Video: what separates intermediate from beginner pianists
Pallas I have the same question! Did he have a sign on his back
I must admit I really dislike these types classifications based upon some technical exercise as per the original video. If someone can only play material considered beginner level, they are a beginner. If they fluently play immediate level stuff, they are an intermediate (solid amateur), same deal for advanced. Whether they can fluently play scales two hands together in all 12 keys makes them ..... someone good at playing scales.
If someone can't even sight read, does that automatically mean they are doomed to always be classified a 'beginner'. I'd sure like to be able to play as well as a certain 'beginner'.
Sydney Australia
Retired part-time piano technician
I'm also wondering which grades are intermediate and which are advanced.
It refers to a certain abstract level, but it makes sense why you would have certain goalposts along the way. For a while, I didn't really learn scales -- instead, I was improvising and playing by ear. Some people would ask me, but can you play this scale? And I would just be thinking that it was a stupid question, because even if I didn't play the Bb harmonic minor scale or something, it would take me a whole 30 minutes to learn, so there wasn't effectively that much difference.
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A few months ago I attended an amateur piano recital organized by a local piano group. It's specifically for learners who may have performed before want to gain more confidence playing for an audience. Any genre of music at any level welcome. The level varied from lower intermediate to advance.
I'd consider people who are comfortable playing a piece in public at any level to be intermediate. I know people who had taken lessons for a few years but uncomfortable playing in front of others. It's like telling me you pass your Gr. 3 conservatory exam but have nothing to show. A certificate on the wall is ok but I want to hear you play.
But not everybody wants to perform. I don't want to perform, does that mean I'm a beginner forever, even if I can play a grade 8 piece at home when I'm alone?
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Josephine But not everybody wants to perform.
Too right. Not everybody wants to perform or needs to perform.
Also ... I'm confident that anybody that has spent enough time on learning, developing, training in various aspects of piano and music will feel right at home on pretty much any piano.
Basically, it and music becomes a part of you, and the music is with you and can be generated by you one way or another on any piano, provided it works or mostly works.
And ... not that it actually matters, or at least not to myself ... I know that if one has developed to a particular stage ... people that see you play ... physically see you play will know that you know what you are doing, and music is in you. I just say it doesn't actually matter because I learn playing the piano for the love of piano and music. But I do like to share my music sometimes ... only to show some different sides of it, and that people can enjoy too.
It's a love of them thing (piano and music and sharing and maybe inspiring), and a fascination about how notes and sound can all combine in sequence from various different instruments to produce something so amazing ... so extraordinary. It's like a huge credit to the people that accumulatively came up with all these techniques and music throughout the times from the 'beginning' ... up to now ... and into the future. Amazing.
Also ... very importantly, no matter what level anybody is, we all had to start somewhere. And beginner area ... however that is defined, is indeed a special and wonderful area.
Interestingly, I always think of āintermediateā as a huge level with a vast internal range. IOW, thereās a big gap between the lower end of intermediate and the higher end. Whereas I donāt think that for beginnerā¦ that might not be a helpful way to think about it thoughā¦ dunno, just thinking out loud at breakfast thereā¦
ShiroKuro Interestingly, I always think of āintermediateā as a huge level with a vast internal range.
Well just to complicate the classification scheme a little more, recently finished reading the autobiography of Daniel Barenboim, 'A life in Music'. Somewhere in it he mentions his attempt at composing, quickly giving it away in frustration of not wanting to "add to all the bad music in the world" (it was something like that).
So who is the more 'advanced', the strong intermediate player who creates and plays fantastic arrangements, or the child prodigy recognized as one of the all time greats who strictly 'covers' other composers creations. Do we put the past greats Chopin, Beethoven, etc, etc on a pedestal for their playing ability, or their legacy of original compositions??
Sydney Australia
Retired part-time piano technician
JohnCW So who is the more 'advanced', the strong intermediate player who creates and plays fantastic arrangements, or the child prodigy recognized as one of the all time greats who strictly 'covers' other composers creations. Do we put the past greats Chopin, Beethoven, etc, etc on a pedestal for their playing ability, or their legacy of original compositions??
At this point, then, I think we would really have to add some parameters, and for example specific whether weāre talking about playing ability or composing. Because I donāt think it makes sense to attach the same labels (intermediate, advanced) to two different people based on different criteria. Say we end up labeling person A intermediate for their skillful playing and labeling person B intermediate for their compositions. They have the same label but for different accomplishments, so that label doesnāt help anything. IMO anyway.
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Not everybody feels performing in public needs to be part of learning. I have nothing against those who prefer to play in private. Personally I tend to have a bias towards students who can perform for a number of reasons.
In my school days I learned violin. The school was semi-private. At the end of the year the people in strings & band classes would perform in groups for the parents. Partly to show the students made progress and partly as a fundraising event for school supplies (more as an obligation). Only part of the funding came from the local govt through the school board.
The past decade I've been playing violin with a music group. I have musical friends who sang in a church choir. At a typical Christmas party we'd sing carols. Everybody is expected to participate. The majority who don't play an instrument would join in the singing.
In my teenage years I have gotten used to performing. Over the years I met Suzuki & Yamaha people who are required to perform in a year-end recital from 1 level to the next and people who passed conservatory levels but never performed except in front of their teachers.
