If you are learning to play the piano by reading the written music and not by chords, then I think it is very important to try and get the notes and the timing learned at the same time from the outset. Even though I have had piano students debate this point with me, I think that it is still the way to go.
When students have debated with me on this topic and they think it would be easier to learn all the notes first and then put in the timing. I can certainly see where they are coming from . It would appear to be easier to get one element of the piece learned before tackling another element. But what people don’t understand is that failing to work on the timing as well as the notes from the outset, is actually making it harder for the student in the long run.
The reason why learning the timing after the notes have been learned is actually making more work for the piano student is that when you play the notes, you have timing, even though this is completely unintentional. Let me explain. Whenever you play a bunch of notes, you will naturally play some of them shorter than others and others much longer than others because you are trying to read and find the notes. Unfortunately, this is putting a certain timing to those notes and in a short time, this becomes habit. Presuming that you have just learned the notes of a piece, your natural timing that you have used to learn the notes is entrenched, so you either adapt the music to your way of playing it (which usually doesn’t sound the way it is supposed to sound) or you try and correct it and because you have the wrong timing entrenched, it makes the job of learning the correct timing so much more difficult.
I have heard it so many times myself and even though it might not be exactly true, it is certainly in the ball park – that it takes three times the effort to correct a mistake than to get it right from the outset. The reason behind this is you need to fix something is that you need to first unlearn something before you can relearn and then have the correct way cemented in your brain. This is so much more work than getting the timing right from the outset.
You can ignore my advice if you choose, that is your prerogative, but especially if you are trying to relearn playing the piano and you are doing it without a teacher, please develop the discipline to learn both notes and timing together from the outset – you will save yourself so much time in the long run.
Just as a final word, us piano teachers know all the shortcuts. We have played the piano for many years and we have taught a number of students. We know the most efficient ways of learning and we know what supposed short cuts are really long diversions. If you have a piano teacher, trust them and what they tell you. If you don’t understand why they get you to do something that you don’t understand, just ask them.