brdwyguy I've noticed a 'common' thread in most of the stories
Has anyone else NOTICED that most of us were taught, maybe even slightly 'forced' into playing/learning piano.
And then we all stopped playing, for some, years, for some, even decades - but we all RETURNED to playing once again.?
In general there might be a pattern! For me - a bit different. My folks just wanted to give us a way to develop our brain or something, and maybe build up a bit of self-esteem and confidence. Basically some sort of development. I'm super glad and happy that they did get me to piano lessons with a local teacher, who is no longer 'with us' for quite a while now - but I can say she is an excellent person. Excellent. She was my only piano teacher (as in formal lessons teacher, as I had always said that we also learn from the teachers that wrote books and made video lessons, and wrote/composed music that taught me directly and indirectly - even listening to or looking at compositions had people teaching us something). She started me off with piano. It was great.
And because I just love music - no matter what, and just love pianos of any sort --- I just keep learning and playing. I have never taken a break from playing piano in my whole life. Actually - the only times - which isn't a 'break' as such, is when I'm on holidays - as in traveling - away from home. That's when I don't play any piano. And that's fine, as we have developed to a stage where the music is in us. And we just need the music in us in order to then generate the music whenever we get to hop on a piano next - at any time.
Also .... importantly, people returning to playing piano after a relatively long time ... that is excellent.
What a delightful thread! I can't believe I missed it until now. I'm still trying to get used to not having to stay in just the adult kiddie corner any longer
I guess my story is rather short, because there really isn't much to tell. I grew up in an artistic family. One of my aunts was a ballerina, another a piano/harpsichord teacher, my uncle artist/painter, my dad a clarinettist/teacher/world champion harmonica, my mom violinist/pianist, etc. From a very young age I realized that I could probably never match any of them, so why even bother. I stubbornly refused to learn any instrument seriously - though I did enjoy noodling around at the piano or guitar every now and then.
Of course I was silly enough to marry into a family of artists because why stop at putting up with just my own family being artistic, right? On my husband's side I could add professional stage and film actors, playwright, opera singer, pipe major/flamenco guitarist, organ builder, famous poet and writer to my list of people I could never live up to.
Now that I'm no longer young and not feeling the need to prove anything to anybody or live up to any expectations, I started to eye up the lovely Clavinova that was doing nothing in the basement. I started playing (again) in January, signed up for another forum to stay motivated (and hopefully motivate others), and now moved across to this one because all my new piano friends did
The rest, hopefully, is future history! And the story turned out to be longer than I thought
We can set up a different thread for cats and other pets of us piano players! Anybody know if the 'meta' area ... currently says 'anything else' is a place where we can have those threads?
At age 5 the family had a Yamaha upright at home. Mom got me & my sister a teacher. After trying lessons for a month, the piano was out of the house. Mom thought that nobody in the family had the talent for music.
At age 11 a cousin who had lessons for at least a year got me to try songs in a beginner book. The hands coordination wasn't there.
In my school years learned violin in strings class with others playing violin, viola, cello & bass. Didn't touch a keyboard until I decided to get one around 35. The first was a Yamaha PSR (61 keys) with a floppy drive. People used to carry floppy disks for storing computer files but not anymore. After a few years the keyboard broke down and I switched to a second hand Roland with 76 keys. The keys was semi-weighted but close to the feel of piano keys. The keyboard lasted for a few years and started to have problems so got a new Yamaha P-125.
For the past decade I started with beginner books without a teacher and eventually got a teacher from a local conservatory.
brdwyguy
While it's common to see young people forced into piano or violin, in my family no. Coming from a non-musical family, mom & dad think that only some have the talent for music. Many people in the family had music lessons. Even when we didn't get very far, the option to quit was just around the corner. Music is often taught as an academic exercise for many people. I have relatives who passed their music exams in their teens. 2 people (1 piano & 1 violin) passed ABRSM-8.
2 people in the family circle were in Suzuki piano & violin at a young age. They played nice duets together. Suzuki is a unique teaching method that not many people would think about when getting a teacher... unless the parents know others who got their kids into Suzuki and can play at a high level. Suzuki is not just learning for the kids. 1 of the parents would attend a child's lessons and act as a mentor at home. The father /mother can also play up to a certain level supposedly. When you share music between a parent and the kid(s), you wouldn't consider learning as "forced".
Dad inherited an accordion a while ago (probably from his brother). He tried to teach himself with a beginner book but was not able to get very far and quit after 1 month. On the other hand, 1 month of playing isn't long enough to show whether someone has the talent for music. Learning an instrument is more than acquiring techniques. We all listen to music. Having the exposure to music is part of the equation.
