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What was the path that got you, as an adult, into learning piano or restarting, if you had lessons as a child?


For me it was the person I reported to when I was working. His children were taking lessons, and he was sitting in on the lessons and then teaching himself. He enjoyed it and told me I should give it a try. I nodded my head "Uh huh" for a few years, then finally took the plunge when I retired. Now he doesn't play and I'm the one with two pianos (digital and acoustic)!


What's your story?

Oddly enough, it was guitar. I took a guitar class in 2010. That was another instrument I'd played on and off all my life, but this time in a class setting I learned to read music. Real music, not guitar tab. I got so I could zip through several Mel Bay and Hal Leonard books, reading single notes and chords, and wondered if I could handle piano reading now? I had taken lessons in my 20s and reading was hardest part.

Something had changed to where reading was more enjoyable and I wasn't resisting so much.

Also, I went looking for Christmas songs arranged for guitar and just couldn't find anything. It was all piano music basically. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of good music arranged for guitar.

So I switched to piano in 2014, and though it was a harder than reading a single staff, I still read better now at 66 than I ever did before,

And the repertoire for piano goes on forever!

Now 64 years old, inheriting my Mother's 1935 Mason & Hamlin piano from my brother. My mother was a piano teacher, so I also inherited her love of classical music. I'm finally buckling down and getting serious about improving my abilities.

Retiring - and needing to find something of interest to do during our long winters and other inclement weather.

It also gave me the opportunity to play the music that I want to play, as opposed to what I was forced to play as a child.

I don't spend nearly the amount of time on piano as most others here do, because I have too many other interests, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

I started piano at age 61 and the reason probably casts doubt on my soundness of mind.

I spent a week w/ some friends on a liveaboard dive boat in Belize. The last on-board dinner of the week is somewhat formal (keep in mind, this is a dive boat, not a cruise ship). During the dinner, the dive master brought a keyboard up from her cabin and played for us. It was a really great addition to the meal.

A couple of months later and back home, I started having the same lucid dream every night for about 2 weeks. Every time, it was the same. I would watch myself drive to a house and play a piano. As I watched the dream play out, I kept having the same thought: this actually seems doable.

Eventually, the dreams stopped but the thought stayed w/ me. Finally, I realized that I had nothing to lose by trying and, of course, I wasn't getting any younger. I went online and ordered a keyboard from B&H. The cost was in what I might call my give-it-a-try range.

I started out learning on my own. Later on, the dive master from Belize discovered I was practicing and eventually talked me into giving lessons a try.

Despite not having a musical bone in my body, I've been having a great time!

That said, I doubt you want crazies on this site so feel free to delete my account. I'll understand.

Stubbie, this is a great topic.

For me, my hobbies always involve me learning something new. My last hobby was restoring an older truck and it took me about 6 years to restore it completely. When I finished that project I wanted something new to try.

Over the course of my life I always wanted to play an instrument but I thought of myself as un-musical, having never had any experience at all as a child with any instrument. I decided the piano would be a very formidable challenge for me.

After about 8 months with a very patient teacher I'm very pleased that I have decided to undertake this adventure. It consumes almost all of my free time now and I love it. It's very fulfilling, especially working on the technical details of some of the songs in my method book.

It feels like being back in college in some ways in that you have to sit and work through a lot of the problems on your own (and with your forum friends) until you meet your teacher a week later to critique your progress. I really enjoy that aspect. I also enjoy the process of learning and gaining proficiency in something that at the beginning seemed impossible. There is something very powerful to the soul in achieving this week in and week out.

It is also freeing to work on something that is nearly entirely within your control. Piano for me at least, has been something that I can throw myself into and get lost in.

I hope that within a few years or so I reach the ability to play some very nice pieces and that I can carry this activity with me into my later years.

I took lessons only 2 years as a very young child and never practiced. In college, I decided to take piano to fulfill a general education requirement and absolutely loved it and quickly found myself practicing 3 to 4 hours a day. I took it for 3 and a half years until my college teacher left. The next teacher was not a good fit so I quit in the middle of my senior year. I got busy with marriage, children and work and did not even touch a piano for over 35 years. I would think I will take up the piano again when I retire.

