I had a discussion recently with my teacher about adult piano beginners. He says that it is very rare for any to get past about a Grade V standard, and that the barrier for most is hand independence/coordination and keyboard awareness. Does anyone here have any experience of this? Has anyone got further than that?

(This doesn't include those who learnt as kids and have restarted, which apparently is a rather different proposition - I mean solely those who *started* as adults.)

My mum passed grade 6 on the piano a couple of years ago (be it on the second try). I think she was starting to plateau a bit though, but she didn't practise that much, so that was probably why. She's stopped playing since due to a lack of free time.

Not sure I agree. It is relatively unusual for anyone to get beyond grade 5 (think of the hundreds who start, do a grade or 2 and then give up). It is probably a very individual thing and depends on the amount or work the student is prepared to do and how persistent they are.

Don't let the odd sweeping generalisation put you off! My teacher taught a lady in her 70s to grade 6 a few years ago.

I began as an adult and am post-Grade 7 in standard. My teacher has taught someone who began in 2000 from scratch and passed his Grade 8 in 2006, and who has continued to progress since then.

I have taught many adults from the very beginning to post grade five standard. There is no glass ceiling. Nor do I find it takes any longer than it takes for children. Adults generally expect too much of themselves in the earlier stages and in their rush to play more advanced pieces miss out on a lot of experience.

I have my pupils (all adults) play everything on the syllabus at every grade, plus other material from previous years at that grade. By the time we're approaching grade five they're serious sightreaders and very competent in their technical skills. There's no reason their progress should stop there.

Indeed. The number of adult beginners is probably much smaller than the number of child beginners. Most child beginners don't become advanced players, so it's not surprising that few adult beginners do. But there's no reason why an adult beginner shouldn't, if sufficiently committed.

Not sure I could do it on the piano, though. Too many notes ...

People get stuck at Grade 5 because they don't want to do Grade 5 theory.
I hope I don't hit a ceiling at 5.
Bev

My inspiration is a friend of my grandmother's who is in her 80s. She started piano when she retired and passed Grade 8 a few years ago.

I'm sure he must have his reasons for saying this, but I can't think what they might be because it's such a generalisation. I'd expect a pyramid pattern, with an adult starting at 25 being more likely to achieve the higher grades than a 65 year old, but it's obviously not impossible as previous posts have pointed out. And what about if you've already got musical experience on a different instrument - that surely must make it easier to get through the earlier grades on piano and makes advancing further more likely.

I started piano last year as a... [cough]...mature adult and I'd be quite cross if my teacher put any limit on what I might achieve. You show him, Liche!!!

In fairness, he said *most*, and isn't saying that it is impossible. I'm not too worried about the proportion of people getting to that standard, as I understood the likelihood already. What is a concern is what he describes as a greater difficulty for adults to develop the necessary motor skills to play at an advanced level, this supposedly being easier for a child with a rapidly-developing brain.

After three months' work I can sight-read at a grade 3 level (not my first instrument...), and the aural/musicianship work is going very well; however my hand coordination is some way behind and the difficulty of these sight-reading pieces is against the limits of what I can do without looking at my hands, even with repeated practice (i.e. treating them as 'prepared' pieces). (Playing one hand at a time is *much* easier). It is becoming obvious that the two-handed coordination and keyboard awareness are going to be the main battlegrounds, and if these are, as he suggests, the main 'barriers' to post-grade-V progress, then my concern is that it will only get harder from here.

This is not going to stop me from trying, and I'll see what it is like when/if I get there.

It typically takes a year and a half from 0 to grade 1, then another year per grade. That's three and a half years of experience and practice you're comparing yourself to after 3 months! As I said earlier, the biggest problem with adult learners is that they expect to go faster than children. They don't actually go slower though - just slower than they expect of themselves.

My mother-in-law (in her 80s) has just taken grade 8 . . .she was taking grade 1 when I first met her. She has had quite long periods of time out from sitting exams but always played/persisted with lessons and swears it has kept her young. She is thinking about diplomas now!

fantastic Miss sooky! Many congratulations to your mother-in-law

ABRSM exam stats for 2007 show 234,816 people took grades 1-5 and 31,443 took grades 6-8.

Yes it's drivel.



I would be interested to know if there is any actual scientific evidence to back up that conjecture. Since I started playing oboe at 54 I have come across quite a lot of adult beginners who are having no problem advancing. It does take many, many hours though.

If you do intense practice of repeated physical movements it causes the myelin sheaths of the nerves involved to become thicker. The thicker sheaths allow faster nerve impulses. They may also be important in co-ordinating the arrival of impulses that have travelled different distances.

There is evidence that greater thickening is caused by stimulation in childhood than in later life. This is especially evident in pianists that began their training as small children.

It has been suggested that becasue adults cannot develop the same level of myelination they cannot reach the same levels of virtuosity and physical co-ordination as those trained in childhood. However to the best of my knowledge there has been no proper scientific investigation to establish or disprove such a causal link. At the moment it is just a pretty story that more or less fits the facts.

