Player1 The one thing that stands out above all the others is that a classically trained pianist can play all the musical genres while those pianists which studied under another method cannot.
That touches on something important - to me, which is to never assume that a person cannot start in one area first, followed by expanding into another area. Objectives can be achieved in various or many ways.
One trained person in anything is generally different from another. They often may think similarly in some areas, and differently in other areas. And different in potentials.
And a lot of people are seen to start treating piano and piano playing like many other things ... such as my group is better than your group. This type of piano is better than that. This technique makes for a 'superior' piano player. This style of music is better than that. And I'm so up myself etc. That's for example the sort of thing we do see in piano circles. I think a lot of people are aware of it. It is still part of nature though. Some human or society nature. And a discussion about it could start up on it in a general forums section later.
It can be assumed that from where-ever a set of techniques start ... techniques and methods exist, and they will develop. And as we have seen with our eyes ... or heard with our ears or hearing system, we get variety when various people go their own ways, and techniques are involved. The interesting and spectacular and special thing in music and piano etc ... is variety.
And ... many people can't foresee where they will go or end up in their life ... such as their exact career pathways etc, let alone where they will go or end up in piano.
So I'm just thinking ... if it's not going ruin us in terms of career pathway where piano is not involved, or no highly-focused desire to play every single bit of piano music etc ever written/performed or to be written/performed, then just get in there and start where anyone wants.
And because we have internet etc, everyone is much more informed about their options ... as in being able to access more information and examples and tutorials etc, as compared with times before high speed internet with video and search engines etc.
"I want to learn piano, but not classical piano. I have no interest in classical piano, I just want to learn [insert non-classical genre here] piano. Any advice?"
Of course ... internet tutorials on piano playing, and learn a bit first. And build up on the skills from there. Options will be to talk to professional teachers to teach the finger exercises and skills, and listening skills, and reading skills. And translation skills ... for playing what melody and/or chord pitches in your mind on the piano ... translating directly to the keys etc. Volume and pitch etc. And preferably some music theory that may help with generating your own music at some level that satisfies you. And tell the teacher that you want to be set up for the sort of music you want to be playing ..... so that they know what workbooks and exercises to put you on.
In any case ... hand and finger independence, and translating mind pitches to keys, and some loud/soft control, and hand/fingers control (flow, rhythm, etc) is a fair bit to work on. And counting can be important in many cases ... but not necessarily essential. And some people automatically or naturally have their own internal beat mechanism in their brain for music, as musical flow can and does come naturally to people. Or they understand for themselves that timing and flow can be important. Not always though ... depends on what sort of 'music' we're dealing with.