I am a social worker and at a clinical meeting it was asked if anyone knew the keys on the keyboard as there was a blind client who wanted to learn. I said I did and started helping her a little while we looked for a teacher. We actually found a teacher who was blind for her.
My blind client actually inspired me to learn to play again.

I went to a local music store and when I started looking at music, I thought to myself, I cannot believe I used to play that. I went way back to the beginning and went through the first two Alfred books for adults on my own in about two months. I then picked up one of the easier Chopin waltzes and realized very quickly that I needed a teacher. I was fortunate that I found a teacher who was right for me on the first try.

I told him that I wanted to be able to play classical music again and was willing to do the work. Since I was 65 and had some mild arthritis in my fingers, I will admit I was not very confident that I would be able to do it. Fortunately my teacher did believe I could do it and would not let me give up when things were difficult. I Have been with him over 4 years and I love playing the piano. I now cannot imagine not playing. I am not retired completely but with working only 3 days a week, I have plenty of time to practice 2 or more hours a day.
I will probably at almost 70 never play some of the faster pieces that I did when I was younger but that's okay. There are a lot of beautiful slower pieces. In fact, I am planning on having a piano party to celebrate my 70th birthday this summer.

I won a DP in a raffle at the school where I worked. I figured i might as well play it.

All roads lead to Rome, and all events in my life lead to learning to play the piano.

I had children and realized that they learn an aweful lot bit by bit, without a rush, by enjoying themselves. Suddenly a few years have gone by and they speak, ride bikes, draw and paint, feed and dress themselves, and many other things, all of which they learn by playing.

Dementia might be hereditary in my family. A lucid brain is a treasure when the body ages and it needs proper care. I watched a documentary about identical twins who were studied for risks and outcomes of mental health problems. Lifestyles were more impactful than genes. The best thing about playing an instrument is that Musician brains work differently

I spent a good part of my life studying languages and learned, apart from these languages, how much hard work that is. I know from experience that I can endure methodical, conscientious and continuous work.

Finally, since broadband and tablets came about, I have been wasting my free time like the next man and woman most evenings, reading trivial stuff on the internet. I am fascinated by the history of science, especially how it has transformed society, removing daily labour and creating more leisure time to waste mindlessly.

Starting piano lessons has addressed all these qualms. I am engaged, learning to do something beautiful, losing myself for an hour every day, relaxing better than ever, and making the best out of my position of privilege of a middle aged middle class woman.

I wanted to do something that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else I had ever done. So I thought I would try to learn either some physics or piano.

Did I make the wrong choice???????

Simply a moment of enlightment that it may not be too late to try again. Which came after surfing on some piano sites with other adult returners. Which all happened after getting strangely obsessed with classical piano music.

So I really did not plan it at all...

You don't have to make a choice. Consider the physics of vibrating strings.

I was working a lot and did an examination of my life priorities. I realized piano was a hobby I enjoyed and something I wanted to keep getting better at.

I always liked the expressiveness of the piano and kind of "independent full musical experience" with it ( you know, you can just sit with a piano alone and play a complete, recognizable piece of music. Try this with a violin if you're not maestro Paganini :P). The final impulse was watching The Pianist and Chopin: Desire for Love.

Simple answer to the posted question.

You lot! Cheers guys, I've really enjoyed the ride. . . .

Awesome topic. Fun to see responses similar to my own. I was always fascinated with piano. A couple of years ago a friend started piano and I started thinking. Last year I knew I would be retiring and thought what better thing to do than start what I've always wanted to do, or thought I did. So here I am, 6 months into my journey and about 3/4 thru Alfred's.

Something was needed to fill a big time void. Without all the details, that is what it was. I do not believe though, it would have happened to the extent it has happened, without the advent of and my stumbling upon this Piano World forum. This has sustained the new interest and kept me at it. Who knew?

I had never completely abandoned Piano, but from my early 30's to early 50's I was completely uninterested in the few things I already knew how to play, was not able to read well enough to pick up anything new on my own and had no motivation to change any of that. I could read a lead sheet by that point, but after my Father passed, I more or less had completely run out of interest.

It is an interesting query, Stubbie. My Dad taught Piano most of his Adult life (a tiny bit to me). I asked him why all his students were so old (20's - 60's) and his answer was, that is when most people are more motivated to learn. I found it interesting that his prize students were not the Superstars with the most potential, but the ones that worked and practiced the hardest and were fascinated by the process of it all. Nuttin' wrong with that.

