Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/82384/

Mostly I agree with Yellow that doing something will help you improve on it. But as much as I hate scales, I think that practicing them with the proper fingering is very beneficial! Also, it depends on what you want to improve. If you want to improve sightreading, you can't just play willy-nilly. You have to choose a tempo and stick to it while ignoring mistakes. I think if I were serious about it I might buy something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Improve-Your-Sigh ... XWGBSJ5GY6 but honestly the hymnbook provides plenty of opportunities to practice sightreading.

</end rant>

I was surprised that the question asker said they had mediocre piano skills but said they could play most of the hymns with practice. That doesn't qualify as mediocre in my book, hymns are hard!

The Happy Medium wrote:I was surprised that the question asker said they had mediocre piano skills but said they could play most of the hymns with practice. That doesn't qualify as mediocre in my book, hymns are hard!

I suppose it all depends on context. I can sightread almost all of the hymns in the hymn book—I'd need a little practice to play something like "The Wintry Day"—but I don't consider myself a great pianist. However, there are a lot of musicians in my extended family, including a couple of professional classical musicians, so I think I end up taking them as the standard and being harder on myself, by comparison.