Being an adult learner I should be able to pick what I want to do, and do it.. Unlike young learners who opt to play the piano and mostly go for the 'official' course (modified per teacher for their pupils needs, but essentially going for grading at intervals)

What I'm trying to say is.. I'm not really interested in getting grades. What I really want is to be able to do is sight read, play by ear and play as I go (improv)

Don't get me wrong, I am totally willing to take the grading route of learning, but is it completely necessary to become an accomplished pianist? What fun and skills will I miss out on if I focus solely in my lessons on improv and sight reading (or at least, a greatly reduced version of the complete grading course)

Perfectly OK. And an issue all we adult learners have.

We all have our own plan. Grades are not essential.

Discuss it with your teacher.

I chose the exam route simply because I wanted a benchmark to measure my progress against. Others do not feel the need for this. Horses for courses. Much depends on your motivation and time to practise!

There are many routes from A to B!

Good luck and enjoy your learning and playing!

SP

Not sure if it's what you are looking for, but have you looked into AB jazz exams? I think there's a lot of improv in those...

Even if you don't do the exams, I believe there is a mass of material available for Jazz piano which might be good to try out - the AB publish a fair few books and certainly improv is a major part of the syllabus as I understand it... good suggestion.

What you could do is master the specified skills for each grade, e.g. scales & arpeggios, but not necessarily do the syllabus pieces as they might not be of much interest, as long as you did some equivalent pieces. Therefore, this would allow you to check that you were progressing along the right path. These skills are fairly fundamental to most western music of all styles, so it's not useless work to master them. Scales and arpeggios are the foundation of harmony, and understanding that will allow you to build a great improv technique.

I agree with SilverPianist. Most of my adult students are just like you.

Look for a teacher who will teach you sight-reading, improvisation and aural skills.

Steve

Thanks for all your replies guys and gals! That's just want I was wanting to know. These are all excellent suggestions, I will definitely discuss everything with my teacher. I have decided to avoid the exam route and just learn a broad range of skills, perhaps even looking at the exams to see what skills are required at each stage, but the actual exams don't interest me.

I understand that everyone learns at different rates, and this is a bit of a short sighted question.. but is there a suggested guide to how well you should be doing after each year of study? I'm coming up to my first year and despite lots of hard practice, I am worried that I haven't progressed as well as I should.

The only problem with a guide would be that everyone progresses at different rates - some pupils whizz through early on showing great promise only to grind to a halt later, and others who seem to struggle early on suddenly seem to click later and make rapid progress. (Sorry, I know that doesn't help you much! )

Heh, I guess you're right.. I'm just an excited newbie who wants to soak up as much piano skills and knowledge as possible.

When I first started to teach myself, I had a goal of learning one specific piece (Joplin the entertainer, sad I know, ) anyway I worked out the notes, fingering and over a long long time it started to come together, I then thought I was the bees knees, playing my party trick at every oppotunity (Usually after a few pints in a Pub, sounded more like Les Dawson than Scot Joplin) until one day someone else got on the piano after me, must have been just 18 and hammered out a couple of grade 8 pieces. It left me dumbfounded I thought I need some lessons here, and realised that all the time I spent so far, could have be put to better use. What the grades have given me is a structure to learn, and to measure myself against. I moved through to grade 6, then life got in the way, I have just returned after a 7 year gap and cannot get enough. I am back with my old teacher studying grade 7. (Still can't play the entertainer well, once you have learnt something badly its a devil of a job to relearn it)

Good luck and enjoy it


Andy