People often say they'd practice a piece to a performance level but where do they perform? In front of their teachers. If someone can play a piece in front of a teacher, he/she should be able to do the same at home in front of a family member or friend. I don't mean in an auditorium with 50 or 100 people. Even being able to play the 1 song you really love.
About 5 years ago I was at a gathering. A mother asked her kids who learned piano and passed conservatory levels to play something. There was silence in the room (nobody volunteered). To be fair, nobody touched a piano after their last piano lesson /music exam years ago. There are people who treat piano playing like academic exercises. Some would only practice for a teacher. Once they stop taking lessons, the piano just sit at home like a piece of furniture. I play music for stress relief and always find interesting pieces to learn. The ones I played yesterday I'd be able to play on a public piano. Maybe not the whole song but at least a few lines which isn't too unreasonable.
2 years ago I heard 2 people who took piano / violin at a gathering. The teens passed their ABRSM-8 and played with a small ensemble. Grandma said they're talented and wanted them to play something. They both picked pieces their teachers assigned. My impression was that they have confidence performing in front of people but the ones they chose weren't super technical. Passing level 8 is already an accomplishment in itself.
We are all different from each other. I started playing because I love music, but I don't want to entertain people. I play the piano for me, not for someone else.
I haven't a clue what the "grades" are. When I first started taking lessons over a half century ago (dang, I'm feelin' old), I don't remember "grades" at all. My teacher had several books that she gave me to work on things but it was never going from beginning to end of any of them that I remember. And it came to a point where it wasn't "books" so much as individual pieces. I did have a book of Mozart sonatas but most were just individual pieces. Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, or perhaps Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1... but that kinda was a book all by itself. LOL!
Maybe my teachers were a little different, don't know. They generally put stuff in front of me and said "play it" and if I couldn't play it instantly, "learn it", which I would work on doing. And once a week, I'd have to play whatever part I was working on and they'd instruct based upon what I did that could be improved upon.
To some extend, I feel like I could have benefited from some more technical learning, various kinds of scales, more advance chord structures, various techniques, but I'm slowly trying to pick up some of that now to compliment what I do now that I've gone over to the dark side... jazz. LOL!!
"Intermediate" is how I see "old"... always exactly ten years ahead of me 
Beginner to advanced--it's a sliding scale, as always. A more meaningful (but hugely more complicated) descriptor would be to go through the major skills and say, for example, early intermediate at reading, late beginner at dynamics, beginner at pedaling and so forth. Probably nobody is at the same stage for every skill involved in piano playing.
thepianoplayer416 About 5 years ago I was at a gathering. A mother asked her kids who learned piano and passed conservatory levels to play something. There was silence in the room (nobody volunteered). To be fair, nobody touched a piano after their last piano lesson /music exam years ago. There are people who treat piano playing like academic exercises. Some would only practice for a teacher. Once they stop taking lessons, the piano just sit at home like a piece of furniture. I play music for stress relief and always find interesting pieces to learn. The ones I played yesterday I'd be able to play on a public piano. Maybe not the whole song but at least a few lines which isn't too unreasonable.
That's the thing. Everyone is different from each other. I feel that - regardless of how much piano anybody has played or learned it, and how much they take a break, no-one should be pressured into doing something that they don't want to do, not even performing for family members etc. What they have learned isn't wasted at all. The methods and techniques they did learn or absorb can be used in ways other than music too. Because it's the way of thinking, and body and mind control that can extend to things outside of music, as well as within music. It's interesting what the learning and development and becoming exposed to new things can do. But even then, even if they didn't learn various things, then that is ok too, because people should just be allowed to enjoy their life etc.
High-five my friends! That's the beauty of a place like this. There is room for all - people who want to become nothing short of the best. I wish you all the luck in the world to get there. I will cheer you on all the way! And the casual players who like to spend a few minutes each week to brush up on their Chopsticks. I like Chopsticks, so go for it.
It's all good really - and that is why I am enjoying this new forum so much. I hope this "Insert Method/ Style/ Technique/ Grading/ Practice/ Schedule/ Returner Adult/ Child Prodigy X is better than Fill-in-the-Blanks Y because I said so" never makes in into this place 
It's what makes us unique for now... yay!
JohnCW If someone can't even sight read, does that automatically mean they are doomed to always be classified a 'beginner'. I'd sure like to be able to play as well as a certain 'beginner'.
Good point. Michael Jackson was a lifetime beginner musician, then. I mean, he could not even read notes, which makes him a bloody beginner. 
ranjit Yes, their argument was that it was wasteful for beginners to learn that theory and that it served no practical purpose. I think it helped me when I was a beginner, because I finally understood what chords meant, how they could be substituted for one another, etc.
I've come across this too at some other forums (piano and bass). To be clear, I think it's just fine if someone doesn't want to learn theory, but sometimes they go a bit far in claiming that it has no value. (How would they know? ... )
Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.
WieWaldi Michael Jackson was a lifetime beginner musician, then. I mean, he could not even read notes, which makes him a bloody beginner
The particular person I have in mind is my current favorite player, Katherine Cordova. As far as YouTube popular music players go, I think she is unsurpassed. Self taught, and can't sight read (not sure who does where commercial for sale scores). By the criteria the initial video presented, she is probably a 'beginner'. But the reality is if anyone looks at the extensive body of her work, her skill at presenting the 'emotion' of the piece (this is where I believe she excels), and her playing itself, she is an advanced player by any standard.
Sydney Australia
Retired part-time piano technician