I'm wondering how long people take to master difficult pieces of music? I'm lamenting a piece of Chopin that seems to be going nowhere fast, and wonder if it's just too advanced or whether the novice piano player hasn't realised playing is 'ard graft!!!

I am 52, have been playing since I was 13, and have NEVER "mastered" a piece

I think that when you play piano you have to accept that you will never be satisfied with a performance, and that improvement, gaining insights and understanding, is a life-long process. As you get better your playing improves, but you also become more critical and aware of new things that are wrong.

What is the Chopin that you are having trouble with? There is very little by Chopin that is playable below grade 5, and an awful lot that demands skills way beyond Diploma level.

Takes me a long time to get the note learning sorted usually with things that are at my level.
Some things it can take at least the 2 weeks between lessons to sort out 4 tricky bars!

For my youngest Piano seems to take forever to learn a piece to anything like a decent standard. I'm really hoping this will change with her new teacher.

i never get to the stage where i feel i have mastered a piano piece

I can play a grade 7 piece very slowly with lots of wrong notes, but to learn it properly would take time...

It's a prelude, B flat major (op. 28 no. 21 - I'm sure that's one of the ones you've played!). It's the speed and dexterity of the left hand that's difficult - I just can't pick up the pace. I've been looking over it for some weeks now. Another one is 'raindrop' (no 15), which has taken about 6 weeks to get to a stage that I like the sound of it, but the pedal work is still troubling. But it does make sense that progression is continuous. I imagine I see that more than most, since I've only just started playing a few months ago.

There are so many pieces I already want to play that have to wait in line

I was working on that before I took time out for an exam last year.
Took me about that long to get the first section just about stable.
I think that the middle section will take longer.... those big stretches hurt and I can only do a little at a time on things like that, building up slowly until my hands get used to the stretch. Also things that are awkward because of that take longer to get consistantly right.

Seems like I'm an extraordinarily slow learner.

But, of course, weeks don't denote practice time! You have to find what works for you.

I find the middle section pretty comfortable, compared to the first part, if that's any consolation. I didn't think there was any stretch in there, unless it is working with octaves that fatigues you. However, where you're playing the constant G's in that section, I didn't do the 4,3,1,2 (or whatever it is!) fingering at first, but waited until later. I found that sped things along a little

I totally sympathise.

I take ages to learn anything, and however many hours of practice I put in, and how ever carefully I go through it with my teacher, bar by bar, I never quite manage to master a piece completely accurately - there's always a few slips. This drives me mad.

For the past few days I've been trying to learn the piano accompaniments to my daughter's grade 3 flute pieces, Tyrolean Air (Beethoven) and Hurdy Gurdy (Shostakovitch). These really are not difficult, but it seems to taking me an awfully long time...........

Oh dear!

Considering the Preludes as a whole these two are intermediate level in difficulty. There are several that, if you can tackle Nos 15 and 21 you can probably sight read rather well, and at the other extreme there are several that you would find extremely challanging.

It sounds to me like you almost have No. 15 cracked - you may need to work out more precisely exactly what pedal effects you like, then mark up a copy of the score with very exact pedal markings, and practice them.

I don't understand what you mean about No. 21. The left hand certainly needs dexterity (there is a contradiction for the latin scholars!) to flow through the widening intervals in quavers, but there should be no speed problem because it need n ot be taken very fast. I know there are some ridiculously fast renditions by big name pianists, but it really sounds best at a quite leisurely pace. I play it at not much over 80 crotchet beats to the minute. That gives me almost half a second for each quaver chord in the LH. (Compare that to the study Op 10. No. 1 at the indicated speed of crotchet = 176. That means 12 semiquavers every second ... Six times faster!) Perhaps you have been trying to play it too quickly. Perhaps you just need more LH practice to gt it really fluent before adding the RH melody.

I hope you enjoy the preludes. I think they are a great way of building technique. Each one (even the apparently simple ones) has its own special technical demands, on which it concentrates, just like a study.

Thanks, Mad Tom

I think you're spot on regarding no.21. I only have one recording of it, and it's by Ashkenazy. It's impossible fast, and I've been trying to shoot for that. Certainly, I'll try the slower speed!

