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Hi, I'm Frank. Born and raised in Ireland, living in the US for longer than that. I'm a scientist by day, took piano lessons from age 11 to about 21. Haven't had a piano since leaving home after college. Since then, detoured away from piano repertoire to flute (classical and Irish) and eventually to pipes (Irish/uilleann). But my daughter's been taking lessons for about six months on a little 5-octave keyboard I've had since grad school, which is why I bought a Kawai K-500 last month, and I've been loving it! Dusted off my old books (Joplin, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Field - pretty orthodox stuff), found stuff I've enjoyed for a long time but never thought to play myself on piano (thanks Paul Barton for your arrangement of Simon Jeffe's Perpetuum Mobile!), as well as stuff that's completely new. I feel like a kind of Rip van Winkle, waking up after a very long sleep!

Once I'm over this honeymoon period (flitting from old to new and back), I'd like to really knuckle down and *memorize* pieces. This was my big regret from my decade of studying piano - my teachers always discouraged playing without the notes in front of me, so I never learned to play from memory. I can play hundreds of Irish jigs/reels/airs from memory, even after months of not playing them, so I know my memory's working fine. I just need to focus it on the keyboard!

Anyway, this is nice forum. Looking forward to learning from you all.

-Frank

Hello! I finally decided to stop lurking and join the fun. I'm a recently retired attorney living in the southern US and returning to the piano after a hiatus of several decades. This fall I'm taking several classes at the same university music department where I received my Bachelor of Music degree back in the '70's. I'm looking forward to participating in the forums and getting to know some of my fellow piano and music lovers around the country and the world.

Hello,

I'm Justyna from Poland. I studied piano as a main instrument for 13 years. Unfortunatelly, I did not continue in Conservatory, which as I now believe was the biggest mistake of my life. That was such a trauma that I neither touched piano nor listened to classical music for almost 20 years. For one year now I have been a happy owner of upright Kawai and working on remastering techique and musicality. The biggest problem for me is to reclaim my pianist identity while being academic in social science and single mother at the same time.


As for repertoire: my current project is to master English Suite in g minor, plus Gireg's Suite from Holberg's Time and Debussy's Suite Bergamasque. Apart from that, I am working on Chopin's op. 12/4, relearning op 12/12 to reach tempo marked in score, and slowly treating some other Chopin's etudes as technical excercises for speed, flexibility, stretch, double thirds, slicing etc.

My coming back to piano playing started with practicing some pieces of repertoire I had played in my diploma in 1997 - Beethoven's Tempest sonata, Bach's Perlude and fugue e flat minor (DWKI), Chopin's Ballade A flat, Debussy's Jardines sous la pluie, Chopin's etude op. 12/4

The biggest challenge is to find psychological space and time for practicing. I have feeling of better musical percepcion of sound now, but the problem is that memorizing pieces got more problematic than in the past.

I hope to learn a lot from insight of those who are coming back to playing after a long break, and from active professionals.

It is wonderful such a forum exists.

I apologize for any mistakes - English is not my native laguage.

Hello,
I am a stay at home/missionary wife living in a third world country in Africa.
I have been teaching myself to play piano for the last two years. There are no piano teachers around here so I am on my own. I have gone through the first two Alfred's Adult All in One piano books and I am now slowly working my way through number three.

I put in about about 40 minutes of practice a day. Just a few months ago I had a Kawai es100 brought from South Africa so now I have something real to practice on.

My ultimate goal with piano playing is to be good enough to recognize what it is that I am playing
I am looking forward to learning from this forum.

Hello Junegirl, and welcome to PianoWorld


That's a good one but surely not your ultimate goal?

Plenty of information and advice to be had around here. And with 40 minutes a day you can get far.

If you are unable to have a teacher, make sure you aren't just 'going through the books', but pay attention to techniques. The internet provides a lot of sources:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL21598D1259C2C8EE
http://playingpianoblog.com/learn-to-play-the-piano/
among others.

I wish you luck on your journey

Hi, I'm Arne, new to this site.

I'm the proud owner of a Steinway Model B. I've taken piano lessons for eight years and violin lessons for six, performed solo and as a member of youth orchestra and youth choir, and I'm a self-taught accordionist. Right now, university keeps me busy (I'm majoring in political science, not music) but I try to practice every day nonetheless.

Currently, I'm working on Rachmaninov's Concerto no. 2, Liszt's Trans. Etude no. 7 "Eroica", and Beethoven's Sonata Op. 27 no. 2 "Mondschein" mvt. 3. I've also recently begun to compose (actually, I was introduced to this site when I looked up chord harmony).

I look forward to meeting fellow piano enthusiasts on forums and discussing with them music and other wonderful things.

Hi everyone! My name is Luca, I'm 23 and I'm from Italy. Learn to play piano has always been my dream, so three years ago I bought a Yamaha DGX 520 (because a true piano would have been too much expensive) and started to play as self taught.
Some of my favourite composers are Bach, Chopin, Scott Joplin, Keith Emerson, Elton John and Yiruma. I've still a lot to learn, and I hope that in this forum I will be able to find useful tips about playing and technique.

P.S: sorry for my not perfect english

Hi
I've played piano for around 9 years now and also have some experience in piano theory. I'm like to play pieces that I hear in a show or on the radio. I've attempted some impromptu and Jazz but haven't been able to get it down yet. Usually, I work with Classical and Baroque style music. I hope to learn more from this forum.

Thanks!

Hi everyone.
I started learning piano when I was very young, around 5. Completed all by ABRSM graded exams and took a hiatus while I got lost in the world of electric guitars and synthesizers. :P After almost 10 years away from a "real" piano, I finally decided to get back to my roots and hopefully try for a diploma. Long time lurker here in this forums and hope to contribute something back.

