A famous musician, I don't remember his name, once commented that Rachmaninoff practiced playing so slowly. I'm a complete amateur at the piano, but it's amazing what you can learn by taking things in tiny little bites. It took me a long time to learn Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op 23 #4, but I finally got it, and I can play it at the proper tempo. What I do is learn one measure at a time; just one. I play it till it's down pat.

The next day I play that measure a few times, and then I go back and play what I know from the beginning of the piece until the measure I just learned. I then go to the next measure. I'm now about 3/4 of the way learning the Prelude Op 23 #6, and I continue to play #4 to keep it in my head.

I'll never be a concert pianist, but it is absolutely heavenly to be able to play a difficult piece of music relatively well.

I've published about 10 books. The first one took me 10 years. The last one took a few months. I'm not an English major, and English isn't even my first language. Practice, practice, practice. Persistence pays.