Hey everyone, hope your day is going well. I’ll try to keep the story short.

I’m a beginner pianist, playing for about 6 months so far. I practice around 2–3 hours a day and take two weekly lessons (with two different teachers, one lesson with each every week).

So far I’ve been learning piano mostly through repertoire. I started with learning to read music. Nowadays I can read treble clef quite well, not fully automatic yet but definitely getting there. Bass clef is still slower, I can read it but it takes me a bit of time to locate the notes.

Later I moved into learning some scales (C, G, D, A) and basic music theory — mostly intervals, chord functions, the major scale formula (half step, whole step), key signatures, chord inversions ( a bit), 12 bar blues structure, time signatures etc.

With one of my teachers I’m learning basic blues and starting some jazz. We just finished Martha Mier’s Jazz, Rags & Blues Book 1 and I even managed to learn a pretty demanding boogie-woogie left-hand pattern with some cool right-hand licks. We’ve also worked on some basic jazz and samba forms like Blue Bossa, Autumn Leaves, and Deixa Eu Dizer, and now we’re working on Fly Me to the Moon introducing me to chord voicing instead of using a whole 7 chord just taking the 3rd and 7th for tone and adding additional color if needed…

With my second teacher I’m learning mostly pieces that I personally want to play, things that motivate me… So far I’ve learned some Einaudi pieces like Una Mattina and I Giorni, Sadness and Sorrow (Piano Squall arrangement) and some songs and chord accompaniments in my native language Right now I’m working on River Flows in You..

At first we tried the “go-to method” of following a graded book like ABRSM and learning pieces from there but honestly it was painful and way too boring for me. I sat at the piano and felt like quitting. Once we switched to learning pieces I actually liked everything changed. I suddenly found myself sitting down to practice and an hour would pass without me noticing. Sometimes even two hours go by before I realize it.

I have tried to push myself too far at times before for example, I attempted Canon in D and managed to learn the first 10–15 bars but I realized quick enough it was above my current level and decided to stop and not brute force it and waste precious time.

What I’m noticing is that the best way for me to stay consistent and improve is by expanding my repertoire and learning pieces, That’s what keeps me motivated…

However, I often see people say this approach is not recommended, that it’s like learning to sing songs in a language you don’t fully understand. I get the idea behind that comparison.

So my question is:

Does learning primarily through repertoire look like a legitimate path for long-term improvement?

Also, I’ve noticed that some pieces I learned months ago are already fading away from memory perhaps because I didn’t “maintain” them. Is that normal at this stage?

I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences and opinions.

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Learning piano by repertoire