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Hello piano lovers,

This is my very first message on PianoWorld.com. I hope I am posting this at the right place.

I was wondering how do you piano lovers do not give up on learning the piano? How do you push yourelf to keep on going? How do you remain connected even in adversity?

I must admit that even though piano is my true passion, I tend to give up on things easily. Nevertheless, I do not want to, especially for piano. I really want to learn that beautiful instrument, but I am always scared that I will push my study time away without even knowing it. I did for some times and I regret the time wasted not practicing.

I am restarting piano lessons next week but I somehow apprehend it. The last time I kind of give up on piano was when I started learning chords, which made me angry at the time because I still did not know how to read a score properly.

Does anybody have some tricks to remain in the game?

I would really appreciate any input.

Thank you!

Hello djat1984,
You may discover that some folks on the ABF have given piano up, only to resume piano at some later date, to give it up again but always seem to be coming back. In a nutshell, that is my story. You may hear about the importance of discipline, but I don't know that discipline can be much of a goal; it fails to motivate, in the absence of love (for the piano)--which you seem to already have. So I'd say, Give yourself credit for having made it this far while remaining a devotee of piano, and try not to lose that passion, for it is fragile.

One of the wonderful things about being an adult is that you can play a greater part in designing your own lessons, or at least in articulating objectives, than we are able to as children. I would suggest you talk to your piano teacher about what you hope to accomplish and what might be a realistic timetable for bringing that about. Be honest about chords not firing you up much, and you can keep chords from becoming the end-all of your pianistic career. Sometimes, too, you have to know when not to push yourself too hard.

Do you have some piano pieces in mind that you'd like to be able to play? Will you and your teacher be working from a method book? How often will you be taking lessons, and for how long each? Also, tell us about your piano.

Welcome to Piano World and the ABF!

Do what you have to do to find pleasure in it. If you are not enjoying yourself, then change what you are doing so you include pleasure in your experience. Be sure to find time to play music you like. It seems like a lot of those who burned out describe circumstances where their piano experience was all work and no play. Keep it enjoyable.

There are so many things you can possibly motivate yourself, and would not remotely work for someone else. Here are a few that work for me:
- I promise myself that I will sit down and play, for even a few minutes, every day. I don't commit to necessarily a length of time, but just to do it.
- I listen to a LOT of music.... and always walk away with 'ooohhhh, I want to be able to play that too'. I have a wishlist that is more than I can possibly learn. .. and certainly some I will never be 'good enough' to play. That's ok, it is just a wish and the wishes keep me trying.
- Reward yourself for the little victories: the measure you couldn't play one week ago, but now can.... the piece you couldn't play a year ago, and now can.
- Don't ask: 'how much further do I need to go to get there'.
- Work with your teacher to add some of your 'wish list' (even if a simpler version) to what you are learning. You will dig into your wish list that way.
- Hate something you have been assigned to learn? Ask your teacher if there is something you can substitute that will teach you the same skills
- Once you get where you have favorites, reward yourself by just playing them again. You will find joy in just making your own music.

Absolutely communicate with your teacher: your goals, your fears, your problems. Your teacher can be your ally.

Hello agraffe,

Thank you so much for your kind words and welcoming me. I really appreciate the time you took to respond to me.

As a beginner, I was tempted in learning Gymnopédie 1 from Satie and Clair de Lune from Debussy even though I believe the later one is more for experts. If the sky was the limit, I would learn Étude Tableau Op. 39 No. 6. from Rachmaninoff and Fantaisie Impromptue from Chopin. I really affectionate these particular pieces but I'm not sure why.

Yes, my piano instructor works with a method book, Alfred's method. To be honest, I didn't like it much as it integrates learning chords really early in the book. I think it would be more important for me to learn how to read a score first then work on chords. I told my instructor about this and she said she would try to find another method that would suite my taste. I know that learning some chords is essential, but I find it too hard to remember yet. I will be taking lessons only once a week for about half an hour to start... maybe more if I progress well.

As for my piano, I am the proud owner of a digital Roland HP603. It's the biggest purchase I have ever made but I don't regret it one bit.

