Contents
- Adult music learning statistics: who makes music?
- Piano and electronic-keyboard participation
- Where adults encounter music-making
- Learning routes and adult music lessons
- Practice and music-making context
- Reading adult music learning statistics carefully
- Sources
Adult music learning statistics: who makes music?
Adult music learning statistics often measure different things: making music as a current hobby, playing an instrument, or having learned an instrument at any point in life. Those measures should not be treated as interchangeable. Together, however, they offer a useful view of adult participation and experience.
In a survey conducted in Germany from November 30, 2024, to January 7, 2025, 18% of residents aged 16 and older said they made music in their free time. The report estimates that this represents 12.4 million people. Among those adult amateur musicians, 79% played a musical instrument. That 79% describes people already identified as amateur musicians; it is not the share of all German adults who play.
Within this group of adult amateur musicians, instrument-playing was reported by 87% of men and 72% of women. The survey also showed a difference by age: the share ranged from 86% among amateur musicians aged 16–29 to 73% among those aged 60 and older. By socioeconomic group, it ranged from 68% in the low group to 90% in the high group.
A separate comparison looks at who makes music as a hobby in the first place. Among German residents aged 16 and older, 25% of people in higher socioeconomic classes were amateur musicians, compared with 12% of those in lower classes. These figures describe survey groups and do not establish why participation differs.
Source: Amateur music-making in Germany: Results of a representative survey of the population aged 6 and over, report summary, section 3.1, and Figure 6.
Piano and electronic-keyboard participation
Piano is a notable part of adult amateur music-making in Germany. In the 2024 survey, 24% of German amateur musicians aged 16 and older played piano. The instrument question allowed multiple answers, so piano players could also be counted among people who played other instruments. Electronic piano, keyboard, or synthesizer was played by 12% of adult amateur musicians.
The same report found a gender difference in piano participation within the adult amateur-musician group: 29% of women and 18% of men played piano regularly or occasionally. For electronic keyboard instruments, the reported shares were 18% of men and 7% of women. These are participation figures among adult amateur musicians, not population-wide rates.
A U.S. YouGov survey offers a different measure: lifetime experience. Among 3,000 U.S. adult citizens surveyed from June 2 to July 4, 2022, 29% said they had learned piano at some point in life, formally or informally, whether or not they still played. Nine percent had learned electric piano. The piano figure was 37% among adults aged 65 and older, compared with 27% in each of the 18–29, 30–44, and 45–64 age groups. By gender, 38% of women and 20% of men said they had learned piano.
Those lifetime figures cannot be read as current participation. Someone who took lessons years ago and no longer plays still counts. In the same YouGov research, 66% of U.S. adult citizens said they had learned to play some musical instrument at some point in life. Among respondents who had never learned an instrument, half said they wished they had.
| Measure | Finding | Population and meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Played piano | 24% | German adult amateur musicians, 2024 |
| Played electronic piano, keyboard, or synthesizer | 12% | German adult amateur musicians, 2024 |
| Had learned piano at some point | 29% | U.S. adult citizens, 2022; current playing not required |
| Had learned electric piano at some point | 9% | U.S. adult citizens, 2022; current playing not required |
Sources: German amateur music-making survey, section 3.2 and Figure 8; YouGov Musical Instrument Experiences crosstabs, Table 1; Younger Americans are increasingly exposed to playing music and a wider range of instruments.
Where adults encounter music-making
Adult amateur musicians in Germany named several places and people through which they first encountered music-making. In the 2024 survey, 37% said school, 36% cited a choir, orchestra, musical association, or ensemble, and 30% named a friend or family member. Respondents could select multiple answers, so these percentages do not form parts of a single total.
Formal instruction appeared alongside those community and personal routes. Nineteen percent said they first encountered music-making in a municipal or public music school, while 25% named a self-employed private music teacher. Eighteen percent said they first taught themselves using books or experimentation, and 12% cited videos, apps, or similar tools. Five percent named an adult education centre.
