How do you progress quickly on the piano?

Quora Q: If you had only 30 min a day, every day, to learn piano in a year, how/where would you start & how would you progress?

You’re missing the first part, which is an explanation of the level you’re at currently. But, since you said “to learn piano in a year,” I’m going to infer that you mean starting from scratch.

Piano is a very physical instrument, and that demands consistent exercise. You wouldn’t, for example, expect to compete in a figure model competition exercising only 30 minutes a day for a year.

That said, there are several different methods of approach. Most classically-trained musicians are going to suggest that you might be able to finish a level one within a year at just 30 minutes per day. I’m going to suggest something completely different, and that you take a guitarist’s approach. You need to concentrate on PATTERNS and SONGS, not on dexterity and increasing complexity. To do this:

• The first 10 minutes of your practice should be scales. DO NOT start with C major. The difficulty with C major is that it’s physically complex and doesn’t sit under your rested hand in a natural way. Instead, start with G-flat major (using blocking, where you press the black keys down together and pass the thumb under, until the thumb passing gets easy).
• 3 black keys, thumb under. 2 black keys, thumb under.
• The white keys you need are directly to the left and right of the three black keys.
• Do this (hands together) until it’s reasonably comfortable, and then play the black keys individually instead of as a noisy chord.
• Once you’ve mastered this, move on to D flat, and then C flat (B) major.
• The reason this works is that you’re taking the theory out of it (taking out what’s easiest to read) and just looking at it purely physically (what’s easiest to play). This will let you build finger strength and dexterity much faster.
• I’ve had students approach using this method, and accelerate their technical skills to the point that they actually enjoyed playing scales.
• The next 20 minutes, concentrate on learning a song, melody in the right hand and chords in the left hand. When you get comfortable, learn to voice the chord so you can harmonize a little with both hands.
• You’ll get a lot farther ahead if you learn to read the notes in the melody as you go.
• You’ll also get a lot farther ahead if you take the time to learn how those chords relate to each other, and how to use inversions to make them easier to voice lead.

If all of this sounds complicated, remember: all you asked was to learn to play the piano in a year. You didn’t say play a Rachmaninoff concerto. If you’re coming in as an adult, my experience with adult learners is that they want to learn to play some songs, and this is the fastest way to get there where you can build some skills and play for the pure enjoyment of playing without getting bogged down in the dogmatic approaches of classical pedagogy.

TEACHERS: Try the scale approach I mentioned. I think you’ll be shocked at how much easier it is when you approach scales from the physiology of them rather than the readability. The “rule of thumb” is that flat-key scales always have both thumbs on F and C, which means no confusion between the hands as the thumbs always anchor at the same time.