destroy the idea that intermediate goals aren’t important. maybe you can’t play the entire piano piece yet, but you can play the right hand and that’s good. maybe you haven’t figured out your major yet, but your minor or your field and that’s progress. maybe you can’t hold a full conversation in your target language yet, but you can ask for directions and that’s fine. setting high goals is good, but don’t diminish the small goals you achieve on your way there. they are just as important.
Who learns piano pieces one hand at a time? How would that even work??? I don’t think learning the parts separately actually helps in playing both hands together. It’s like having to learn 3 separate songs – one right-hand-only song, one left-hand-only song, and one song with both hands. Has OP ever played piano? I’ve never heard of anyone learning piano this way.
Or, okay, I guess the one-hand-at-a-time method might work if you’re only playing simple pop songs where the right hand plays the melody and the left hand does a very basic chord progression. This method doesn’t really work for classical pieces, even comparatively simple ones.
Eh, I play hands separately all the time. It helps with muscle memory, figuring out what fingering works best, making sure I’ve got the timing correct when somethings complex, and sometimes if I’m making the same mistake over and over it’s easiest to switch to one hand, sort out the problem and then continue with both. Concentrating on one thing at a time is helpful. All of my piano teachers encouraged this method. *shrug*
@lierdumoa Also maybe we don’t shit on people for having different learning methods than you on a post meant to encourage people who are learning things. Just because you’ve never heard of a thing doesn’t mean it’s invalid or doesn’t exist. Geezus. Who looks at OP’s gentle, encouraging post and dumps that kind of bad reaction underneath it??
Anyway, setting intermediate goals is amazing. This is part of why, in my writing groups, when someone says they “only wrote 100 words” or something similar, everyone responds back with “That’s 100 words more than you had!!” Because it’s true, and I think a lot of people have been conditioned to think in terms of “only” rather than in terms of “partway” and changing your thinking to the latter can do a LOT of good for your motivation. I would encourage everyone to try taking out the “only”s and the “just”s from your vocabulary when talking about your accomplishments and see how much better you start to feel about them.
Not to follow the tangent too far, but l took 8 years of classical piano and it’s extremely common to practice the two hands separately for complex pieces so you can really break down the timing and fingering. In fact, my go-to method when learning any new complex piece of music is to start with each hand separately, and I generally only start with both hands with “simple pop songs”. The condescension was not only unnecessary but inaccurate.
I guess it goes to show that it’s not just about adjusting your own expectations, but also not allowing other people to diminish your successes as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In general being able to look at your goals and break them down into smaller pieces can be insanely helpful for certain neurotypes.
With ADHD, for example, thinking “I have to write a 10-page research paper” is so overwhelming it can make it impossible to get started; and even if you do, you might work on it for hours and feel like you accomplished nothing. It really helps to break it down, no matter how small, so you can recognize your progress and keep that momentum.
“Okay, first, I need to pick a topic.
Wait, what that really means is FIRST first I need to get a notepad and pen so I can jot down ideas for a topic and pick one.”
Did you pick up your notepad and pen? Then you’re making progress, even if you haven’t picked your topic yet.
I’m OP and this post is pretty old but still holds up so I’ll reblog with the addition that I took piano lessons for almost 10 years 🤷🏼♀️ It’s cool if you don’t learn hands separately but it’s a valid way to learn
