The questionnaire below is not a test of musical aptitude. It is designed to make you think very carefully about what you expect from this training. The PlayPianoFluently approach is unlike conventional musicianship education to such an extent that it can seem rather esoteric. Whilst I am keen for many people to try using this simple model of musical language, it is advisable to check that your motivation and learning expectations are aligned before committing to anything.

If you score over 75%, you will probably find this approach rewarding. Scoring less than this does not necessarily mean that PlayPianoFluently will never work well for you but you will need to challenge many preconceptions, before you start or as you go along. I would advise reading through the website copy and watching the free videos carefully again

Am I suited to this approach?

1 / 30

1. I want to play the piano using the accepted standards of classical or jazz music education.

2 / 30

2. The ability to make objectively good musical choices that are tasteful or right according to musical standards is far more important than just the feeling the music expresses.

3 / 30

3. There are no good or bad ideas: it is the feeling expressed that makes it good music.

4 / 30

4. In verbal language, understanding colloquial idioms is an important part of fluency whereas in music, we must say things only in the proper way.

5 / 30

5. Freely improvising simple music or patterns is a better way to practise than executing prescribed music or exercises correctly.

6 / 30

6. Drilling repetitive exercises is the key to success, so I must be OK with this.

7 / 30

7. Good practice is really just disciplined fun!

8 / 30

8. Doing lots of repetitive drilling of musical patterns or rehearsing set pieces plays no part in fluency training.

9 / 30

9. Discipline or focus is the main challenge: finding the freedom to be expressive comes naturally and is not be an important part of my training.

10 / 30

10. Working on finding the freedom to be expressive plays a large part in practising fluency.

11 / 30

11. Expressive, playful freedom and following a clear disciplined path are both important for fluency - one does not matter more than the other.

12 / 30

12. Discipline is the most important thing to practise, expressive freedom comes naturally once you understand clearly how music works.

13 / 30

13. Discovering how to be musically free and playful is far more important than following a strict disciplined path in this approach.

14 / 30

14. I do not need to study dense, challenging, academic ideas about how music works in order to become fluent in the language of music.

15 / 30

15. It is not necessary to study pieces of classical, jazz or other challenging styles in order to become fluent.

16 / 30

16. If I like the way someone plays a piece of music, I want to be able to copy them, to do all the same expressive and technical things to produce good results in the same way.

17 / 30

17. I want to create musical patterns that I understand, expressing myself freely and naturally rather than try to produce objectively good results.

18 / 30

18. An understanding of what makes music sound good is not important, if I express myself with honesty, I can trust that the results will be musical regardless.

19 / 30

19. I prefer the PlayPianoFluently approach because I won't have to study how to be creative, I will just practise making up musical patterns with clear understanding and natural, expressive spontaneity.

20 / 30

20. I prefer the PlayPianoFluently approach because it will be rather like a creative writing course, and I want to study ways of generating more exciting musical ideas.

21 / 30

21. Fluent musicianship is only possible if I understand how to execute difficult passages with correct technical understanding.

22 / 30

22. A fluent musician plays automatically without needing to grasp the structure or pattern of the music consciously.

23 / 30

23. A fluent musician fully grasps the structure or pattern of the music and creates this pattern consciously rather than unconsciously.

24 / 30

24. Fluency is just the ability to play without mistakes or hesitations, flowingly, musically and most importantly completely automatically, using the body’s muscle-memory.

25 / 30

25. Musical language is actually quite simple.

26 / 30

26. It is more important to learn how to make music sound good, according to objective measurable standards, rather making music in a way that just feels natural and good to me.

27 / 30

27. Understanding musical language requires a grasp of complex theoretical ideas and I want to study hard to understand them.

28 / 30

28. Playing in a way that feels naturally expressive is more important than playing according to technical or academic principles.

29 / 30

29. I don't want to play the piano in a way that requires active mental discipline, I only want to do it naturally and practise until I can play completely unconsciously.

30 / 30

30. In your own spoken style, in as many or as few words as you like - explain why musical fluency training interests you so much more than conventional musical training.

Your score is

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