Real Piano Skills Matter More to Me Than Passing Another Exam

Many students and parents end up framing piano study around one question — what grade will we sit next? Practice then narrows to drilling exam pieces and memorising scales and arpeggios. After thirty years of teaching and examining, I've seen this approach again and again, and it tends to make the learning narrower, not deeper.

I've always believed that the point of learning the piano isn't to get through one exam. It's to build the underlying skills that support every kind of playing. Those skills aren't fully covered by the ABRSM Grade 1–5 syllabus. They have to be built lesson by lesson, practice session by practice session.

Every Lesson Starts With These Three Foundations

These three areas aren't just for the sight-reading and aural sections of the exam. They're what allow a student to genuinely understand rhythm, read music, and listen to what they're playing.

Rhythm: Giving the Music a Stable Backbone

Rhythm is more than counting beats. It's about learning to control time precisely and steadily — sensing the stress, breath and pulse of different rhythmic patterns. Once a student's rhythmic sense is solid, no piece falls apart. They stop rushing, dragging or losing the pulse.

Sight-Reading: Beyond Just Pieces You've Drilled

Many students can only play pieces they've drilled dozens of times. Hand them a new score and they panic — that's a sight-reading gap. I insist that students meet new music every single day, training them to recognise patterns quickly and read ahead phrase by phrase. The goal is the ability to read and learn new repertoire independently, not just to repeat what the teacher walks them through.

Listening: Hearing Your Own Playing

The aural test on an exam is only a small slice of real listening. What actually matters is that while playing, students can hear their own intonation, tone colour and dynamic contrast — that they hear the melodic line and harmonic shifts, and can judge whether their own sound is musical and connected. That sensitivity of the ear is the prerequisite for playing anything well.

Technique: Not Just Scales — Playing the Right Way

I don't treat scales and arpeggios as exam items to be checked off. I treat them as a vehicle for training the fingers, wrist and overall muscular coordination. Real piano technique comes down to:

• Fingers that are strong and independent — not relying on the wrist swinging around to help

• A wrist that stays relaxed and flexible, adjusting to different registers rather than locking up

• Two hands that don't just stay in sync, but understand which hand carries the melody and which accompanies — balancing and supporting each other

Without these foundations, fast scales and well-drilled pieces are just mechanical repetition. Over time, that kind of practice can even cause injury.

Only Then Comes Repertoire and Style

Once rhythm, sight-reading, listening and technique are in place, I move students into repertoire across different styles. Whether it's exam pieces, competition pieces, or works from different eras and composers, the goal isn't just to play the notes correctly. It's to understand the character of each style, how emotion is expressed, and how the music should be shaped.

Something I notice often: students will focus hard on practising a single piece, but rarely listen to recordings of comparable works. If you're learning a Mozart sonata and have never heard a great performance of one, it's almost impossible to grasp the style and atmosphere of the music.

On their own, students don't usually know where to begin when it comes to appreciating or analysing a performance. So in lessons, I sit with them, score in hand, and we listen to recordings together. I walk them through the content of the piece, unpack the performer's choices, and call out which details are worth studying and which aren't appropriate to imitate yet. This kind of guided listening is a real part of musical analysis.

This accumulation is what turns a student from someone who plays the notes into someone who plays the music.

Real Playing Needs Both Legs

I often say that learning an instrument well is like walking — you need both legs, and you can't skip either one.

The first leg is a solid foundation: the rhythm, listening, sight-reading and technique work above. Build those properly and your playing has stable ground to stand on.

The second leg is musical feeling and perception. That comes from regularly listening to many kinds of music, slowly growing a rich imagination and creative voice — the thing that gives a performance its soul.

Throughout that whole journey, the piano teacher's guidance matters enormously. A teacher who patiently helps students build their foundation, learn to appreciate music, and discover their own musical instincts is what allows a student to go further, and more steadily.

Learning the piano was never meant to be a sprint chasing certificates. It's a musical journey that lasts a lifetime. When a student has a strong foundation and knows how to feel music, they can move through exams, competitions, casual playing and unfamiliar repertoire with the same calm confidence. More than a grade certificate, what I really want for every one of my students is for them to genuinely love music — and to carry the playing ability and musical taste that will serve them for the rest of their life.