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I'm considering not going back for piano lessons, come September.

To anyone here who knows a thing or two about who I am and what piano lessons mean to me, that may seem like a radical statement. And I'm here to tell you: yes, for me, it *is* a radical statement.

A few of you already know that back in March, I thought for a while that I was not going to be *able* to continue piano lessons, even though back then, I really, really wanted to. My solfège teacher (ETA: not the same person as my piano teacher, but teaching a required course at the same public music school, which I could not quit without the school losing subsidy for me as a student) had asked me not to come to class anymore. I have epilepsy, and my seizures had scared the bejesus out of her one too many times. In the wake of that incident, I contacted the inspectorate, wrote an article about my situation for a website frequented by educators, and talked it over with the principals of various other music schools. In the end, I even wrote to the ministry of education. Halfway through July, one of the principals I'd called sent me an official document, which said there is new legislation in the making, to take effect as of September 2014. Under the new law, no school will be able to refuse to enrol a disabled person, unless there is proof that all reasonable accommodations have been made, and the needs of the student still aren't being met.

Under the circumstances, I feel almost like I "have to" go back. It would make no sense for me to have done all of the above, to possibly have been part of the catalyst for legislative change, and then to decide that I no longer want what I was after. I quote Harvey Milk: rights are only won by those who make their voices heard. I have not just a voice, but the ability to use it effectively when I set my mind to it. Maybe I also have a moral obligation to make myself heard, not just for myself, but for the thousands whose voices are at risk of never being heard. Not to mention, if I stopped going to piano lessons, I would miss it. Big time.

But then, I am also full of shame. I had high hopes that I would be able to play a *lot* of piano this summer. I had work, but I always have that, and I had a research project to work on for one of my instructors at uni. But beyond that, there was almost nothing. No school, no trips abroad, no hospital stays longer than 24 hours, and only five days of summer camp. Last year, too, I went back having made less progress than planned, but at least I had the excuse of having been away from home for most of the summer. This year: zilch. I just didn't work hard enough.

If I go back to my piano teacher now, it will be red-faced and cowering in fear -- not of her, but of wasting her time.

Has anyone faced anything like this before? How did you get yourself to snap out of it?

Have you considered the possibility of remote lessons? (via Skype or other video conferencing tools) Sure, you may still have a seizure during a remote lesson, but since you are at your own home, it would work out better for yourself and your teacher. While video lessons may not be exactly the same as in person lesson, it is far better than not having any lesson at all.

My thoughts would be that there are pioano teachers who may have experience of the health problems you have, which shouldn`t be unsurmountable to anyone who wants to learn. You do want to learn. That`s an advantage you have over some spotty faced football mad kid who doesn`t, but is forced to.

Teachers get paid to teach, they`re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts; they`re also well aware that it`s not (by and large) future concert pianists who turn up at their doorsteps, but folk who do this for enjoyment. There will be any number of other teachers who`ll take you on, so you don`t have to go back to that one.

By the way, I was one of those spotty kids . . .minus the football interest. Can`t stand the bloody game . . . .that's for the wife to watch . . !

Have fun, lass. You deserve it.

Implicitly, I believe the choice that lies before you is whether you wish to use piano lessons as a way to make a social statement for the greater good of society, or as a way to further your knowledge of music and playing the piano for your own enjoyment. Either is an understandable and laudable course of action.

Speaking for myself, work and family precluded taking piano lessons until the age of 67; I'm painfully aware of the time conflicts that you face. I discovered that most piano teachers love adult students for all the obvious reasons. I'm now happily headed down a lengthy path to piano proficiency. I know I'll get there.

This is a bit of a leap of faith, but you asked for an opinion so here's mine: forget the social statement, and forget your old piano teacher. There's way too much baggage there and it will always be in the background. Find a new piano teacher that you like and respect, and go for it. Be up front about your condition, and what actions he/she may need to take should you experience a seizure. I believe that you will find a capable teacher who would have accepted you with or without a law mandating it.

Finally, you may indeed feel some embarrassment about your lack of progress, but be assured that it's groundless. Just pick up where you left off and make the best progress that your other commitments will allow.

OK, the story about epilepsy may be confusing the issue a little, here.