Very interesting topic! I took lessons for a couple of years as a young child, and then my family moved to a small town that did not have a piano teacher. I continued to play at a very basic level until I went to college. As a college student, I remember standing outside the conservatory at the university, listening to the students playing, and wishing so much that I could do that! I was never brave enough to go inside though. So piano was left as a childhood dream.

Then life intervened for many years. In the early 2000's, my husband decided he wanted to learn to play, so he bought an inexpensive 61 key Casio keyboard, and we both started playing it. He quickly lost interest, but I was instantly hooked. That cheap keyboard ended up costing plenty! Lots of piano lessons, two Grands (one at a time), and a Avant Grand later, I am realising my childhood dream to play piano and share music with others. My husband totally supports my passion for piano. Our lifestyle literally revolves around piano friends and enthusiasts. I am truly living my dream.

I took a few (very few) lessons as a child, played the flute more seriously. When we were given an upright for the cost of moving by friends (their son plays and upgraded), my son signed up for lessons with their son's teacher. I figured now we have a piano, and someone should enforce his practice, and I can't enforce practice of something I don't know how to play, so it was time to learn.

Oh, almost forgot, I love being able to play music

Seminal piano events:

Piggy-backed on a few of my sister's lessons as a five or six-year old, but never would practice and was soon again outdoors climbing trees and having real fun.

As a 26 year-old living in Manhattan one of my office buddies was a 35 year-old bachelor with an east side pad and a grand piano. I remember him playing Fur Elise and Canon in D as single women jumped his bones over it. Hmmmm, not many trees to climb in Manhattan.

A week before my 56th birthday my Dad asked if I wanted anything as a gift. I said nothing. For some reason he gave me a cheapo 61 key unweighted keyboard. The next week I got on the web and found Pianoworld and a recommendation of Alfreds Adult.....add Amazon and a few days for delivery and my journey had begun.

The real beginning, though, was Jan 2010 when I got a teacher, and a little more than a year later, the Estonia grand. Hooked for life now.

In 2011 husband got me a digital piano for my birthday (I was 41); actually, it was also because one of the children was asking for piano lessons.
So, the following October we started with different teachers; having had lessons as a lazy child, I was a restarter.
Now, three and a half years later, both my children started piano lessons and quit after two years, we have also an acoustic upright and I'm still enjoying the journey.

What got me interested/started was the income potential ... just kidding.

I'd heard around here you can learn how to play by ear with absolutely no talent. Thank goodness Seaside Lee, etc. weren't lying.

Well, I've 'restarted' piano as an adult more times than I can remember - that is, every time I landed a job where there was a piano accessible. (My job, for many years, required me to move every six months or so).

The longest stints I had prior to the present one (which is probably permanent, but I might be tempting fate....... ) were two 2-year placements. In the first, there was a clapped-out ancient grand in the common room with a few strings broken, and every intact string out of tune. I bought a tuning fork (A=440), and a tuning wrench, and set to work on it. I managed to get it into passable tune (i.e. into a honky-tonk that sounded almost like a piano), but discovered that it went out of tune very quickly, such that I'd have to retune it every week. Then I discovered that if I tuned it to B flat = 440, it would stay 'in tune' far longer, and as I don't have perfect pitch.....

On my second 'long' placement, a decade later, there was a decent upright (in tune, because it was used regularly for music therapy), on which I'd spend every night practicing, when the place had gone to sleep. That was where I gave my first lecture-recital, when an insomniac colleague heard me practicing, and asked me to do one for the series of informal lectures that staff members gave for colleagues (on any topic they chose - usually a hobby or passion of some sort). That was when I discovered that my long-standing performance anxiety wasn't a problem if I knew that my audience didn't know the music I was playing . But I also took the precaution of adding an extra prop - a low table, on which I piled up the music scores that I'd be playing from, to illustrate my talk - between me and the audience. And the whole rigmarole worked. I chose music by composers I loved and knew well, and could easily talk about without needing to read from a script (though I did have one). And no worries about playing wrong notes - after all, I could kid myself that my audience would think they were deliberate .

