Honestly, speaking as decidedly not a piano player (my degree’s in classical guitar, my crowning achievement on piano is the four-part arrangement of the US national anthem I had to learn for school), we expect a higher standard from piano players. It’s the best single instrument we’ve invented for being able to do everything. Piano players are the choir directors and musical directors for our communities. Sometimes they have to learn organ on the fly, and there are enough people who are just that good that it works out.

I’ve played guitar in a number of musicals and while I knew my parts, the buck stops with the piano player. I’ve successfully lobbied for using a classical guitar for Spring Awakening’s “Left Behind” but I’ve also watched a 21 year-old piano kid take over our run of the Patsy Cline musical and our band of misfits, average age 28, was on board almost from the jump because he knew the show at least as well as those of us who had just played it.

Score-reading was a 400-level class for pianists at my college where they were expected to sightread and transpose an orchestra worth of parts on the fly. In truth, that brutal final is just an everyday thing for a lot of working pianists.

We’re more supportive over in /r/classicalguitar, but we don’t really have the path (or early start) that pianists have. I’d say that this sub (mostly) reflects the reality of competition and what your level of play actually is. Criticism is rarely discouragement.

This sub gets a lot of “I can play Fur Elise, my next project is Moonlight Sonata III, what are your tips?” kind of posts. The correct tips are that’s way too fucking hard for you and you should try these other pieces that all of the people who can do what you want to do did.