To be clear: yes, back in March, for a while it looked like I wouldn't be going back to piano lessons. But although I never set foot in the solfège class again (except once, for the exam), I did go back to piano relatively quickly. My piano teacher (who is a different person from the one teaching solfège) insisted, and she got the principal to go along with it (for one school year only).

The thing is, she went to bat for me, and then I sort of went to bat for myself, and it looks like we won. But now I feel like I need to make it "worth her while". I feel like I need to be an exceptional student, just to justify my continued presence at that school. And after this summer in which, for various reasons (none of them noble), I practiced far too little, I feel that I am not just profoundly unexceptional, but flat-out disappointing.

I have many reasons to want to go back for piano lessons, and only one (shame) to stay away. My problem is that right now, I'm having a hard time getting over myself, and over the fact that I have had six uninterrupted weeks filled with larger-than-usual amounts of leisure time, and very little (in terms of piano progress) to show for it.

My (rather philosophical) question is: what do I do to get over it?

This is not a reason to take lessons. Maybe to do other things, but out of guilt because you raised a stink about it is beside the point, isn't it? That was so that you had a choice. You still have a choice.
This is the real reason to go back.



I get what you're saying and why you're saying it, but as a teacher, I only feel a student is wasting my time if they never practice for months on end. And even then, I may not reject them for that, depending on the circumstances.

So here's my piano bench analysis: you are feeling guilty because you promised yourself you'd have a productive summer. You didn't, so you feel like YOU wasted time. You are projecting that on to your teacher, who perhaps expects that you didn't progress much since you didn't take lessons over the summer. It is rare that a student would take the summer off and come back in good shape to move forward.

So for starters, recognize that your teacher probably doesn't feel this way and they understand the first few weeks will be rough. Assess what happened with your free time and see if you can set up a new schedule for yourself now to get back in the swing of things. Then forgive yourself for losing this time. Use this to motivate yourself to stick with your new routine.

Addressing the part where you feel embarrassed for not having worked on piano as you think you should have or "could" have, and that your teacher will see that. I think that almost every student who takes music seriously and has been at it long enough goes through this - and more than once. The people who don't care and who truly goof off, it doesn't bother them one whit. It's the good students who are bothered. If this is true the way I think it is, then your teacher will have gone through it too. It's normal to have low points where you "ought to have been able to do things" but didn't - IF that's even true. It's also likely that you have achieved more than you think you did.

Just stop ovethinking

Guess what? When I go back to my lessons after the summer my teacher always seems surprised how much I've practiced during the summer, because most of her students don't, some hardly touch the piano.

I find it hard to believe that all your teacher's students practice either (unless they are all studying to be professional musicians). Summer break can be useful in many ways, for you it might have been a well needed break from the stress you had in the spring. The only thing you need to worry about is whether you still want to tickle those keys or not and whether you still enjoy piano music. Everything else will work out. It all gets back soon and sometimes one actually learns better after a break.

Sara,

As people before me mentioned, please don't think too much. If u haven't practiced, just ask her to work with you on sight reading, theory or technical exercises that does not require prep. Then it's not waste. Actually learning sight reading this way with a teacher give you long term benefit.

Also don't be frustrated at the seemingly slow pace of progress. Piano is very deceptive. People who practice reach intermediate stage fairly quickly. But then there is a long road to advanced. It's really long time for most of people. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. Everyone seem to get there eventually but having down period here and there do not make a heck of difference. The only way to get there is not quitting. Ok Sista!

It's a tendency of mine as well to think that because of time off from work that I will experience a growth spurt in piano, but life happens. My progress doesn't seem to be more during more leisure periods. I think it is far better to just go for steady progress over long period than to hope for any significant accomplishments from being on break.

So I would say to get over it, simply realize that your premise of having weeks therefore significant progress is incorrect and you shouldn't expect such results. You should extend your short term goals to what could be accomplished for months to years.

Stop beating yourself up. Sometimes life gets in the way of all our good intentions. And it can be therapeutic for your brain to take a break and think about other things.

So go back to your lessons with renewed enthusiasm, and ENJOY!

You love your lessons!!! The absolute "shame" would be to stop them. Listen to Morodiene. She understands the teacher perspective.

I did take lessons all summer. But my chronic fatigue has been horrid. So, I don't have a lot to show for my efforts. You know what? That's life. Things and situations can get in the way of productive practice. Be a friend to yourself and say the things a good friend would say to you. That negative inner voice is not your friend.