To me it sounds simplistic in the extreme to attribute individual limits in such a complex and multi-facted skill as playing the piano to such a one-dimensional aspect of early physical development.

What I have learned over the last 30 years is that children learn better (if not faster) because, in no particular order:

1. They have no bad habits to unlearn (and relatedly - they bring fewer pre-conceptions)
2. They grasp a subject in its own terms (rather than consciously trying to relate it to something else already known)
3. They have less fear of failure
4. They have no prior idea of how long (or how many repetitions) it "should" take to master a task - it takes as long as it takes
5. Once their interest is aroused they put in much more time, and work with a level of effort and persistence that most adults have a. forgotten is possible, and/or b. lack the willpower to achieve.

There is one other factor. The society you keep. If your 'friends' are satisfied with comfortable mediocrity they will resent your striving for excellence and continual improvement and will try to undermine your progress in all kinds of ways. Children are expected to learn quickly and are not subject to the same disapproval.

I agree with pushpull about the many many hours required.

I started learning piano around last September and have got to Grade 3 standard relatively quickly nabbing 2 distinctions at Grade 1 & 2 along the way. I know it's only the lower grades but it took me quite a lot of practice. Luckily I really enjoy playing and play every day. Sometimes I can sit there and before I know it 3 hours of my life have vanished in a blink and it's 2 in the morning. Something I often regret at work the next morning!!

I think if you have the willpower, drive and the ability to ignore everyone who says you can't do it because you're "older" you can go all the way. If anything it's people telling me I can't do something that makes me determined to do it just to prove them wrong.

My current mission is to get to at least grade 6 with nothing more than my digital piano as I have had many people tell me I'll never do it unless I invest in a proper piano (although I do get a couple of sessions a week on my mom's upright so not sure the mission counts)

Lois

The technical aspects of playing become harder post grade 5 but that applies to both children as well as adults. Adults' fingers are less flexible, which is where children have the advantage. However, adults I think are more likely to have an advantage in musicality, which is important in the higher grades.

I don't think there is a glass ceiling - it's all down to the number of hours you are able to practice! It takes a lot more dedication and focus post grade 5 - - even for the 'naturals', be they adults or children.

I am currently studying grade 8 at the age of 43, I started playing when I was 23. I have had "holding pattern" times where I've kept playing, but not improved. This has been due to the pressures and commitment of life. Anyway here I am hoping to take my grade 8 in the autumn if not next spring. My goal is diploma and beyond. whether I make it or not, I'll have a damn good go.
I think the biggest restriction to any adult is practice time. If you have a young family and work during the day, trying to fit meaningful practice in before tiredness takes over is a task on its own. I feel if I could practice as a child could I would not be restricted by my age. I took my grade 5 theory 10 years ago, I am currently re-revising it with the intention of going upto grade 8 theory. Why? because I can and its there.

When I first started I remember being convinced that my ability would be limited due to age, and that thought alone would hamper improvement. When I could't do a scale upto speed, it would be due to age. when a particular bar troubled me, age again. I now know, it is practice that ures these issues. If you can devote the time and be conscientous with the time you do have you will not find a ceiling within the grading system.

Obviously all my opinion.

Just keep practicing, and more importantly enjoy it

Andy

Re adult learners having specific problems that the poster thought were different from those of young learners, such as inferior coordination or inferior keyboard awareness:

I do not feel I have experienced any problems as an adult that I did not also have when a young teenaged learner. For me, all these skills are down to how many of the ten thousand hours I have actually practiced. Of course, one has to practice intelligently, HS, etc. and there are many routes to improvement, such as ultra slow but in perfect rhythm and with full dynamic range, or (as in Chang's piano practice blog) just a phrase HS but to concert speed.

Perhaps it is just that now I am better than I was as a teenager and doing trickier pieces (Grades 6-7), but for me at the moment the thing that is holding me back the most is memorizing fingering. If I can remember the fingering I have decided upon, everything else is possible: dynamics, expression, speed, music. Putting hands together (coordination) is easy, once one has really learned the fingering. So for people having trouble with "co ordination" I would suggest huge amounts of HS practice.

I can't agree with linking these two things I'm afraid and perhaps that was not what was meant. Obviously every student is different and yes generally the co-ordination side of things is slightly harder for adults in general. But once you have put the time and trouble to get to G5 you will have surmounted these 'start up' issues and be as well prepared as a child learning from the age of 8 would be to go on to higher things.

I think there are many 'false summits' in piano playing but not necessarily glass ceilings!

