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Joined: Jul 2014
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Hello all,
I'm an ex-piano player, havent touched a piano in 6 years now. But I'm starting to have regrets.
I'm 27 years old and have studied and practiced piano for 15 years.
I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with the "Royal Conservatory of Music" but I studied there for those 15 years with a private piano teacher.
I took and passed my grade 10 practical test in 2009 and that was the last time I touched it.
At the time I was having a very rough time, I wasn't enjoying it mainly because of my surrounding environment (parents and teacher) and because I was trying to balance my university studies.
Now that I have graduated from University , I feel like I have more free time in my head (if that makes any sense) to take on piano again.
The problem is that I can barely play any more, I'm completely rusty (an understatement). But I feel because it had been such a big part of my life and up bringing that its a shame for me to let this fade away.
What I want to eventually do is to teach piano on a semi-professional basis.
Currently I'm awaiting to start teachers college and I'm not sure how I will be able to balance that lifestyle with a piano lifestyle.
Can someone offer advice please ? I'm a little confused.
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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 212
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I think you can be back in the saddle again with fairly little time or effort once you apply yourself. You just need to decide to do it! Tons of amateurs have been away from piano for longer periods than you, and everyone's experiences I'm aware of (including mine) are that you will regain your former level of proficiency fairly rapidly after you re-immerse yourself.
Best wishes for success in balancing your priorities and getting it all sorted out!
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Joined: May 2001
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I took my RCM (Toronto) Grade 10 many, many years ago before I graduated from high school. Then a few years of work, then University and Graduate School, then a teaching career took me away from the piano. I never even owned a piano for all my professional life.
I bought a piano not too long before I retired because I knew that piano was missing from my life, and when I did retire and moved back to Canada in 2005 I began lessons again with an excellent teacher.
Three important facets of my retirement revolve around piano study and performance : - I study regularly with a good teacher and prepare for my lessons conscientiously. I practice, seriously, two and a half hours a day. - I am the organizer and regular performer in a group of solo musicians who meet once a month to perform for each other. - I am a participant with friends in a series of private recitals. We are now planning our second series, and I am performing repertoire that would have been a bit of a challenge had I performed them, fresh after my RCM Grade 10. The success of this series of recitals may "force" us to choose larger venues than our homes and open them up to the general public.
Surely, if I can get back to the piano and achieve some success after an entire professional career with no piano lasting almost 40 years, I would like to think that you might be able to get back to the piano in your circumstances.
You have to really want to do it, and I encourage you to make it happen. In my opinion, the rust will be brushed away if you can study with a good teacher who understands and appreciates your situation and who works well with adult students. Not all teachers can teach adults, in my experience.
I wish you well.
Regards,
BruceD - - - - - Estonia 190
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I'd say that the higher the standard at which you left off - especially if you'd learnt from young -, the easier it is to regain what you lost from disuse, and then continue on from there.
I hardly touched the piano - almost all the pianos that I did manage to touch, maybe once every five years, were firewood - from when I finished with university (with its practice rooms), apart from a few short periods where my place of work had a piano, until four years ago, when I finally bought my own piano. It only took me a few weeks to regain my former standard.
Since then, I've been learning lots of new stuff that I'd never thought would ever be within my grasp when I was still studying with a teacher all those years ago.
If music be the food of love, play on!
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What I want to eventually do is to teach piano on a semi-professional basis.
Currently I'm awaiting to start teachers college and I'm not sure how I will be able to balance that lifestyle with a piano lifestyle.
Can someone offer advice please ? I'm a little confused.
I am a little confused, too. First off - do you actually need to earn a livelihood, or are you just shopping around for lifestyles? Second, if you don't actually have the piano thing going and haven't for some time, why does it matter? You can restart it later, whenever it seems doable. If it worries you now, forget it until such time that it doesn't cause worry.