Hi and welcome to PW!

Maybe suggest Faber to your teacher (I think the series is called Piano Adventures). Many people here use that.

For learning to read there is no substitute other than just doing a lot of it. Take some really really beginner level material and take 10-15 minutes per day just reading and playing through some new stuff you have never seen before. You will see great improvement after some time.

Clair de lune is advanced but Gymnopedie 1 should be achievable by intermediate level players. It contains some big chords though so perhaps it's not a good idea right now. Tell you teacher about your ambitions and they will work you towards those goals.

Welcome to the forum

Personally I love the challenge and when it gets really tough I know it will pass. I have learned it is not about big advances but taking some joy in the really small ones.

The best thing that keeps me motivated it to have a formal list of my daily practice. It generally is a list of the pieces, scales, arpeggios and exercises I want to work on. When I have spent enough time on an item I tick it off as complete, working through the list to the end. This makes it less likely I will skip something or dodge out of it because I don't enjoy it.

There are no tricks in piano but learning just how to practice is so important. People generally will develop their own regimes over time, and that is an interesting journey as you learn more about yourself. A key to all practice though is enjoying what you are doing, keeping goals small and realistic, and practising slow and methodical rather than fast and random.

Hey d84, I'd tell you to find the fun in playing piano. For me it was learning to play by ear plus playing tunes I want to play and family/friends enjoy hearing.

Good luck!

Passion, discipline, patience.

If you have a question, ask your teacher. If you have a problem, tell your teacher. If it's still not working, discuss with your teacher. No one knows you better than your teacher. If you're new to your teacher, give your teacher time to learn about you. Don't go fishing for an answer or a second opinion somewhere else. I myself avoid seeking answers here. If I get "advices" here without asking, and if they contradict what my teacher says and my own experience, I do not listen to them. If you think you know better, you don't need a teacher. Until then, listen to your teacher. If for some reasons you don't trust or cannot respect your teacher, find another one.

Be mindful and purposeful when practising. Take a power nap beforehand if that helps. Take a short break every 30 minutes or 1 hour depending on your practise session.

Analyse your practise patterns. Evaluate to see if it is efficient and effective. Change to improve. Loop this process for eternity.

When you need a break, take a break. When you're just whining, whine away then go back to practise.

Get inspired. Watch Youtube videos of your heroes and heroins. Listen to their recordings. Read about them. Go to concerts. Study music theory to compliment your practical skills. Explore other composers and pianists. Explore music outside of piano. Do whatever that keeps your passion going.

Record and listen to yourself. Be critical. Direct yourself where you want to improve. Work on it. Loop this process until you are satisfied for the level you are currently at. Be realistic. You won't sound like Horowitz in your first 10-20 years of learning.

Challenge yourself, be it an exam, a recital session for friends, submit a recording for the online recital here etc. Keep aiming higher but be realistic. Don't get yourself into a "crash and burn" situation, e.g. avoid learning Rachmaninov concertos after 6 lessons. You're not ready if you teacher says you're not ready. Listen to your teacher.

Learn to enjoy both the journey and the destination. Be accountable for both your achievements and your failures, and learn from them. When you've achieved a stepping stone, reward yourself. When you've achieved a milestone, reward yourself. Share your achievements and experience. When you fail after giving your best effort, console and forgive yourself. When you fail because you were slacking, stop whining. In any case, go back to practise.

If you want give up (not whining), think carefully why. Take a break. If you still decide to give up, give up for good and with pride. You don't owe anyone any apology. It's your life and you alone choose how to live it.

Disclaimer: the above are just my experience of learning music. Take it with a grain of salt. It may or may not work for you. Good luck with your journey.

Everyone else is already giving great inputs. I just chime in about something that helps me is listening to my favorite pieces.

When I got lazy, tired or current piece is just too hard, I just want to give up. But then I listen to my favorite piano pieces and think to myself "if I keep on practicing, someday I will able to play these pieces too." It fires me right up and get to to bench. Once you get warm up, it's easy from there.