Besides, I think with a disability it's very important to have something in your life you still can do and enjoy. That's piano for me. But, I do it when I can. I trust my teacher will find something to teach me even if I go into a lesson unprepared. Your job as a student is to show up and do your best. Sometimes, "your best" isn't great. That's OK.

You have been fighting to be treated as normal (probably all of your life) and now you have won there is no shame in being normal. Give yourself permission to be normal. To not progress as fast as you thought you would well that is just normal.

As for so called slacking off over Summer, it just sounds like you sub-consciously (or consciously) made decisions of what your priorities were, assuming you had choice, then piano wasn't one of them. Again that just says you are normal but it also says your desire to be great at piano is stronger than your desire to work at it, again perfectly normal as well.

Let us not forget why we are here as well. We are beginners in the early years of an apprenticeship with the piano. It is to early to say if you will ever be great at piano but would it be so bad if you turned out to be normal, yet were still a relatively small part of the population who could play a Chopin Nocturne or a Beethoven Sonata.

Saranoya! Everyone, every every everyone, has trouble progressing as much as they'd like during a break in lessons.

I can tell you as a teacher that when students have more than 2 weeks between lessons, the one who even gets to the piano and practices at ALL is the exception, not the rule.

Get back to the piano, even just on some easier or already-learned pieces, knock off the dust, and then you'll be back on the right track.

If you feel nervous about lessons then maybe call or email the teacher ahead of time, explain where you are, and ask for suggestions on what to do between now and lesson day.

You love playing, and what's happened here is utterly normal. Don't let it stop you.

I can't add anything to the advice already given, all of which is sound, and from experienced people too. All I can say, as a beginner who's struggled with the difficulties of piano playing, is that the most enabling thing my teacher made me understand, was that it is often genuinely hard to do this, and that progress is not constant and may often seem barely perceptible. Once I realised that, that other people have the same kind of hurdles and brick walls that I have, I was able to relax more, recognise and appreciate the small improvements when they came, and stop beating myself over the head.

I suspect that in your heart, you know that within a week of giving up lessons, you'd regret it. Any teacher worth his or her salt will recognise your concerns, and help you work around them.

What great advice you have been given. You are putting way too much pressure on yourself, the only way you will get over yourself is to get out there and do it. I bet when you do you will be wondering what you were so worried about. You will be fine, and your teacher will be happy with you - not because you are exceptional but because you obviously have a love of the piano and you want to learn.

On a side note I have worked with a lot of people who suffer from epilepsy and many of them are too scared to do anything out of the ordinary (which is basically not leaving the house) in case they have a seizure. Most say the fear is not so much for themselves but that they might frighten other people. I think this is so sad, and I also think that this is why you are already exceptional. You are already getting out there and living your life despite this obstacle. Hopefully in doing so you are not only educating people about epilepsy, but you are also inspiring others to get out of the house and do something they love. Don't look at how disappointed your teacher will be in you because you haven't practiced as much as you would have liked, look how disappointed they will be not to have the opportunity to learn and take inspiration from you if you quit.

Do I understand this correctly: you won't be going back to your solfege class (which you completed away from campus and about which possible legislation is in the works), but you are questioning whether you want to go back to your (private?)piano teacher?

Morodiene and hreichgott said it: teachers are used to dealing with progression stalling when there's a gap in lessons. You feel mortified that you haven't made progress, but you'll be back on track soon. Maybe you needed that time off this summer to recharge your batteries. Start up lessons again. You know you've got a cheering section here at PW.

You've gotten a lot of great advice already. I'd like to point out my biggest concern: lessons are a place to which you bring problems, not solutions. If you've already solved something, what do you need the teacher for?

Probably not. But *good* teachers teach despite the fact that they could almost certainly make more money doing something else. My teacher is a good one, for more than that reason alone. I respect her immensely, and that makes this more difficult, not less. I'm scared of disappointing her only because her opinion matters to me -- a lot.



If I choose to continue going to lessons, I *will* be making a social statement, no matter what else I do. In meetings with lawmakers and politicians, people will be holding me up as an example of someone whose situation the new legislation was meant to address. If this works out, the principal will use me as a feather in his cap when it serves him. If it doesn't, he will use me as an excuse not to do anything special for the next disabled person who comes along. They'll be watching me. Not closely, but still. More people to (potentially) disappoint.



