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> My New Year's Resolution in 2019 was to learn the piano. Key to success is building mental representations of music and the keyboard. Increasingly, I do this by playing pieces on my mental piano

As a correct pianist (lots of classical study, and sometimes I am paid to play in bars), this seems very weird to me. I don't see how doing this could be any useful for learning, it seems like a waste of effort.

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I would say 90% of the struggle of my learning to play piano was developing the correct muscle memory for the right motions for the right measures of the right song.

The academic "Can I read and understand this sheet music?" is maybe 10%.

It's possible if you put in the decades required to build up all the muscle memory needed for any song you might need to play (or you are a virtuoso), in which case reading and understanding the sheet music may be 90+% of your "practice time"... but the most accomplished pianists I know of still have to practice (with their hands) consistently.

I think mental practice (e.g. visualizing yourself playing in the place you will perform next day, going through the sheet music consciously noting your intent and possible difficulties, or memorizing complex passages without the keyboard etc.) is a great complement to actual physical practice. It's no substitute, but at least it can be done basically anywhere.

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