TC3
It's great that you have a picture from your younger days playing guitar. In my family many people had lessons including flute, piano, violin, guitar but nobody feel he/she is very musical to have a photo playing an instrument even at home.
In my school days me & my sister learned violin. We had year-end concerts for the parents but not a single photo for memory.
thepianoplayer416 Yeah, my dad was a bit of a shutterbug and a big fan of music, so I have a decent number of pictures playing sax and bass in various school ensembles. Good times!
TC3
In my family nobody is really into music. My father got an accordion presumably from his brother but never got beyond a beginner level. He didn't want to spend a few years with a teacher. My brother learned guitar for a few years and my sister took violin for a few years. Neither got much out of the music lessons and stopped playing years ago.
We had family group pictures (still shots) with many people in it. No action shots of us doing stuff individually like in a talent show. Pictures of me playing violin are more recent and usually with a friend who also plays violin. Shots of me on piano are mainly selfies setup on a tripod. These are before or after shots with the same recorder making recordings of my playing for future reference.
So wonderful to read everyoneās stories and journeys! What a great thread and a great idea. Iāll share my own.
Basically, I always knew I was in love with the piano. Pianos were in my kindergarten and elementary schools, my family church, and momās social clubs - people would play for me, teach me little songs, and let me just āimproviseā lol. Around second grade, my parents bought me a little RadioShack Casio keyboard and I realized I could play back melodies by ear.
Around seventh grade, I started taking it more seriously when I was introduced to Solo Piano/New Age music (think Yanni/David Lanz). My parents brought a 61-key Casio keyboard. I played along to them by ear, learned to play with both hands, and also began creating my own compositions. By freshman year, I was nearly at an intermediate level in terms of technique, but I couldnāt read music and didnāt know any theory.
Around February of 2001, I met my only teacher. She had studied with Rudolph Ganz, taught at my school, and also had her own studio. She introduced me to classical music and I was hooked. She took me under her wing. Sightreading, theory, Hanon, repertoire/scholarly study. I made really fast progress, and, in two years, by 2003, I was doing local, state, and regional competitions, and went from playing Fur Elise and Chopinās Nocturne in C Minor to playing (sufficiently, not particularly brilliantly lol) La Campanella and Scriabinās Etude Op 8 No 12. I also began writing serious short and long-form compositions (all of which are lost unfortunately). In my junior year, I auditioned and got a four-year scholarship to Berklee College of Music for Composition & Piano Performance. I planned to audition for Julliard and Curtiss in my senior year.
The summer of my junior year, though, everything derailed. Both my parents got very sick around the same time to the point of being home bound. I started suffering from depression and anxiety, partly from worrying about my parents, partly because those things are genetic on both sides of the family, and partly because of the pressure Iād put myself under. I pretty much fell apart senior year, could barely function, and basically dropped out of high school to be with my parents. The idea of leaving them to pursue dreams seemed impossible and my mental state was fragile.
Some dark years followed, but luckily we all survived. However, I didnāt pursue those dreams. I floated through life for a few years, fell into nonprofit work, and worked my way up to being an administrator for a fairly large company. I started pursuing the arts again in 2016, but for creative writing, not piano. From what Iād learned in the nonprofit world, I secured grants and fellowships to be an independent artist. My teacher, who Iād build a true relationship with and who Iād visit and talk to over the years, was happy for me, and, on more than one occasion, āwondered out loudā if I would also be returning to the piano, lol. Unfortunately, my teacher died in 2017 before I started playing the piano again. She wanted me to have her Bosendorfer, but her husband wouldnāt give it to me. Thatās another story, lol.
Anyway, the pandemic came. We were all stuck in our homes. While watching Youtube, who should randomly pop up in my suggested searches but good olā Vladimir Horowitz! I remembered when that had been my dream, and before long, I was watching performances from all the old and the new greats. I thought about trying the piano again on my own terms, and bought myself a little Yamaha P-125. It all came back pretty quickly. Upgraded to a P-515. Thatās around the time I joined Pianoworld. Learned from all the great minds there about VSTs and digitals/hybrids while also reconnecting with a classical community.
Iām back into it fairly seriously now. Iāve done local and regional performances and teach out of my home studio. I have a pretty solid repertoire of around 25 pieces, although my focus is on composition - I donāt have the desire, discipline, constitution, or stamina to be a concert pianist, and since Iām 37, by the standards of the classical industry, Iām ātoo oldā to make a go of it anyway, lol. But luckily composition is where my heart truly is regardless. Iām working on my first piano sonata and piano concerto as well as some shorts. Will be starting a Youtube soon. Iāve successfully pitched my first classical album to a record company and hope to release it in 2024/2025, featuring some of my favorite pieces alongside my own compositions. And weāll see what happens, lol. I have no delusions that Iāll ever be rich or even famous for it, but if I can do it on my own terms, and a few people out there like it, I wouldnāt mind that.
