Can You Learn Piano As An Adult?

Can adults really learn the piano, even without prior experience? Can you learn how to sight read, how to play by ear, how to play quickly with proper technique, how to improvise jazz, and the myriad of considerations that come along with a musical undertaking of this magnitude?

Yes, adults (young professionals, middle-aged adults, retirees, and everything in between) can absolutely learn how to play the piano - don’t let anyone insinuate otherwise. That doesn’t mean it’s easy (it’s not!), but you can do it. Here are some tips for getting started.

If you’d like to learn more about our piano lessons in Philadelphia, live online piano lessons, or voice lessons in Philadelphia, please contact us at your earliest convenience. We’d be happy to hear from you.

Advantages of Learning The Piano As An Adult

Life Experience Acts As Another Tutor

Compare yourself now to you as a child. Chances are that back then you lacked the amount of knowledge and experience you have now. Learning a new skill comes quickly when you have something to relate it to or associate with it. You’ve had decades of experiences emotionally, physically, and psychologically that will contribute to your piano playing skills. Because music is an art and a language, you’re not just learning how to decode the notes on the staff, but you’re also learning how to physically create sounds that communicate emotions.

Adults Have Intrinsic Motivation

Children may absorb knowledge like a sponge, but do they care? Very rarely. The biggest challenge parents and educators face is motivating children to practice - discipline is important, and parents can certainly make their children practice, but the goal is to make a child want to practice the piano.

This is where adults have an edge. You decided to spend your own time and money to learn the piano, so you will probably be happy to practice the piano regularly.

You Will Grasp Concepts Easier

Children certainly internalize muscle memory faster, and they can learn a phenomenal amount of information by imitation, but they may not understand what they are doing. You, and adult, can understand that a scale has eight notes, for instance, and that the I, IV, and V chords are build upon the I, IV, and V scale degrees. You can quickly understand intervals and chords, and you may even find yourself playing off of lead sheets within the first few months of lessons if you commit yourself to practicing.

You Understand The “Why” Behind Everything

Adults tend to ask more questions in lessons than kids — “Why are we doing this drill?” “What does that term mean?” “How will this help me reach my goals?” — and that’s one reason why we love working with adults at the Philadelphia Piano Institute. There’s a reason behind every technical drill, piece of repertoire, or concept, and if you understand the reason, you’ll be more motivated to practice. Eventually, you will enjoy seeing all of the pieces come together in the form of a confident, competent pianist.

How To Learn The Piano As an Adult

You now understand that it’s possible to learn the piano as an adult, and we’ve talked about how you actually have some advantages over younger students. But how can you actually accomplish your goals?

Prioritize Practicing

We can’t stress enough that it’s better to practice a little bit each day — every day! — than it is to practice just one day for several hours. Even if you only get to slowly play through your lesson materials for 15 minutes, you will see steady progress if you do this daily.

You know how cramming works — you may remember what you practiced just long enough to have a decent lesson, but you’ll forget everything the next day. The goal isn’t for you to just “pass” a lesson, and we want you to become a competent pianist who can play by ear, sight read, and learn substantial repertoire. It’s like the difference between: 1) learning a language to pass a test, or 2) learning a language to speak fluently while visiting another country. The latter requires different preparation, and it’s vastly more rewarding.

Along those lines, don’t feel like you have to practice everything all in one setting. We recommend breaking up your sessions into multiple chunks per day - this helps with hand/arm tension, information absorption, and more.

Find a Local Instructor

Online resources are getting more and more competitive, so you can definitely learn a lot from them, but there’s so much advantage to live lessons with a local instructor. Your instructor can instantly identify issues so that you don’t have to worry about manifesting bad habits in ignorance that could inhibit future playing. Another advantage to working with a local instructor is that you can ask them questions in real time.

Adults also have busy and dynamic schedules, so it’s fortunate that online piano lessons are as popular as they are. If you have a webcam, fast internet, and a decent piano keyboard, you have everything your need.

Have a Decent Instrument

Because daily, regular practice is vital for success, you need to have access to either an acoustic or digital piano. Unless you want to make the piano a significant part of your life, you don’t need to purchase an acoustic grand when you are starting lessons - there are many digital keyboards that have great sound, a metronome, weighted key action, and other features. If you live in an urban setting where noise is an issue, but you want to have a high-end grand piano experience each time you play, look into Yamaha’s Avant Grand hybrid series (these are incredible) or the CLP digital piano series.

Prepare For A Long-Term Engagement

Some people start piano lessons because they want to learn a party trick. They want to learn how to sit down at the piano, play “All Of Me” by rote, and impress their friends. That’s all well and good.

BUT if you want to become a pianist — someone who can sight read, play by ear, play a dynamic range of techniques, and teach yourself new music — you will be embarking on a years-long journey of improvement. If you’ve learned a language well, or started golf lessons from scratch, or learned how to do pretty much any skill-heavy task, you understand that it takes time to reach your goals.

Get Ready For Peaks and Valleys

You’ll experience highs and lows when playing the piano — even advanced pianists sometimes want to toss their piano out of their tenth-story window. But remember that if you are practicing regularly and intelligently (our teachers will always teach you how to practice), you are improving, whether you can feel it or not. Learning the piano is not perfectly linear, and you won’t necessarily feel like you’re “better” every week. But breakthroughs can only happen if you keep practicing through the frustrating times.

Respect the Fundamentals

Without a solid foundation, a house won’t stand for long. Piano is the same way! If you want to be an independent musician and competent pianist, don’t ignore the fundamentals of playing technique, music literacy, and music theory. If the basics are solidly understood, you can build at a quicker rate than if there are holes or weak spots. Your teacher will teach you proper posture, hand position, how to play scales, how to play chords, etc., and you will grow faster if you practice these elements.

Spend time right at the beginning to memorize all of the piano notes, how to read them on the staff, how to play triads and inversions of chords, and more — this head knowledge is something that you can learn quickly if you are motivated, and it will allow you to get more out of your teacher in lessons.