I'm 52 and took piano classes for about 5 months when I was in my early childhood and for 2 months in my adolescence. From then on, I studied the violin for 4 years, later on studied operatic singing, sang in a choir, sang duets with another tenor and an accompanist, composed music, had it published, etc. About 2 and a half years ago, I discovered ABRSM exams through my daughter and started taking piano classes. I took Grade 3 in 2007 (Distinction) then Grade 4 in 2008 (Distinction) and am now taking Grade 5 in June but have already got the Grade 6 syllabus for next year ready and other pieces ranking as Grade 7 (2 of Bach's French Suites, for example).
Having been a music lover all my life, I know only too well how things should sound and I take ages to achieve what I feel is a good standard, that's one of the difficulties. Also coping with the frustration which matured through my various attempts and failures to study music with discipline is hard, and this is something a child knows nothing about, though he has other distractors which might lead him away from practice (play, friends, etc.).
I believe it's all down to a matter of conviction, strength and willpower (moved by conviction and passion). As adults, we have considerable less time ahead of us than children to achieve higher standards , and this is undeniable, but nobody and nothing prevents us from enjoying taking this marvellous journey ... and from obtaining excellent results sometimes!

Hi,

This topic interests me because I've recently been discussing with my teacher why I find Piano so hard. The difficulty I find is holding everything together and getting my hands to move together without, for example, the rhythm in one distorting the other. I just seem to be constantly battling with this. I've been working on my grade 5 pieces since Christmas and have now given up on ever doing the exam because I just can't get them good enough (despite practising an hour a day most days).

Having read this thread I wonder am I pushing against a locked door? I'm not that old (26), but my teacher can't work out why I'm having problems.

I do think I lack confidence (which is an issue I have around many things) because I tend to get nervous and hesitate over difficult parts, but I don't know if that's related.

Sorry if this reply is a bit unclear - it's because I don't entirely understand what my problem is, but it seemed like it might be related to the glass ceiling idea.

I started learning piano again about a year ago after a 14-year break after learning between the ages of about 6 to 14. As far as I can tell from the other adult learners I know who are on the same scheme, the beginners tend to underestimate what is involved in learning piano properly and expect too much of themselves in too short a time and with too little effort / practice. Not trying to make a sweeping generalisation about adult learners but the ones I know - they are expecting to play at a level that takes most people (children or adults) years to achieve, and of course get frustrated when this doesn't happen on half an hour practice a week for a few weeks. A lot of people who started on the course as complete beginners have dropped out at one point or another.

Thank goodness someone talks sense around here.

Anyone want to play piano better?

You have all the "natural talent" you are ever going to have, so fretting about lack of it will achieve nothing. You can't change your parents!! And you can't go back to being a child and change your early experiences either.

The only thing you can do is work at it, starting now. And it takes a heck of a lot more than a half hour or hour a day.

Yes, but beginners (or restarters) shouldn't be playing too much too quickly. When I came back to it after a 34 year gap 2 years ago I found there was a limit to how long I could play without getting cramp and/or tired arms (about half an hour, less with exercises such as scales, arpeggios and Hanon). In the same way I wouldn't expect to be running 10 miles a day for a while if i took it up seriously.

The ability to practice for long periods may be necessary to achieve high levels, but you have to build up to it, at least a bit. What matters far more than how long you practice is how you practice.

I agree with Tom and Rob, you need to build up to it, and then practise a lot. The other thing to add for Amber Piano, is that you need to work out what the problem is before you can put it right.

...and your teacher should be helping you to identify the problem and put in place a strategy for sorting it out.

No quite, but I am currently working towards taking grade 6. I am an adult learner of the classical organ and until the age of 62 could only read one stave of music and some very basic chord symbols. I have never played piano, or any other instrument and started having lessons in 2003. The first grade I passed was grade 4 in 2005; followed by grade 5 in 2007 and grade 5 theory in 2008. I originally started learning to play on an old Hammond A100, but two years ago purchased a second hand Viscount classical organ with the required 32 pedals. Both grades were taken on local church organs.

I can't yet prove that it is possible to get past 5 but will let you know when I have. Please note the 'when' as 'can't' just isn't in my vocabulary. It may taken another year or more but I will do it one day as my aim is to gain grade 8 eventually. Maybe my fingers are not as flexible as when I was younger, but my co-ordination, and sense of timing, are very good; With classical organ it's four-way co-ordination of course - two hands two feet - minimumn two manuals and a full pedalboard. Also one has to read three staves - and I confess that the latter hasn't been easy. Plus I am lucky not to have any infirmities yet.

Having learned all the scales (including pedal scales and pedal piece) required for grade 6 without too much trouble; I am still struggling with two of the 3 pieces required for the grade. One of the pieces I am quite happy with; the second I can play to the end, and to speed, but it has a way to go yet; The third is harder for me as it's quite discordant in places, which rather grates with me ..... more than my own playing that is !!

Yes, I am finding grade 6 to be harder than grade 5 but am gradually 'getting there'. Being re tired does mean that I can put in 3 hours practice daily - which I never fail to do, unless away on holiday (rarely).

I was hoping, through joining this forum, that I would come across other senior students of the classical organ but, as this is my first day on the site I haven't come across any as yet.

I think by reading most of the replies to this topic, i would have entirely agree, if your teacher says that older generations have a tendency to fail at grade 5. I would have to say this teacher is not worth staying with.

LiBiTiNa

And there you have it. B, good on here. :-)

Lib