How long does it take to learn a piece?
It depends. Factors such as age, ability, talent, the difficulty of the piece, access to a teacher or prior music training can influence the speed of learning.
I will do my best to give you some examples, solely based on our years and years of teaching students at our Academy aged 4 to 55, as to how long it takes to learn certain pieces.
Example A: Easy Piece Like Mary Had A Little Lamb
A complete child beginner could probably learn a very simple piece like Mary Had a Little Lamb within 20 mins with a good teacher, or solo within a week or so, with daily 10 minute practice sessions.
A young adult or adult beginner could probably play it Mary Had A Little Lamb near instantaneously, particularly if they have correct instruction.
Example B: Easy Two-Handed Piece
A complete child beginner could play a simple two handed piece, or a piece with chords, on average after 10 lessons, with 10 minutes of practice everyday.
A young adult or adult beginner could play a simple two-handed piece, or a piece with chords, on average after 2 lessons, with 10 minutes of practice everyday.
Example C: Intermediate Piece like Fur Elise
An average complete child beginner could play a more advanced piece like Fur Elise, after a few months of lessons with 10 minutes of practice everyday.
A young adult or adult beginner could play a more advanced piece like Fur Elise, after a few weeks of lessons with 10 minutes of practice everyday.
Things you can do now to help you learn a piece faster
1. Put more time in: The more you practice, the faster you will learn the piece and will become easier, faster, and more fluent.
2. Play it slowly: If you're trying to nail a piece, practice it slowly first, extremely slowly. It will be tempting to play it fast (because it's so dang cool when it's played at speed), but you will learn it much, much faster if you learn to play it slowly first. Counter-intuitive I know, but it works.
3. Learn to read notes in a fun way: There are several ways you can do this. You can attend a music class, you can get resources which have the notes written on the sheet music (like this website), you could buy some some stickers to stick on your keyboard as an extra cue (also available on this website). You can watch some YouTube videos. Learning to read notes is not an essential part of learning a piece (you could literally look up a YouTube video and copy what they do with their fingers), however it is a valuable skill and will help you learn pieces faster in the long run. Plus it's just fun. There's also many fun apps such as Ningenius or Flashnote derby that turn reading notes into a game (and no, we're not getting paid to plug those apps, we just happen to use them in our Academy and we think they are effective).
4. Get a teacher: 1 on 1 teaching, or even taking some piano classes could help develop consistency and help answer your questions
5. Practice your weakness: There will be some bars that are hard, and that we like to skip over because they seem too hard. These are the bars that we should practice the most. Focus on the parts you are unsure about, and less on the ones that you already have down pat
6. Take notes: You should circle where you make mistakes e.g. circle a note which you always get wrong, so it's easy to spot next time you play it through. Or you should write down the notes so it is easier to recognise (we recommend with a folder with specialised sleeves which make it easy to take notes - available on this website also. We give these to all our students)
7. Consistency: Make it a daily habit to practice even a bit everyday, and your ability will compound much faster than if you did large bursts of practice here and there. Also, as your general piano ability approves, the speed at which you learn new pieces will increase also. I know this may seem obvious, but it's worth noting. E.g. Someone who has played random songs 20 minutes a day for a year, will learn a brand new piece like Fur Elise, much faster than someone who played random songs for only 5 minutes a day for a year. The point is, the better you are at playing piano generally, the faster you are able to learn new pieces.
8. Choose pieces you actually like: If you like the piece, you will be more keen to practice without it feeling like work! Choose one especially that has 'show-off value' so that if you were to perform it for friends or family, it would boost your confidence and self achievement, and will give you the most glory.
Any questions on the above, please feel free to e-mail!
Elle Yiangou
Co-founder of Piano Glory & piano teacher. Achieved all 8 grades of AMEB (Australian Music Examination Board) Piano Performance
E-mail: hello@pianoglory.com.au
Instagram: pianoglory.com.au