So, finally, to the present day, or 2010 in fact, which was when I bought my first piano - a digital. (I live in a tiny apartment surrounded by neighbors, and finally decided I couldn't live without a piano. Of some sort. Even any sort. I bought the best of 'any sort'.....). Since then, I've been making up for lost time, learning all the stuff that I'd always wanted to but never thought I'd be able. Amazing what regular practice on my own instrument - that I can access any time of the day or night - can do for my technique.....

Ah yes, and joined PW, after reading about it in Perri Knize's book.....

Good question. For me, it was a confluence of several related things, which I'll talk about a little further down. But first off, it's useful to describe my state of mind before restarting, which I held for all the years I did not play after quitting. It wasn't a question, really, of finding the reason TO do it, but really a question of finding the reason to withdraw the lack of permission for myself to restart, if that makes sense. My failure to return was a result of believing that I had squandered my one-and-only opportunity, and not only didn't deserve it, but would not be able to do it now that I'm no longer a child. After all, I had quit during that critical window of adolescent technical development without really getting there and my unquestionable conviction was that no amount of adult work was going to make up for that. Advanced music-making, to my mind, would have been mine to have for the rest of my adulthood only if I had passed a certain threshold of technical fluency while still young. I hadn't, so opportunity lost.

Then several things came to pass:

1) A friend who had also quit piano as a mid-teen before really breaking through to a solidly advanced level bought a baby grand piano, of a budget and size that would also be perfect for my purposes, too. I then decided that for MY 40th birthday (then eight years away), I'd like a piano, possibly that very model piano since the research had already basically been done. I might not be able to DO anything with it, but something made me want it. Badly. At this point I mostly justified that it was for the kids, but maybe I could noodle around.

2) About two years later, I moved abroad and learned a foreign language from scratch very well, with a good accent, showing me that things like languages and music, fluency in which is commonly considered to be something only possible if begun in the window of childhood, is not strictly true. I discovered the adult human mind can be nimble, at least some of the time.

3) I came home and started another art form usually pursued in adulthood only if started in childhood--ballet--and found that a patient adult mind CAN develop and progress in a technical art form, even from scratch.

So now I had the following pivotal thought process: If I can learn a foreign language well and almost as fast as my young children did, and I can start a new technical art from scratch and also make steady, palpable progress, why do I think I can't make progress in piano? After all, I would not be starting from scratch, and this is still extremely valuable even if I have learned that progress is still possible even from scratch. See, while progress was, admittedly, rather fast in a foreign language even for most adults, progress was and remains slow in ballet. I often lament I don't have that internal vocabulary for it that I would have had had I learned some of it while young and went back. I have to think through every motion, and it takes painstakingly long periods of time for me to pattern in movement until it's natural. I often feel as if I'm a marionette with a hundred strings but only ten fingers, so while I work furiously to make myself move as I ought, I can't do everything at once so things are often dropped. Progress, to me, is in being able to reduce the number of strings that require my conscious control at any given moment.

Yet, sit me down at a piano and while I'm woefully short of where I'd want to be, I can't deny that I've got the good fortune to be starting far ahead of your average adult beginner, even with the long gap and failure to achieve full advanced technical skill. I felt like, in piano, I'm where the returning adult ballerinas are, who can so quickly leapfrog over me on their way back to technical competence while I look on, with something that sort of feels like jealousy. No, it totally feels like jealousy. The motivating kind, though, which is thankfully still the good kind of jealousy, haha.

But back to piano. I'm not frantically grasping for hundreds of marionette strings, with more discovered each week. In piano, the general geography is familiar. The kinesthetic memory of it is intact. The natural sense of where the notes fall, my ability to read music with no effort, what chords feel like. Heck, even things like polyrhythms weren't too far back in the warehouse. Was I good as a child? No, but there's something to be said for having not missed a childhood window in some ways, too.

So, in the end I learned the following two very important concepts:

• The missing of childhood learning windows in learning a skill that is usually learned young is not an insurmountable obstacle except for maybe achieving a level of virtuosity that many cannot achieve even when they start young and follow through. Progress is slow, but not impossible and patience is a virtue.
• However, having assimilated a skill during a childhood learning windows still greatly aids the speed of the process of returning to something even when advanced technical fluency is not attempted until much later. Patience is still a virtue, progress is still incremental, but things move rapidly and from a starting point much further down the line.