The preludes are perfect at this stage: they are more manageable than the majority of other Chopin pieces, but no less rewarding. In any case, I'd play them even if I were very advanced.

Oh yes - I can identify with this - sometime I think practice makes imperfect because you realise the gap between where you are and where you want to be is much bigger than when you first started. Despite sometimes feeling despondent, I keep saying to myself that it is the process, not the outcome that is what I enjoy.

Someimtes I deliberately don't listen to professional recordings of a piece I'm learning until I get quite good at it... otherwise I just sit and listen and get depressed

Indeed; perhaps I should start learning to play the spoons instead

Don't underestimate the difficulty of master spoon playing

Does anybody else find that The pace of learning can slow down sometimes when learning a piece because of having to consolidate on the sections already learnt (or mostly so) as well as moving on to the next section?

I do find that if it's a long piece. I have to remember to keep the standard up of the part I have already learned.

I'm not sure the pace slows that much - it's just that the better you already know a piece firstly there is that much less to learn and secondly, the improvements become more subtle. If it takes (for example) 2 weeks to get to know a piece well enough to hack through it at half pace, then another 2 to iron out the worst of the inaccuracies and get it up to 3/4 pace, then a third 2 to get it sounding smooth and get all the dynamics more or less right, then a fourth 2 concentrating on the pace, during which you find yourself also committing it to memory so that accuracy increases as well, then a fifth 2 weeks working hard to re-do the dynamics and articulation you lost when you sped up and committed it to memory and then a sixth 2 weeks polishing and smoothing and ironing out the rough bits . . . Every 2 week period you're working just as hard and learning just as fast, but the apparent improvement is less noticable each time: In the above scenario you might be good enough for most uninformed ears after the 2nd 2 week period. After the 3rd and certainly the 4th you could probably pass an exam in it. After the 5th only a good teacher or a discerning listener might notice the difference. The point is that you are still learning, and at more or less the same pace, but the law of diminishing returns applies.

Sounds like a rather short (or easy) piece Robodoc to get through the lot in 2 weeks.
Either that or you are a quick learner (or i'm a slow one).
I a bit over a month I'm roughly at your stage 1-2 with 56 bars of my Mozart sonata and 30 bars of Bach Sinfonia. Beethoven Bagatelle I've just about got to the end of.
When I add a bit more it's sometimes a shorter bit either because it's a harder bit or because of needing to take enough time to keep up with what I've alaready done. That's what I meant by slower learning as you progress through a piece.

Here is a little bit of encouragement with practice - till it is purrfect Nora

I ought to stay out of threads like this really.
My teacher would have my guts for garters for negative thinking.

It is just the opposite with me. It is only after I have worked hard at a piece, and have deceived myself into thinking that I play it quite well that a professional recording or recital depresses me - because then it seems less likely that I'll every make real progress into the huge gulf betweeen our standards.

And of course, as the intervening posts have pointed out, it takes a lot more effort to improve a bit when you are already reasonably competent than it does to improve a lot when you are you are just starting out.

p.s. I am off to see Valentina Lisitsa in Eindhoven week after next. Perhaps that will renew my dedication!

Whaaa! It isn't until 22 February! At least I didn't make the trek from Utrecht - just to find out I was a month early!

Two things:

First, I did say "for example" 2 weeks. Variation is bound to be enormous. Somewhere on this forum recently someone recounted the story of John Lill, who performed a complete (possibly Brahms) piano concerto (with orchestra, from memory and in front of an audience) in the afternoon having only started working on it that morning. Very, very few people will ever get even close to that level.

Second, that was 2 weeks to get to be able to "hack through it at half pace": Most people can sight-read better than that at 2 or more grades below their ability. For example DipABRSM Quick Studies are explicitly set at grade 6 standard and are expected to be played with more or less proper tempo, dynamics, articulation, and accuracy. Going back to John Lill again, he is reputed to have been able to sight-read Rachmaninov in this way. So, if it takes a (normal) person 2 weeks to be able to hack it at half pace, that would suggest to me that it is not all that easy at the standard at which that person plays.

The point is, the same amount of work however long it takes will get you the first 75% of the way there, or the next 20% then 5%, then 2%, 1% and so on - the law of diminishing returns. I don't believe that necessarily means you are learning as a slower pace, just more subtly.