These results describe routes into music-making among people who became adult amateur musicians. They do not show which route is most effective, nor do they measure how many adults currently use a particular learning format.
Source: German amateur music-making survey, Figure 27, p. 34. Multiple answers were possible.
Learning routes and adult music lessons
Lesson-taking figures depend on who is counted and what time period is covered. In Germany, 13% of adult amateur musicians said they had taken voice or instrument lessons during the 12 months before the 2024 survey. Eleven percent took instrumental lessons and 4% took voice lessons; some people took both, so the categories overlap. Among female adult amateur musicians, 16% took instrumental lessons, compared with 5% of men.
In the United States, the 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts found that 3.8% of adults had learned music through classes or lessons during the 12 months ending July 2022. This is a national adult measure for the reference year, not a piano-specific rate. It also captures a different population and question from the German figure, which is limited to adult amateur musicians.
The YouGov lifetime-learning survey helps describe how piano learners said they learned. Of U.S. adult citizens who had learned piano, 60% said lessons or a class were their main route, 21% said someone taught them informally, and 19% described themselves as self-taught. Among piano learners aged 65 and older, 77% named lessons or a class. These answers refer to the main route for learning at some point in life, not necessarily a current learning arrangement.
Electric-piano learners reported a different distribution in the same survey: 50% said they were self-taught, and 23% said lessons or a class were their main route. The unweighted bases were 235 electric-piano learners and 889 piano learners, so the two instrument groups also differ in size. The results suggest that formal lessons and self-teaching both feature in reported experience, but they do not tell us which pathway people prefer today.
Sources: German amateur music-making survey, section 4.3 and Figure 17; 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts: Highlights, Figure 13; YouGov crosstabs, Tables 8A and 8B.
Practice and music-making context
Among German adult amateur musicians who played an instrument, 83% said they also made music at home or at private events with family and friends. Music-making was not limited to a group venue. Across adult amateur musicians, 42% reported making music multiple times a week in 2024. This is a frequency measure for music-making, not a count of individual practice sessions or a piano-specific practice rate.
Time was the most frequently reported challenge in the German survey: 54% of adult amateur musicians identified finding enough time to practice or rehearse. Other reported challenges included staying motivated when progress was not apparent (22%) and finding fellow musicians (17%). Four percent cited difficulty finding a practice space, and 3% identified high costs for lessons, instruments, or equipment. Respondents could identify multiple challenges.
The low share citing cost as a challenge sits alongside an average annual expense figure: German adult amateur musicians reported spending an average of €192 per year on music-making in 2024. An average does not describe the range of individual spending, and the report does not isolate piano or keyboard expenses. Together, these findings describe practical conditions for a broad group of adult hobby musicians; they do not establish the costs or practice patterns of adult piano learners specifically.
Source: German amateur music-making survey, sections 4.2, 4, and 5 summary; Figures 11 and 19.
Reading adult music learning statistics carefully
The available findings point to several distinct dimensions of adult music learning: current hobby participation, instrument-playing among hobby musicians, lifetime piano experience, recent lesson-taking, and reported learning routes. Each denominator matters. For example, a lifetime piano-learning share includes former players, while an instrument-playing share among amateur musicians excludes adults who do not identify as hobby musicians.
The evidence here supports comparisons within the reported surveys, such as piano and electronic-keyboard participation in Germany or the learning routes reported by U.S. piano learners. It does not establish a single current adult piano-learning rate across countries, or a specific rate for digital-piano practice. Keeping those limits visible makes the statistics more useful for understanding how adults encounter music, learn instruments, and fit music-making into everyday life.
Sources
- Amateur music-making in Germany: Results of a representative survey of the population aged 6 and over
- YouGov Survey: Musical Instrument Experiences (June 2–July 4, 2022)
- Younger Americans are increasingly exposed to playing music and a wider range of instruments (2022)
- Arts Participation Patterns in 2022: Highlights from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts