This is only my opinion. I took piano for one year when age 10. I quit when a town hoodlum said it was sissy. Bad mistake. However, wanting to practice was a chore. Standard teaching methods. I know basics are good and all that but man, boring.

Decades later I decide I want to jump in again. Forgot all I ever learned. Bought a Yam psr740. It intimidated me. Where to start? It sat there for a year and I just kept banging on guitar.

One day, an epiphany. I thought "If I could play chords like I can on guitar, I should be able to make music." That, my friend, is the key to playing piano, IMO. That's it. THE key.

I read up on basic theory. How chords are comprised. (Which I had never learned and I'd played guitar for decades.) In two weeks, I was making all kinds of music.

I know I need to learn scales so I can play melodies more readily but chords, that's the key.

David Sudnow has a course you can buy. I'm not touting him but he makes a lot of sense. Which is to say that traditional method of teaching is absolute b.s. That 99% of everybody will never learn how to play by ear. Unless they learn to play by ear.

I recognize the value of being able to read. But playing by ear is more important to most people. Sudnow says you can develop it. He says just about anyone can. I dunno.