Can you teach yourself how to play the piano?

If you know the basics and you can read music, then you can start on collections with names like 'easy piano tunes'. It depends what's available at your local music shops. If it looks like the kind of music that you think you'd be able to play, get it. Then practise and get other piano players to comment. If you can't read music, you can play keyboard, but it would be very hard to learn to play classical piano. 5-6 years is a long time though. You'll probably remember a lot.

i did that. it was kind of hard but i did a lot of sight reading and easy piano books and got back into it.

I like using a software program that works by plugging my electronic keyboard into the computer, which makes it very easy.

Not the piano - but i learnt how to read music by myself - and then learnt how to play the guitar with books and also some material online and a little help from a friend. It wasn't too difficult to begin with - just have to put Alot of time aside to memorize some things and play them over and over...and over :) Just when it gets to the hard stuff i think it's easier to have a teacher teach you some tricks..or else just learn the hard way. Good luck! Also as Harold Saeng said it's best to learn the theory first.

i did that. it was kind of hard but i did a lot of sight reading and easy piano books and got back into it.

I like using a software program that works by plugging my electronic keyboard into the computer, which makes it very easy.