So then I thought: why am I letting myself work so hard in ballet and yet feel unentitled or incompetent to work hard at the thing that I, frankly, have spent the last 25 years wishing I were still doing? Heck, if I had to pick one thing on which to work very hard on to finally achieve mastery in, it's neither ballet nor foreign language (though I dearly love those things) but...piano.

So the tipping point? Well here are the last two things...

...4) Another friend who does NOT play piano bought a spectacular piano. Top tier, too big for my living room, but the ensuing jealousy sealed the deal for me. There would be a piano.

5) At the same time I also realized that my ballet teacher was, first and foremost, a pianist and piano teacher.

I turned 40 two months later. The piano showed up that day and lessons started that week.

That was two years ago. So ten years after I began to think seriously about it. And almost 30 years after I started regretting quitting, which was, in all honesty, probably the very next day.

We used to have live music for part of the evening when I was Scottish country dancing. The piano player was going off to college, so I stood behind her and watched her play for awhile, and said "I can do that".

Hmph. I spent the next two weeks learning the "oom pah" to three tunes and bringing it up to speed (I had to actually learn how to form chords, let alone how to play them in real time). That was 35 or so years after my lessons in my early teens, 20 years ago from now, and I'm still going.

Cathy

I took up ballet also, as Two Snowflakes did, about age 40. I'd always wanted to do it (had tap as a child) and, altho I could mentally visualize the moves, the mirror showed something quite different!

Then I went back to college & got my BS, MS in 3 years and went back to the professional field I was trained for. Still working 30 years later, I started my PhD. Completing that at age 76, I recuperated for a couple years and then I looked for a new challenge.

Having always wanted to play the piano (as a child I said I'd either be a ballerina or a concert pianist! Strange how that didn't happen ;-) ), I decided that learning piano was it. And it has been a challenge. The mind gets it, but the fingers don't (sounds like ballet doesn't it?).

But I figure the only way I'll get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice (old joke for those of you who may not have heard it). But I've got a pile of music on the shelf, most of which I can't play yet, but there's still plenty of time.

Nearly 8 years ago I bought a Roland Workstation to help my children with their gcse and A level music, although their primary instruments were drums and clarinet, they needed the keyboard for composing and recording.
I wanted to learn, but then I had a new baby and didn't have time to set aside.

2 years ago I bought some books with the intention of self teaching, but I read various posts on here stressing the importance of a teacher, as that was not an option at that time, the books were shelved.

Now I am 42, and had my first lesson yesterday . Why ? It is something I have always wanted to do , simply for my own enjoyment , and it is time I stopped procrastinating.

Interesting thread!

When I was a young kid I really, really wanted to learn. I pestered my parents all the time. Whenever I was anywhere with a piano or keyboard I would play it, working out melodies and just tinkering around. But we had no piano, and my parents did not have the sort of money to go out and buy an expensive instrument that I may or may not stick with, and the answer was always no.

When I was 13, I forced their hand. There were 2 piano teachers on site in my school, and I went and spoke to one of them who agreed that I could practice in her music room before school and during lunch. So I started lessons and progressed pretty quickly.

Two years later my grandmother died suddenly, and her piano came to my parents house - I finally had an instrument. My enthusiasm continued and I played a lot until I finished school. I took music as a secondary school subject and needed to do a practical at a particular level in my final exams, so I worked really hard to get there (and more or less did, though with some glaring gaps, especially sight reading!).

I went to university, and while I was still living at home, I was out most of the time and no longer had lessons, so my playing became sporadic. After a couple of years I moved out, and with no piano to play, I stopped playing.

About 12 years ago, my husband bought me a DP as a birthday present. I did some basic relearning at that stage - and I found I really did need to go back to basics at first. However, I was not consistent about it and when the children started to come along shortly after, the piano was more or less forgotten about. On the rare occasions I did play, it was really frustrating because I couldn't remember anything.

2 years ago, we moved house and in the new house, we have a good place to put the piano - somewhere conducive to play. The kids were that little bit older and more independent (my youngest was then 3.5), and I found that for the first time in years, I was actually able to claim some time for myself. I decided to get back to the piano with a bit of consistency, and I haven't really looked back.

I took lessons as a kid, but was a real underachiever. My musical focus was on clarinet. I wanted to be a high school band director, so got a music degree. But education didn't help me reach my goal - my personality and lack of social skills got in the way. Eventually I went back to school and into a totally different field (computer science) and was much happier. Finally "retired" last year.