Pallas I have an art and music studio in my house now. I have two pianos, and I write, and I paint in oils.
This is so, so wonderful Pallas!!
BTW re @ brdwyguy ās comment about people who started piano as children, hated lessons or grew away from piano etcā¦ in my case, my mother told me that at some point she asked me if I wanted piano lessons. We didnāt have a piano but she said if she got one, I would have to agree to take lessons and practice some cortina amount. She said I said āno thank youā so she decided not to force it because she didnāt want me to end up hating music. I have zero recollection of this! (The next time I talk to her, Iāll ask her how old I was). At some point, I got interested in guitar and she got me a classical guitar and lessons. (Which lasted until high school when I broke my arm most dramatically, another long story)
Also at some point before this, my parents had gotten divorced and there was no way she/we would been able to afford a piano, to say nothing of the fact that we were living in apartments for a long time. Starting some time maybe in junior high, I can remember feeling like āI always wanted to play the pianoā but I never asked for a piano because in my mind, a piano would cost as much as a house. So I did other musical things (marching band, clarinet, guitar of course until I broke my arm etc.) But I was never forced to take music lessons, so I never had that complicated relationship with them.
When I finally started piano (at age 30),and said something to my mother about how Iād always wanted to play the piano, she said āyouāre kidding!ā And she told me the story about asking me if I wanted lessons. She said āwhy didnāt you say something! I would have figured out how to make it happenā As I said, I have no recollection of being asked about lessons, but in the end, I think it worked out for the best. When I was younger, I donāt think I would have had the disciple to stick with it. But as an adult, I treasure it and it means so much to me. And of course, at this point, Iāve now been playing piano forā¦ 25 years. Wow!
So although I donāt usually believe that āeverything happens for a reason,ā in this case, I think things worked out pretty well.
Oh and btw when I first started piano and purchased a Yamaha digital piano, I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would one day own a grand piano. And I had no idea if I would ever be able to play, if I would be able to play music that other people could even recognize as musicā¦ And yet, here I am, with my very own grand piano, and able to play not just pieces that are recognizable as music, but pieces that I love, music that I hear on the radio and can go and buy the sheet music for and learn and play it myself.
To me, this is an amazing gift, and one for which I am grateful beyond words.
Wow, so much in common with my story. Starting on a Casio toy, then the fast progress, the musical career aspirations, the crisis, derailment, career switch, then reconnecting with the piano during the pandemic, way too late in life at that point to even consider musical career aspirations again. Thank you for sharing.
ShiroKuro
Quite a story! I'm glad you don't regret that you were not forced to study music/piano as a child. Some would say that young children should be forced to study music because they are too young at that age to decide for themselves, and if they eventually develop the desire to go further then the basics will have already been learned during those "critical" early years. This may sound good on paper, but I don't believe in it myself.
Long overdue, and I'm not sure if people are following this thread anymore, but here goes!
I started in my freshman year of college. A few months before I joined college, there was this friend of mine who showed me a couple of piano recordings that were amazing.
Prior to that, I had very little knowledge about music. I didn't know what scales were, and I had never heard of chords. But I became obsessed with those piano pieces, and realized I had quite a good "sound memory" for music. Although I had no one else to compare it to and wasn't from a musical family, the entire piece would just start playing in my head, basically from start to finish, as if I were listening to it live. Then, I thought -- it must be possible to translate what you can imagine in your head onto the instrument, as if you were singing it. That it should be possible to eventually learn to transcribe anything, if you can only hear it clearly enough. And so I started playing all of the melodies I knew at that time (mostly pop songs) by ear.
My freshman year of college was very difficult for me. I was almost failing classes, and I realized that I didn't really like my major but couldn't switch out. A friend of mine had a portable 61-key keyboard which he let me borrow, so I would take that to my dorm room, skip all my classes, and play piano for something like 4-6 hours a day when I would get the chance, maybe more. I was obsessed, and would learn themes I liked from songs, play by ear or using synthesia, even attempt to improvise a little, but quite poorly as I had no idea what I was doing. Essentially, I would take an idea and try to build it up, like playing one augmented chord in the left hand and seeing what melodies fit -- that sort of thing.