Funny. Now that I read this, I remember that my teacher told me at the end of the school year how sometimes during summer, she doesn't even touch the piano for a month. I don't know if this is actually true (although it may very well be true). I think it was her way of telling me to take it easy on myself. But all my life, I've had to work hard at quite a few things that other people take for granted. There are some (like walking unassisted) that I have lost despite this. I didn't get where I am by slacking off just like everyone else. Which is not to say that I've never slacked off, of course. Just that the cost of slacking off, at least in certain areas, may be higher for me than most. And because playing the piano is at least in part a physical skill, that's probably true in this case, too.



I'm pretty sure that many of them don't. But isn't this what makes me a good student? The fact that, unlike most, I *do* practice regularly, even during breaks? And is the fact that I am a good student not the reason that my teacher was willing to keep teaching me, even when a different teacher at the same school (the solfège teacher) no longer was? What happens if/when I become truly mediocre? Am I going to loose all that good will on my teacher's part, then?



Well, yeah. That, I can't argue with. Thanks, FarmGirl!



Thank you, dynamobt. It's piano for me, too -- and I think my teacher understood that before I did. During my first year of piano lessons, I tried to quit once because I was having many seizures, and it bothered me that sometimes, my teacher was put in a difficult position because of this. But she said: there are enough other things already that you can't do because of your physical limitations. Don't sabotage yourself by taking this away, too. Weirdly, in my twisted logic, that became another reason to respect her; another reason to want to do *better*, and feel ashamed when I don't ...



I'm here to tell you that I already know what you seem to be questioning: I will never be great at piano. I'm OK with that. The thing is, even if I'm never going to be great at piano, I can still be a great student. But I'm not. That's what bugs me.



Oh, I'm sure of that! I am not thinking about quitting because *I* don't want to go to lessons anymore. I'm thinking about quitting because, as it turns out, I'm just like other people in the "little practice during breaks" department. But I'm not like other people in some ways. In some ways, I'm a burden on the people around me -- including but not limited to my piano teacher. My feeling is that I *have* to be exceptional to make up for that, and when I'm not (or I no longer am), then I loose my right to be there at all.



That is exactly what I'm doing and (part of) why I'm doing it. But I am doing this at the expense of other people. I'm doing it at the expense of the solfège teacher who would really rather not have to deal with me. I'm doing it at the expense of my colleaugues at work, one of whom recently told me that if this goes on for another six months ("this" being me having seizures at work), *she* will be the one who needs sick leave, because it is so stressful to her. That, coming from someone who also once told me that she'd have been proud do have a daughter like me. Imagine what the rest of them are feeling and thinking ...



No. I take lessons at a public school, where every student must do both instrument lessons and solfège lessons (or later on, music history and "listening practice" and ensemble playing lessons) in order to get subsidised. Which is why, when my solfège teacher decided she could no longer cope with me, my piano lessons were also at risk.



I know this. I have even said it many times myself, to other people . The thing is, when I come to a lesson under-prepared, what problems will there be to solve, beyond "I need to work on my scheduling/priorities/motivation/fatigue/you name it".

Special thanks to the teachers here (Morodiene, Heather Reichgott) for bringing *that* perspective. I'm pretty sure that if *my* teacher were here, she'd say something very similar. Which only makes me respect and like her more, which ... well, you catch my drift! I guess I'm just going to have to go in there with whatever I can do between now and lesson day, and see how it goes.

If you expect yourself to be "a good student" and progressing all the time, you'll put too much pressure on yourself. I know exactly how it is to feel that your teacher is doing you a great favor by agreeing to teach you and with such devotion even when it seems like a hopeless job

But I think most people have times when they don't progress as expected. For me they are regular, and then I notice a big leap forward later. Once I had a really difficult period when I was unable to present much progress to my teacher even if I did practice just as much as usual. Just too many demands for my brain and body from my other life. So I talked to my teacher and asked if she ever feels like dropping students like me who just struggle and are unable to focus on lessons. What she said was that she enjoys teaching people who actually WANT to play the piano. I felt a little better since this has never been an issue with me