But years ago when I turned 50, I decided I needed to get back in touch with my creative side. Took painting classes for awhile before deciding that it was time to return to my first love - music. I picked piano because the keyboard is the king of instruments - there is no other instrument that is so versatile.

I spent a year working through the Alfred books by myself before I commited to lessons. Been with the same teacher now for almost 5 years and having lots of fun.

Sam

As I have said I never had any interest in piano as a child. It was strange really. We had a music room with a medium sized grand. My father played very well and I am sure he would have taught me had I asked. My elder brother had lessons when he was doing music O Level but abandoned it immediately after and I don't think he has ever tried again.

A dearly departed old friend suggested I play. He had more faith in me, than I had in myself. Sadly, he passed before he got to hear me. We played a lot of old time string band music together, so we did have those good times. I started a few years ago at 50. It seems like all of my other playing and theory experience culminated into the piano endeavor. It was, and is a true joy.

Year 198somethig. Young Luca asks his parents to take piano lessons. Parents reply as follows: "ARE YOU SURE!?!?!?? Are you ready to practice every day for hours, for the years to come!?!?? No TV, no complaints, nothing, if you start you have to commit".

Young Luca spends weeks pondering if he is ready to abandon childhood and jump into the unknown, with apparently no way back.

Young Luca gets cold feet and abandons the idea, but still admires people that can play.

Fast forward over thirty years.

Christmas 2013. Luca is almost 41 and takes his daughter to her piano lesson. It is the first time he sees what it is like and LOVES it.

Luca still remembers his parents words, but at this point he has got an engineering degree from a semi good university, he has played competitive sport for a decade, he even did the military service. Luca is not that scared of discipline and commitment any more.

Luca asks his wife to see if his daughter's school has courses for adult beginners.

Luca started his lessons in March 2014 and is very happy he did. He has been practicing every day for more than one hour ever since. He is not a particularly fast learner, but has steadily made progress.

Thanks for reading,
Luca

I had a year or so of lessons as a child--no family money for more. Later a very generous musician friend of the family gave me flute lessons and some music theory. As an adult, I felt a house had to have a piano. I played a bit now and then, used the piano to learn choral music--and then my brother gave me a book of Chopin's Mazurkas. I discovered rubato and was hooked.

I played on my own, took a few lessons--but didn't really study until after I developed RSI from computer use and was forced off the instrument for two years. That's a whole other story! (I was incredibly lucky to recover by learning Taubman ergonomic technique.)

It's all led to a lot of well-spent money on lessons and a grand piano, and many well-spent hours.

Great stories, everyone. Your love (and perhaps obsession--but a *good* kind of obsession) with piano shines through. I didn't read a single "because Dad said I had to."

As a child growing up, we always had a piano. I muddled through the John Thompson books, but never had a real teacher. My mother played a little and had the books for me and my sister, but we were mostly self taught. At around 14, I started to play the guitar, and didn't play the piano much after that.

Fast forward 40 years. I don't even remember mentioning the piano to my husband, but one Christmas he bought me a keyboard. I was instantly hooked and played every day, until about six months later, I had a serious back issue. I decided I couldn't sit at a computer all day (I was an engineer at the time) and then sit at the keyboard for hours w/o seriously compromising my back. I put the keyboard away until I retired at age 59. I immediately bought a Roland HP508 and got a teacher and have been playing since January of this year. I am loving it and play about 2 hours a day. It's like coming home....I will play until my fingers or mind fail me. (Yoga cured my back, btw)

I totally hear you. Even though we are not the sponge-like creatures we were as children (sponge-like meaning that we assimilate ideas/abilities rapidly), neuro-scientists are finding that the human brain is much more resilliant than previously thought. It is now held that the brain is an ever changing and developing organ; not the peak-at-35ish-then steadily-decay brain of yore. Well, thank God for that! So I play, and will continue to play. Age does not matter. Physical disability matters.

Interestingly, I also was quite fluent at reading music after so long away. Never even thought about it really, was just able to pick up where I left off. It's my strongest suit, since I have no technique whatsoever. :P

I played guitar for years on and off, both classical and rock. I always enjoyed learning to read music for the classical guitar but never progressed as fast as I did reading tab and playing rock.