You can always see it as a toy and do with it whatever you feel like. I have the hope that the more we learn, the better a toy it can become.

(C) Kozma Prutkov

Hi djat, It's good if your long-term, "big picture" motivations match up with your smaller, daily goals… e.g. "I want to learn piano" (abstract, future goal) should match up with "OK I'm going to sit down at the piano now and practice this or that specific little thing, for such and such amount of time." If you can learn to love that, and make it a normal part of your daily life, your longer-term motivation will take care of itself! Even the smallest daily steps can take you a long way.

I've been having the same thoughts lately, and I think I'm better now.

I think the following was the most helpful:
- I talked to my teacher about frustration with certain, challenging pieces and lack of practice time (don't try to solve it alone)
- I've taken a step back and started learning easier pieces that target only one or two skills I need to improve on, before tackling harder pieces. I can make progress with these pieces in 1-2 weeks, as opposed to months
- When I practice, I ensure I play some enjoyable pieces that I know, and then I go to pieces I'm currently learning
- I realize (through discussions with my teacher) that there is no pressure on me...I'm not trying to pass a test, I don't play for anyone, I don't have to rush getting through a piece, I can just play and practice when I can, and don't get involved with tracking progress and measuring myself to anyone's expectations (including my own)

I never think "I have to practice" or "I have to play the piano". It just happens that there are other things I HAVE TO DO and then I think "ok first I'm going to play some little pieces a bit on the piano".

Hi and welcome.

You have already got excellent input here so I agree with all writers above ...

I started to take lessons when I was 11, I loved it and I made quick progress ... and after a few years it was the usual story, I lost my motivation, I practiced less, progress diminished, and besides school took most of my attention and energy. And I also hated performances. Then I left school at 19, went to the university and took a master's degree in engineering, and then the usual story with work and relationship and kids and so on, so on. Actually I did buy myself a Yamaha Clavinova, one of the first models, and I never said "I have quit piano playing" but truth was that I had.

Whenever I tried to play, it sounded just horrible, I forgot my old skills. Finally my piano playing was restricted to playing "Silent Night" every Christmas evening ...

Five years ago, when I was 45, I got a challenge. A good friend, who also is an excellent concert pianist and my big piano idol, offered to give lessons because he was interested in what it is like from an amateur point of view. I knew he would hardly get the time after all, but I decided to pretend AS IF. I had to think clearly about this: either this was my chance to become an active pianist again, or I would remain in the audience, with a bittersweet smile telling people that "I also used to play the piano once". Well, if you really want to feel ancient, you can do the latter.

But I remembered the old days when practicing was heavy and boring. I did not want it to end just like last time. So I really thought this over and decided to give it a different approach and not repeat old mistakes.

First, I had never before asked myself WHY I found practicing boring. I realized that this was a bit strange, as I have always loved to PLAY the piano, and listen to piano music and all that. I love pianos as such, they fascinate me. How come I did not like to practice? Well, it was kind of standard - the lesson form was 20 minutes a week when I was a child. You got assignments, next week you were there again and apologized for not having practiced enough. Even if I HAD practiced enough, I felt I had to apologize for not being good enough. My teacher was kind, but sometimes she got impatient and angrily circled the notes and chords which I missed repeatedly. I dutifully followed the schedule with the assigned pieces, but some of them were boring. And so these Hanon exercises and scales ...

And so the other students. Some of them real bad and unmotivated, and a few with great ambitions. Of course they were much better than me. My teacher and my parents discussed my pianistic future right above my head: she cannot be a concert pianist, she does not have what it takes. But of course, she can become a piano teacher ...

To be a teacher was the last thing I wanted. I interpreted "she does not have what it takes" as I was not talented enough. Not long ago I confronted my mother about this, and she explained that it was not what she had meant. She had thought I would not enjoy the lifestyle of a concert pianist, and she knew I did not like to perform. She was absolutely right, by the way. Becoming a concert pianist has never been a dream of mine, especially not now when I have seen what this life really means.

But to talk above my head was not the right thing to do. They meant no harm, but maybe you can distinguish a pattern here - nothing in this piano study life was on MY conditions.

