1 year of Piano Progress (41-year-old self-taught beginner)

Throwing my hat in with all the other 1 year of piano progress videos. I wasn't an absolute beginner. I had lessons when I was about 7 or 8, but almost all forgotten. I also have played guitar for years, so that musical experience helped. Over this one year, I believe I logged in a bit over 200 total hours, or an average of about 30 minutes a day.

UPDATE: Someone kindly commented with the title and composer for the 5th piece! It's down below.

I started out doing lessons and learning simple pieces using Flowkey's online lessons, which wasn't perfect, but overall a service I would recommend. I can't comment on Simply Piano, Pianote, Playground Sessions, etc. So do your research to find the right one for you.

Later on I tried a couple pieces with online tutorials, and then I pushed myself to learn a couple by reading sheet music.

I only had a very simple keyboard that my child had asked for as a Christmas present and then didn't use. I also kept my practice a secret from my wife as a surprise, so I had to play quietly after she had gone to bed. That's why you can sometimes hear the keys being pressed in the video. Sorry!

I hope this video inspires you to try (re)learning the piano! If you need some other ideas for hobbies, check out some other videos on my channel where I try out other people's hobbies. I also live in Japan and get to visit some wonderful places, so check those videos out, too!

0:00 Intro
0:20 Melody No.1, Op. 39 (Dmitry Kabalevsky)
0:43 Sakura Sakura (Traditional Japanese song)
0:56 London Bridge (English nursery rhyme)
1:14 Hey Jude (The Beatles)
1:43 Bourrée in D minor (Christoph Graupner)
2:19 Theme from Tetris, Korobeiniki (Hirokazu Tanaka)
2:37 Homura, from Demon Slayer movie (LiSA)
3:07 Marmottenbube (Beethoven)
3:40 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
4:05 Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers)
4:39 Für Elise (Beethoven)
5:14 The Pink Panther (Henry Mancini)
5:53 Bring Me to Life (Evanescence)
6:43 Cantina Band, from Star Wars (John Williams)
7:04 Piano Man (Billy Joel)
7:49 The Entertainer (Scott Joplin)
8:19 Prelude No. 1 in C (Bach)
8:45 To Zanarkand, from Final Fantasy X (Nobuo Uematsu)
9:20 Thank you & other videos!

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#piano #pianolessons #beginnerpiano #pianoprogress #1year #oneyearpianopractice #classicalmusicpiano #classicalpiano

[KyleinJapan]

**UPDATE** Thank you for helping me get to 1, 000 subscribers!!🙏

Thank you for more than 250, 000 views!! I am both humbled and excited to encourage and inspire so many of you! Here are some answers for the usual comments:
- Song #5 is "Bourrée in D minor" (Christoph Graupner)
- The app I used in this video is Flowkey.
- I have a new electric piano! A friend of mine will move and no longer needed the family's Casio PX-500L. It has weighted keys, and I have a sustain pedal.
- If you cringe at the bad posture in the video, my friend also gave me the stand and bench for the keyboard, so I can now play with a proper position.

Again, thank you so much for the support and kind words! I am practicing piano every day and I hope to have more videos soon!

Please also look forward to other videos I will make about hobbies and Japan!

[steelinyt]

This video reminds of few things
1. Consistency is the key to anything.
2. Practise makes anyone perfect.
3. Age is just a number.
Great work there. It inspires people like me to go beyond the limits. All the best ❤

[aacar]

Get the poor guy a sustain pedal! Seriously though, great job and keep it up!

[antarius]

It's a strange feeling to be proud of a complete stranger, but here we are. Lovely song choices, too! Keep practicing :)

[notcrazy]

I'm 46 years old, and learning the piano is next on my bucket list after finishing my master's. Thanks for showing me that it's not too late.

[sombojoe]

I practiced the intro to Pink Floyd’s song Wish You Were Here in guitar for a month, and I succeeded in making my entire family hate the most fabulous song ever written! :(

[ThatsPety]

Im more impressed by your unwavering consistency. Nice self discipline!

[ryanpennington]

Music teacher here--This is one of the first realistic one year's progress i've seen. Kudos! I think this is great given the time devoted to practice over a year. One thing I noticed that will serve you well- sometimes beginners have a habit of playing songs at uneven paces playing the easier parts fast and the difficult parts much slower. You manage to keep a nice steady pace throughout, even if it's a bit slow at times. The right pace to play a song is the pace you can play it at where it's consistent and where you can play accurately. It's sort of like weight lifting in that it's much better for development to lift at lower weights if your form is correct. Again, great job here!

[tontj]

Ending the video with To Zanarkand is actually amazing.

[demonhunter]

I love this. People to often give up learning music and you stuck to it. That's honestly huge!

[Toxicflu]

Those 30minutes every day makes a difference. 200 hours well spent! Congrats! You deserve the keyboard upgrade now!

[Karson]

Boy, when "To Zanarkand" popped up out of nowhere it hit me right in the feels like it always does. Great job, and congrats on the dedication.

[the_rocs_roost]

Great job! I've played piano for 35 years and given lessons for 20. It always does my heart good to see someone new take up this wonderful and rewarding instrument. You've inspired me to actually produce my own music for my YouTube channel. Thanks for a great video and for the inspiration.

[Korensun]

Bravo, you did in one year what most of us self taught people took 2-3 years!

[kimnari.]

that sounds beautiful! i can’t believe you self taught yourself all of that, amazing! keep it up👍

[omCi]

This is absolutely positively amazing. 👏👏👏

[TheWheatless]

Wonderful to watch. You have a lot to look forward to as you keep practicing and get a better setup!

[jasemase]

Kyle, great job. Amazing dedication. Wonderful results.

[captainkaiii]

Wow! You're doing incredible especially for just a year! Hats off to you brother.

[anthonygrossi]

Excellent progress for a 1 year beginner. Bach's Prelude in C is a level 5 piece, you should be proud of yourself! I've read the other comments, so I was hoping to offer something the others haven't. Now that you have developed your mechanical skill at physically playing the keyboard a fair bit, perhaps you may want to look at delving into music theory more. It's not required to play, but it will help you understand musical relationships and over time it will help with learning and acquisition of new pieces because you'll start learning common patterns that are made by musicians. Apart from that, it's quite helpful for someone to just say the name of a chord that might not be as commonplace in everyday playing and you know where on the keyboard to play it (Eg Ab 6/9 or Cm7b5). Keep up the great work Kyle