There's this guy on YouTube. You probably know who I mean. Plays insane covers of pop songs. Hands flying everywhere. Makes it look effortless. Has like three million subscribers.
I used to watch his videos religiously. For "inspiration." That's what I told myself anyway.
Really, I was torturing myself.
I'd watch him play some incredibly complex arrangement, then sit down at my keyboard and struggle through basic chord progressions. The gap between what I was watching and what I could do felt like the Grand Canyon. Made me feel like a fraud even calling myself a piano player.
This went on for months. Watch amazing pianist. Feel terrible about my playing. Lose motivation. Practice less. Watch more videos. Feel even worse. Downward spiral.
The breaking point came when I caught myself thinking "what's even the point?" I'd been playing for a year and couldn't do what these people on YouTube could do. Never would be able to, probably. Why keep trying?
That thought scared me. I'd found something I genuinely loved and comparison was killing it.
So I did something drastic: I unsubscribed from every piano channel. Stopped watching covers entirely. Cold turkey. For three months, I didn't watch a single piano video that wasn't specifically a tutorial for something I was learning.
And here's what happened: I started enjoying piano again.
Without the constant reminder of how "behind" I was, I could actually appreciate my own progress. That chord transition I'd been working on for two weeks? Cool, I got it. That song I'd finally memorized? Felt like an achievement instead of "yeah but this YouTuber could learn it in an hour."
I also realized something important: those videos are highlight reels. Nobody posts their practice sessions. Nobody shows the four hundred times they messed up before nailing that take. The effortless performance you see is the polished final product of thousands of hours you don't see. Berklee has written about this – mastery takes way longer than social media suggests.
Comparing your practice session to their performance is like comparing your rough draft to someone's published novel. It's not a fair comparison. It's not even the same thing.
Now I do watch some piano content again, but differently. I watch tutorials when I need to learn something specific – my guide to using YouTube tutorials covers how to actually learn from them. But I don't watch for "inspiration" anymore. That was code for self-flagellation.
My benchmark now is past me. Can I play something today that I couldn't play six months ago? Yes? Cool. Progress. That's all that matters.
If you're caught in the comparison trap, try a break. Not forever – just long enough to remember why you started playing in the first place. It probably wasn't to become a YouTube star. It was because you wanted to make music. Focus on that.
The motivation stuff I wrote about covers more on this, but honestly? Just unsubscribe for a while. See how you feel. You might be surprised.
You're not behind. You're on your own timeline. And that timeline is exactly where it should be.