As an adult student, everything has changed. I decide what I want to play, I decide my lesson schedule, and I play for my own sake and not to please anyone else. I have my goals and all that, but I am in command.

The first thing I did to get back on track again was to lower my ambitions - my deal with myself was to sit at the piano 10 minutes a day. Not more, but not less either. My second approach was to always praise myself for my progress. No matter if my "progress" was "did play that note a little bit better today" and nothing more. I ended every session with a short summary: what did I learn today? What did I change?

This little trick seems a bit too simple to work, but it did! I left the piano every day with the feeling of having made progress (and I ignored my mistakes, did not focus on them at all). Soon I longed for going back there, because the piano became a place of success, a positive place. Before, it was the arena of failure and humiliation. A perfect way to lose your motivation.

Then I practiced more and more, got myself a new and better piano, got myself a teacher, read piano literature and joined piano communities, went to concerts, went to piano summer schools which was the adventure of my life, and last year I even got those lessons from my piano friend which were promised to me, and it was like heaven.

I have learned that praciticing the piano in fact is great fun. It is like playing a computer game or laying a jigsaw puzzle. You encounter lots of small problems and issues which have to be solved, one at a time. And you can sit and work with these tiny problems for hours and hours, just like a gamer. To be able to play something you definitely could not master before is quite exciting.
Or it is like being a sculptor. You have this pile of clay, and you start to form it and after many hours it has transformed to your inner vision. When you look at the final result in its full complexity, it is hard to understand that YOU made this, and all this.

When I work with a piece, I let it run in my head on repeat. I get visions and ideas on how it REALLY should sound, and I also get ideas on how to practice. I never do finger exercises just for the sake of it, because that is terribly boring, but when I work with a piece I can understand that I need to practice more staccato, for instance. Or the c minor scale and its chord progressions.

Motivating myself is no longer an issue. The hard thing is to leave the piano ... You can get slightly obsessed with it, just as many people get obsessed by their computers. But I am an adult, I have my adult life with work and family and household and a million duties, and sometimes I simply must put piano practice on hold. That is OK too. I will come back later ... and this piano playing has opened up a new world to me. I discover new, exciting music that I want to try, I meet other pianists, go to concerts and meet other music lovers, and I am still very delighted by pianos. To enter a piano store with lovely new pianos is like entering a candy store to me.

I don't know if this long essay was a real answer to your question, but hopefully it was a bit of inspiration to you. Find the beauty and the joy in the journey itself, instead of just wanting to reach the final destination. Forget about impressing others. And if something feels too difficult and you lose your focus - narrow down the scope. Decide to work with just one bar for a while, investigate it from every aspect, listen to the harmonies, work note by note until you feel that you are making progress. As long as you feel you are getting somewhere, you will stay motivated.

I keep trying but I just don't have the time to practice. I rarely get time to myself and at night the piano has to compete with the TV and I have kids.
I'd get a teacher but I just can't afford it.

It is part of me and who I am. I have been playing piano on and off it seems, most of my life. I am pleased now that I play every day and find enjoyment in it, every time I do. It isn't work any more. I love piano. The End.

A lot of good advice and wise words above.

One thing I have learned is that what looks impossible on first glance will eventually come together. This happens to me time after time: A new piece gets assigned. There are big chords in there! Lots of them! And those ornaments! I can't possibly EVER do them! And on and on.

And then I start practicing. Pretty soon those chords feel a little better. The ornaments merely sound rough rather than awful. It's as if I get through an energy barrier and after that it starts to fall in place. So my advice: press on through that initial I-can't-possibly-do-this phase and come out on the other side with some new skills and pride in your accomplishment.


P.S. I find MOYD, as simple as it is, remarkably effective in getting my derriere to the bench. Once I'm there, practice happens. Oh, and another thing. I keep a notebook beside the piano and jot down the date and what I've practiced. It's very satisfying to see the notebook fill up and to look back and see how far I've come.

Best of luck to you!

Brilliant post ghosthand, probably a contender for post of the year, (if there were such a thing), but I was glad I had just started a cup of coffee