I’ve got an answer that works. Here’s the short story:
As a child, I went down the traditional, “classical” path too - and failed miserably.
Abandoning piano entirely out of sheer frustration. After hours and hours of decoding those horrible lines-and-dots-on-paper, having boring exercises crammed down my throat while never seeing any exciting progress.
I still didn’t sound like my favorite tunes AT ALL - just like you..?
Then, years later, I asked a guitarist friend of mine - who could literally play dozens of songs by heart - how ON EARTH he was able to do that, without needing any sheet music!?
When he told me “you just need to know your chords!” - this got me thinking.
What if I could play “guitar chords” on piano? Was piano really so different...?
Turns out it’s not.
After figuring out how to translate these “guitar chords” to the piano and how to turn them into flowing, moving, grooving piano parts by adding “patterns” (pretty much like those strums and plucks that guitarists use) not only was I suddenly able to learn dozens, even hundreds of my favorite tunes REALLY fast (and play them by heart), but also: I actually sounded like the original records!
Turns out this is actually the “secret” that pro “pop” (think singer-songwriters like Elton John, Billie Joel, Stevie Wonder, Jamie Cullum, Norah Jones, d'Angelo, Ben Folds, Chris Martin -Coldplay-, Tom Odell, Bruce Hornsby, Paul McCartney, John Legend, Alicia Keys etc.) players use to sound the way they do (and enables them even to play tunes on the piano, that are originally played on a guitar!).
After this exact method got me into the Conservatory after just 4 years of playing, I figured I needed to create a framework out of it to teach people that there is a better way to learn piano.
So I worked really hard to create a system that makes learning piano (and actually understanding music) really simple.
I started testing this system on my students and - although they all had the same amazing experience as I had - because they had to come see me in person to learn it, they were also each paying me a premium of $8000+ per year..
Another downside was that my limited time allowed me to help only a few students at a time. Then I had an idea:
“What if I deconstruct my entire approach the way it had helped me deconstruct music, then write down and film every step of the way?”
“What if I could create an experience that would be virtually the same as having me there at the piano in person...
...explaining every little nuance to sounding like the big artists - the Eltons, the Billies, the Stevies...
...that could help many more people learn my exact approach, in their very own tempo, on their own schedule...
...and that I could offer for only a fraction of the costs?”