Hi, my name is Victor and i am a pro musician graduated in classical piano with a large experience in classic, latin, jazz and retro pop (50s to 70s). I am a performer, arranger and composer not only for keys/piano but sequencer creating vintage Hollywood orchestrations and retro bands simulations, though piano is the principal factor i work with.

Hi, i've just started playing the piano for about a year and I want to know how my progression is going. I can play this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kef9nnCI3QU after learning it for 2-3 weeks. I want to know your opinion. Thanks!

Ah, I just started visiting the Pianist Corner after not being on the site at all for a few years... and realized I should probably introduce myself. I'm also a piano technician, and used to be quite active on that forum when I first started as a tech about 10 years ago.

I took lessons as a child til age 15, then came back to lessons with my wonderful teacher here in Toronto in my late 30s. A couple of years later I had my 3rd child and gave it up again! 14 years later, here I am back at it and loving it. Two years ago I also took up fiddle for the first time. I take two classes a week (one private and one group) and absolutely love it. So happy to be making music again.

I'm a little obsessed with Grieg, partly since I was lucky enough to live in Norway for a few years while growing up, and recently started learning a few of the pieces in the Holberg Suite. I also love Brahms. Am also working on Bach's French Suite no. 4, and am just starting some Scarlatti sonatas.

Hi, I am a student pianist studying at university and recently discovered this blog. Would love to hear about everyone's opinions on what they enjoying reading about in regards to playing the piano as I am also writing a blog on my goings as a career musician.You can find the blog at http://www.hanfordlam.com/glimpse-of-a-musician

Hi everyone!
I'm Emily, 14 y/o and started taking piano lessons in November!
It has always been a dream of mine to play piano, but due to family
problems I wasn't able to until recently. I am quite serious about
piano and my childish self hopes to work hard and be able to study
piano. I hope this dream isn't all too impossible.

I really look forward to learn a lot from different peoples with experience here .

Hi Emily
Welcome to the piano, and Piano World! How exciting that you are able to begin lessons. Please look at the Adult Beginners Forum, as you will find a lot of useful information. You might want to sign up for MOYD, where you commit to practicing at least a few minutes a day.

And no, yours is not an impossible dream!!!!!!! It is a life-long journey in learning this wonderful instrument. We share your dream with you.

Hi. My name is Adrian . I am from Moldova . I am an amateur piano music composer . My passion for music has appeared on at 17 years . And I started to learn music making independently but there was not so good results . So always I continued to learn .So After I graduated High school in my village I went to the technical university to learn biomedical engineering but after year I understand that this is not mine . So I left Technical University and I went to the Academy of Arts to study Image Directing . So after I started to learn at Art academy I understand that I need to know some music theory to have better result . So I was at a music teacher and showed some of my tracks , so after this he was impressed that I made this music without knowing something in music . So she said that I have good harmonic hear and she is ready to teach me for free . So in my free time I took music theory lessons . So I made half year of lessons . And this was all my music knowledge . Sure , Now I am learning all by me self but always I am feeling that for making music I need to feel the wave not to know theory . So now I am 22 and want to get better so for this I am here to know more people and to make friends that will educate me through criticism .

Hello! I already kind of introduced myself in the 'why do you play piano' thread, but since this is kind of the place for it I will post that introduction here too.

My name is Harm Jan Kamphof, I've been playing piano for over 10 years now and I'm still enjoying it more and more!

I started playing piano at eight years old. I was playing at a friend's place and they had a piano.
I sat down there and pressed some keys. Now it just so happened that the father of the friend I was with, was a piano teacher. So he gave me an easy piece to play. Sadly, I can't remember what it was.
However, I can remember that I absolutely loved that experience. So I ran home afterwards and asked my parents if I could get piano lessons from my friend's father.
Luckily they thought it was a good idea. And here I am, ten years later. I am still in love with the piano, I play at party's, I write my own music, I put music videos out on Youtube and now I'm even on a piano forum! wink

I've also become very comfortable with improvising by playing in a band that just gave me guitar chords. I just made my own thing from all the chords and this improvising has become a hobby/passion of its own!
Also, travelling up and down to my study has gotten me to play at piano's at train stations a lot. This has made playing in public very comfortable for me!

It's great to see so many enthusiasts and I really look forward to learning from and contributing to this forum!

Apologies - I "jumped right in" with questions I had, then started commenting on threads. I should properly introduce myself.

I am a recent retiree who want to get back into piano playing that I learned as a child / teenager, so that I can carry music making into my old age. For many years my main musical activity was choral singing - I sang with semi-pro choirs that performed with symphony orchestras and made commercial recordings. I have a very eclectic listening taste in music - classical, Jazz, world, including "out" stuff like 60s avant-garde Jazz; but what I like to play on the piano is mainly classical - Bach and Mozart in particular. My "bucket list" wish is to completely explore the two Well-Tempered Clavier books; I have started learning shorter, easier preludes and fugues.

My retirement also involved a big move, and unfortunately I had to sell my old acoustic piano, a Yamaha U3. Now I'm in the market for a digital piano for the first time. I'm completely new to digital, so I have much to learn and will be asking many questions in the digital forum.

Hi,

I am a rather old (over 65, but not yet retired) beginner/intermediate player. Although I have never received any piano lessons, I have always been interested in playing piano. My children, who no longer live with their parents, are very good players.

I have played piano off and on over the years, but several months ago I had decided to play more seriously. I have played everyday since then, and I can already see a big improvement in my piano skills. For example, I managed to memorize the first movement of Pathetique, although it would take a long time for me to play it at an acceptable level of speed. In addition, I am practicing a few other pieces including Chopin's nocturne Op 27 No 2 and the third movement of Moonlight.