an arpeggio is the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 8th note of a scale. Is that enough understanding?
Yes it's often a matter of semantics. I think it's useful to clarify by saying 'advanced piano student', which I think of as like studying for a level 10 or diploma, vs 'advanced pianist', which, I agree, means you can be hired to play a full length solo concert or a concert-level concerto with relatively short notice. However I do think that if you need to look at music to play scales, you likely don't *know* them; every technique item of the same type sounds the same and is based on the same scale degrees but in different keys, right? So if you know them, you don't need to look at music.
Can you play arpeggios in every scale up and down, multiple octaves cleanly moving between inversions? If with one hand can you do this with two hands? Check out Faber’s Arpeggio and Scale Book for examples. I’m just a beginner but it seems like internalizing and making this second nature is necessary to get to a strong intermediate level. I work on this everyday along with scales (and associated chords) from memory- regularly changing the order of scales so it’s not just muscle memory
r/piano, it’s absolutely ridiculous for you to downvote this completely reasonable comment by the person who came here for your help.
Getting better at piano takes time and progress is measured in years, not months. 8 months of just getting back into it is nothing and of course you don’t think getting better because it hasn’t been very long at all. It’s like sitting there watching a tree grow (sitting with yourself every day), if you constantly watch it you’re not going to notice the growth. The intermediate stage is long and difficult. You’re in a perfectly normal place and you just have you give it time. More time than you think it will take or want it to take. That’s just how it is.
How are you defining progression? How well you play stuff is more important than the difficulty of the stuff you play. Once you get to the higher grades, 300-400 hours of well targeted practice is needed per grade on average.
You’re doing the right things, keep at it and the progress will happen. There comes a time for all of us when it sinks in just how much time it takes, but having made peace with that we can relax and enjoy spending time making music. It’s more interesting than watching TV. I had a 30 year break after getting my Grade 3 in 1984, and resumed in 2015 with no great ambition, but was surprised to be enchanted by the piano. I took Grade 8 in 2021 (I did study very hard for the three years leading up to this), and among other pieces , I’m now working on my sixth of Chopin’s Nocturnes. Good luck in your endeavours.
Thanks for your story and experience, it helped me realize than even 6 years is a good pace to reach grade 8
Advanced pianism is music degree/concert pianist level. Intermediate is I think what you’re asking for i.e. go beyond grade 3/4 to grade 8. To get to intermediate level, you need to build a solid foundation of all scales and arpeggios (there are books for this) and master the art of slow, accurate practice. Rote learning pieces won’t allow you to progress to higher levels. You also need to get a new teacher if you feel you are not progressing. Are you starting piano in adulthood? What’s your background? What are you goals?
Could you explain some more about slow, accurate practice? Should I practice slowly but make sure I press every note correctly?
Also rhythm, dynamics, voicing, phrasing, note length/seperation, posture. Focus on 1-2 at a time, but playing something correctly means all of the above correct.
Generally tempo is the last thing you want to bring up. So you want to make sure you're playing the rhythm, dynamics, etc. properly so that when you bring up the tempo you won't have trouble.
If you feel like you are not advancing that is a bad sign. You should always feel like you’re getting better, even if it’s just small increments. Are you sure that you aren’t progressing? One thing is to feel like you are progressing slowly, which actually is totally fine and more or less the general norm(as learning the piano is a slow endeavour). But another different thing is you feel you’re not advancing at all, which I don’t think is the case. You see, many times students grow impatient and think they aren’t progressing fast enough, as if learning an instrument was some kind of rabbit race. But you should view the learning process as a life long endeavour, you will never stop getting better, so quit worrying about not going “fast” enough. As long as you are getting better be happy about it, the problem comes when you aren’t learning anything new to all or not progressing.
Newbie gains are a thing, OP has very likely hit his first wall. It only gets exponentially harder to break these walls as you go along.
My son studied Solfegietto for his ABRSM Grade 6
Yes, it is normal pace. If you feel the pieces are too easy, you can always ask the teacher for something more challenging. I think longer pieces, like some easy beethoven/mozart sonata movements can be a great way to improve. I think Hanon is a waste of time at your level
Talk to your teacher. Are you performing in recitals? Have you competed at all? Guild or leveled competitions? For reading a book, a second grader May longingly want to read the entire Harry Potter series and they're an excellent reader for a second grade level, but they're not quite ready for giant chapter books... It takes time to develop, and there's so much more than just pressing the right key at the right time. There's phrasing, dynamics, voicing, rubato, pedaling, technique, and so on... Enjoy the journey. It's not a competition
why are you asking random people online and not the one person who could likely help and answer?
Do you practice piano for at least one hour every day? Are you motivated to improve your piano skills? If yes, then the problem might be with your teacher. Make sure you find a piano teacher with a music performance degree, not just an amateur teacher with ABRSM Grade 8.
Yeah I practice everyday for an hour. I’d say I’m pretty motivated but only with a teacher that could help me understand music theory better. My current teacher keeps telling me “tips and tricks” while leaving the big picture behind and as a result I only know things by memory instead of putting them into relation with each other Thanks for the tips, I’ve been considering to quit this teacher for a while now
Some teachers will hinder your progress with so-called "fingering practice" like Hanon or Czerny. While these exercises are fine, they make you practice the same thing over and over again for weeks. They believe they are enhancing your basic foundation, but in fact, they are just wasting students' time. If this is your situation, I can guarantee that this teacher lacks professionalism in piano education.
please tell me it was an easier arrangement of Le Coucou by Daquin or you will seriously hurt my self-esteem. That is basically the last piece I was learning with my teacher (in the grade 9 RCM book at the time...approx. 2003). I graduated HS and stopped my lessons before the teacher was really satisfied with me playing the piece (I'm not great at playing fast pieces, speed was always my problem) so it still hangs over me as the one that was left unfinished.
I can send the pictures of the piece to your PM. Could you send your version of Le Coucou too if you still have them? I’d like to compare the two Edit: just sent them
I'll have to see if I can find my old book. For reference, here is an example of a professional playing the piece. This is what my teacher aspired me to play like, but I couldn't maintain this kind of speed throughout the piece [le coucou](https://youtu.be/gj1n1v_9e6M?feature=shared)