I also love movie themes and games themes. I had heard these played on classical guitar and started learning them myself. As I searched you tube for more I came across piano arrangements for the same themes in the search results and after listening to several (Kyle Landry is a prime example) I was hooked on how full and rich the piano sounded compared to the guitar.

I bit the bullet and bought an 88 key digital piano in my modest budget range and ever since it arrived I have spent at least 3 hours a day learning this wonderful instrument. I am enjoying learning sight reading so much more now and can grab most sheet music within my humble range (beginner) and play it straight from the score (slowly at first) which I could never do with the guitar. My only regret is that it took me until 53 years old to discover who much I love the piano

What a relief! And you are as young as you feel so I don't even think of the big 65 looming up!

Still only a youngster then!

For me, it was my younger cousin. When I was 19, I lived in Boulder, CO and my 17 year old cousin came to live with me for the summer. He plays many instruments, and we found an old 61-key Casio in a friends closet, this thing was beat up, missing keys, etc. Really it was like a 59-key. Anyway, my cousin was always messing around on it and was showing me different chords and stuff.

It got me interested in learning to read sheet music, because he could learn things by ear but I could only play stuff if he told me exactly how to play it, which in effect is exactly what sheet music is. After he went back to TX I bought a 61-key of my own (age 21 at this point), and bought some sheet music. I got better and better until the point where a 61-key wouldn't cut it for me anymore, to progress further I needed 81 weighted keys. The problem was I had no money at the time.

I inherited $1000 from my deceased grandmother not long after I had that realization, was just a few months past age 22. She was a musician, herself, and I decided she would approve of me blowing most of that cash on a keyboard, so I got a KORG SP-250 for around $700. After spending that kind of money, I had to justify it by continuing to play, and still do, at age 27. Although, I didn't play very often for the past two years, although within the last 3 months I am playing frequently again.

I have so enjoyed reading all of your submissions to this thread. I even cut and pasted quotes and replied in a separate 'note' to myself. Then I realized what a task it would actually be to go through again and post them.
In summary....like so many of you already... here's how I got restarted.....
Once I retired i.e. career ambitions no longer take precedence and the the kids have all gone, a personal re-evaluation of priorities meant I could choose for myself how to spend my time. I could follow that long held passion to play the piano as much as I want, (well maybe, but not quite, since there is a lot going on in my 'retirement',) without guilt, and without being concerned about what anyone else thought. With maturity I've found that patience and perseverance that means I really do work at piano and have made enormous progress in the last three years which has given me such incredible pleasure.
PW virtual friends ( I know you are all real really!) have all made it so much easier to be a little different when it comes to music - a classical Piano Geek - since I really don't know anyone else who plays like that and can possibly talk the talk with me.
Except one - she is one of our Sales Reps, and once a month after the business meeting we'll compare experiences of how her Chopin Ballade is coming on and my Nocturne! Mind you, she did do a music degree and is way more technically proficient than I - and a whole lot younger but we understand the discipline it takes and share our woes and triumphs in making the smallest bit of progress!
Deciding to go back to Piano has also meant it takes high priority in my life and everyone else has to realize that, and I am so very glad that my other half appreciates how important it is to me and is full of encouragement and support, and for everyone else I am not at all happy if appointments are made before 10 am!
Here's to many contented hours of playing for all of you!

Yes to this. My former boss may have gotten me to take up piano, but PW kept--and keeps--me going. Without the PW community I would be much dumber about all things piano and much lonelier as a piano enthusiast.

Stubbie,

This topic will bring us nice stories.........

My story.......

I started playing music on a reed-organ/pumporgan/harmonium when I was a boy aged 10 years in 1963. After some time I got first lessons on a churchorgan. Played my first churchservices at the age of 14. Became churchorganist and played many services till 1988. I left the church and active music got less important. My work was very busy.....

In 2006 I had a burnout. One sunday I red in some magazine about a guy who played music on his guitar in his study when he was feeling bad.........I realized that I did not play music for years....I went to the attic and took an old keyboard and started playing music in my study.......my wife was surprised and asked me what I was doing.......

After some weeks I purchased a new digital piano and could not stop playing....... In january 2015 I bought my third DP.....Kawai CA95.....I play every day for hours....

Regards,
Johan B

Stubbie,

Good story.....I wrote my story also in this thread.....

Kind regards,
Johan B