I really wanted to learn quickly, and kind of properly (although when I started taking lessons I realized that I had missed out on so much). Within the first few months, a guy introduced me to Zimerman's Chopin Ballades -- he had played the Fourth Ballade himself sometime in his childhood. I didn't take to them initially, but over a few months, they really grew on me. And so Zimerman's Ballades and Schubert Impromptus was one of my first exposure to classical music.
I used to follow YouTube channels, masterclasses on YouTube, and C Chang's book on how to learn the piano. His idea of "mental practice" really took with me, and I tried developing an internal ear for music the best I could, and a mental visual keyboard, which I succeeded at. I watched all of Josh Wright's videos, something like 500 of them. Around this point, I started getting into some of the other YouTube arrangers, like The Piano Guys, Animenz and Kyle Landry.
I watched this video series, and he mentions Cziffra's Liszt Grand Galop Chromatique at some point. I listen to it, and am totally blown away.
Then, I listened through much of Cziffra's catalog of recordings. That was my gateway into piano music, and to me he is still the best performer of all time, and has jaw-dropping musical moments.
I wanted to prove a point, and so I taught myself Chopin's Nocturne op 9 no 2, Schubert Impromptu op 90 no 2 and 4, the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody 6 (as best as I could), culminating in (obviously lol) Fantaisie Impromptu!
It's not well played, and got rightfully shat on when I posted it on discussion forums online. But it was still something, and that made me feel like I should really be taking piano more seriously.
This was a point of some soul searching. I loved piano, but there was no way I could audition for a music degree with zero formal training. So I decided to go for a Masters program in computer science, get a piano teacher and really focus hard on getting good. I auditioned for a few piano teachers, and they had relatively mixed opinions, where some were amazed at what I could do and some others were tentative given that I was an adult. I started with a well-regarded teacher who said he would try to build my technique from the ground up.
Whenever teachers would ask me what my plans were with the piano, I would tell them that I wanted to be a concert pianist. Obviously, this was met with some incredulity, but my hope was that it would give teachers the right expectation, that I wanted to be pushed to my limit and progress quickly.
That was a difficult experience. I was playing grade 1 pieces for almost a whole year, trying to train my hands and fingers to work the way my teacher was asking them to. I did get better, but it didn't click completely. After another year, I tried many different things and learned many pieces, but it still wasn't working. My teacher told me that he didn't think I had the talent, or that I had started too late, to try to become a pianist, and reiterated his view that an adult could never do it.
So, I started with another teacher in a last ditch attempt to get somewhere, and that has been the past year. This new teacher believed that hard work was all that mattered, and was essentially a prodigy who started in his teens. That was very much an inspiration for me. He thought it was absolutely possible to get into a degree program within a year or two, and essentially set out a plan. That has really improved my technique and playing ability, and allowed me to make real progress of a kind I have never made before.
Thanks everyone for sharing your stories! If you havenāt shared yours yet, please donāt be shy! It is super fun to learn about all the very different piano paths we have followed!
As a child, I always wanted to play music but instruments cost money that sadly my folks didnāt have to spare. Luckily I grew to love drawing and painting and made a career as an artist (mostly drawing portraits but a few illustrations and graphic design made it into the mix). Unfortunately, when you turn what you love into a job, itās pretty easy to lose that passion you once had.
Well one day I was visiting a bookstore that also sold instruments and the keyboards were all too expensiveā¦ but not that electric guitar in the corner! That guitar phase wasā¦ oh I donāt knowā¦ 2 months long in my early 20s??
Fast forward through a short military career, medical retirement, a move to Germanyā¦ and attending several piano jazz concerts during Beethoven fest, I was that 20 something young adult fantasizing about playing the piano.
So, in January (at the age of 34) I bought a Kawai KDP120 and started lessons. I fell in love with that feeling of playing a tune and in April I started renting a upright Rƶsler (1977 109cm) which soundsā¦ questionable at best . Iām bow trying to decide between the digital hybrid NV10s or the K500 aures2.
Talk about hook line and sinkerā¦
Oh, and after I started playing piano, I got that passion to start painting again
GurkeSalat after I started playing piano, I got that passion to start painting again
It's uncanny how often passion for playing an instrument and passion for painting go hand in hand!
Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your story. There are many of us around who are at a similar stage of our piano journey (as well as many awesome knowledgeable seasoned players). You're in good company
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On my husband's side I could add professional stage and film actors, playwright, opera singer, pipe major/flamenco guitarist, organ builder, famous poet and writer to my list of people I could never live up to.
. Iām bow trying to decide between the digital hybrid NV10s or the K500 aures2.