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Joined: May 2012
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I can't tell you what works (because I haven't reattained my former repertoire), but I can tell you what doesn't work or works less well (after 44 years off). Items 1-5 are what I didn't do, and now know I should have done:
1) Get an excellent piano with the best action you can afford. Even better, get the best piano AND also the best digital action (a Kawai VPC1?) for silent practice,with headphones. If you can't get good small grand (IMHO), start with GOOD digital. 2) Put in the time: 2 hours a day (every day), technique and pieces. If you don't live alone, a separated practice room may be better than piano(s) in the main living space. You need to be undeterred. 3) Practice slow HA and HT. Use a metronome to hold back; the older you are, the more deluded you may be that you can run before you can walk! 4) Regain your "middle" repertoire first; no need to reach beyond level 10 before you're ready. Memorize, and re-memorize (as you get older, both will be harder) 5) Get a teacher 6) If you want learn how to teach, you may want to post your question in the teacher's forum. My mother has been learning (more and more) how to teach for 65 years. 7) Don't give up
Last edited by doctor S; 07/26/14 10:34 AM.
"I will hear in Heaven." Beethoven
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The simple answer to your question is, yes, of course you can.
Help is always a good idea. Find the best teacher you can afford, and work with them.
I'd advise more like 3-4 hours per day of practice. It is very possible to incorporate that with a full load of classes in graduate school. I usually did a lot more than that when I was working on my MFA.
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4) Regain your "middle" repertoire first; no need to reach beyond level 10 before you're ready. Memorize, and re-memorize (as you get older, both will be harder)
I hope you mean at the end of the life cycle, doctor, well in the 70s, 80s and later, when senescence and ill health become a serious problem. I memorized 300+ pages of score in the last 12 months; yes, I've been busy. I'm well into the middle 50s, and memorizing has done nothing but get easier over time. My first teacher was memorizing music in her 90s, up until the week before she dropped dead.
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I am most certainly beyond where I was when I quit 25 years ago, and while I am still dogged by general issues, including lack of confidence, inability to let things just...go, I'm pleased with the progress.
I 100% agree with the suggestion to get a good piano and a good teacher. There is absolutely, positively NO WAY I could have overcome it without one. I had tried, once or twice, to come back to the piano over the years but it never stuck and I never got better. But when I got a teacher, I was suddenly accountable for my practice habits. And as soon as I got on a good path, I wanted to stay there. And I was willing to do just about anything, including re-imagining everything I was doing. And without a teacher, I'd have no external pressure to question the very fundamentals of what I was doing.
Now, I can practice hours a day. I'm not always as effective as I would like, but the thing that's different now is that I am trying to manage that and over time it's working. I try really hard to remember it's only been a year, and I was not truly an advanced pianist when I quit. I was playing repertoire that might indicate that I was--but I just don't think I was really internalizing everything very well when I was young. And I did quit. I think after a while I stopped being willing to work very hard or listen to correction, and the repertoire didn't stop marching forward so ultimately I was plowing through repertoire with a technical skill level that was lagging significantly behind. Solution: quit or actually bring up my game. I quit.
Frankly, half the battle this year has not been learning the pieces so much as it has been learning how to practice correctly/effectively for the first time in my life. Having a teacher to really structure that and take a critical eye to my every movement has been essential to the process. It's just extremely difficult to step outside yourself and be your own teacher.
It's slow coming. But I feel like when I'm finally there there will be really rapid progress. At least I hope. I've made so much progress but there's this...hump I'm not over yet and I'm not sure when it's going to happen, but when it does I think I'll have finally arrived at the place where I want to be: solid skills, effective self-editing, and then it's a matter of the time and commitment to tackle the repertoire.
So that's how I got back to the piano and finally made progress. Whether or not you need those things is up to you, but if you're frustrated with your play, can't seem to get better, and you have a history of having quit the piano, then it stands to reason that you, too, need the external influence for at least a little while until you're back on your feet and have become (or returned to being) an effective independent player/learner.
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What I want to eventually do is to teach piano on a semi-professional basis.
Currently I'm awaiting to start teachers college and I'm not sure how I will be able to balance that lifestyle with a piano lifestyle.
I'm a little confused.
"A piano lifestyle" is something one shapes over time, through desire and appreciation of art. Find a teacher who understands adult learners and see if you take pleasure in playing the piano this time around. You may not. But certainly you can resume, and balance this with graduate school in whatever way you wish. Your idea of eventual piano teaching sounds very premature to me.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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