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Last year I came back to piano playing after 16 years break. I do not practice as much as I would like but so far I managed to get my technique back to the level I had at the point of my graduaton from secondary music school. In my country, people at that level should play Chopin’s, Debussy’s or Scriabin’s etudes, Beethoven’s sonata (all movements), major work by Chopin (I played Scherzo h minor and Ballade A flat major), Bach’s entire suite or prelude and fugue from WTC, and some post romantic piece (in my case it was Debussy - Jardines… from Estampes).
I am currently working in academic position but it has no connection to music. If I want to earn my living at the University I need habilitation. It means, that within next three years I have to write a monograph and publish some good papers in Impact Factor journals. I feel very much depressed because it seems I should close piano lid again as I did in in the past. During those 16 years of not playing I could not even listen to music. It hurt too much as a reminder of a paradise lost.
There are alternative solutions: either to adopt some sort of programme minimum – with easier repertoire, that does not satisfy my ambitions, and just play for fun (I never did this way) or skip repertoire at all and spend next three years entirely on retraining of apparatus and improving technical and aural skills. I would pay this price if I got freedom of expression on keyboard in return. I would like to get to the point where playing such pieces like Chopin’s Ballade f minor or Goldberg Variations is within my technical, mental, emotional, and spiritual reach. Then actually pianist, piano, and music become oneness – a sort of flow, or a pure musical consciousness? I experienced something like this during my diploma recital.
There is so much repertoire, also early music, postromantic, and modern; and life is so short and I already lost these 16 years. I would like to learn so much and there is so little time. I feel really helpless.
There might be some Middle Way type of solution but currently I even do not know how to find it.
Could you offer me some advice, please?

Hi Justyna. It sounds like you really need to play!

How much practice time do you have daily? If you can find 20-30 minutes a day, but every day, that's still enough time to do a few technique exercises and work on one short repertoire piece at a time. If it's more like 30-45 minutes a day then that gives you time to work on a longer repertoire piece.
The thing is getting to it every day, even if it's not for very long.

I used to practice one hour a week and saw improvement over that time. If you can only practice five minutes a day, you will see improvement.

I went through a period for several years where I wanted to prove that you could reach professional level only practicing once or twice a month. I have since given up on that idea, but the key is to always make progress, even if it is just a little.

Another thing I did that might have been helpful was finger stretches while I was sitting at my desk, away from the computer.

Hi Heather. You're right, I really need to play. Actually I feel kind of sick if I do not touch the piano during a day.
What I am experiencing is a sort of paralysis before climbing Mount Everest. I want to practice to reach professional level, I want to relearn harmony incl. modern approaches, I want to train aural skills, I want to learn about theory of music, sociology of music, philosophy of music... Sounds like a huge obsession.
I can find 30 minutes daily with ease but then how many pieces I can learn per year? It took me around three months to get three Chopin's etudes (1 and 2 op. 10, and double thirds op. 25) to the point I can practice according to Cortot's suggestions at a moderate tempo - I cannot reach tempo that is marked in the score so far. It took me 6 months to remaster English suite g minor, but I cannot play it from memory as good as I used to when I was 16 years old. During last 6 months I also got Suite from Holberg Time to the point I could work on rendition. Very often I feel I am not suitable for piano anymore, if it takes me that long, while as a child and a young girl I could learn two sonatas, four concert etudes, two polyphonic pieces, and at least 4 more pieces per year plus extra work involving collaborative pianism. And I played them from memory.

PhantomFive, I practice outside piano but not on a regular basis. I do some stretching, recently it became a serious issue, since I found Busoni's instruction not to arpeggiate tenths in Chorale-Prelude 7b. The span of my hand is also my concern - I can reach ninth, but it does not feel comfortable.

After you get habilitation, will you have more time available to work on music than you do now? If so, then you will still have many years left to pursue your musical goals more vigorously.

You say you do not want to just play for fun. Does that mean you want to play professionally at one point or just that you want to learn the most demanding repertoire or something else?

I know realities of life. I am in my late thirties, and becoming concert pianist is beyond my reach. I want to be able to play what you call the most demanding repertoire. I want to feel piano as natural as you feel your native language.

So unless there is a third alternative you haven't mentioned, it seems like you have to work on the habilitation for now.

About twenty years I was interested in eventually being able to learn pieces way beyond my ability at that point(I'm nowhere near your present level), but at this point in my life, I've concluded that there are more than enough masterpieces to satisfy me that I can handle with my present technical ability. It doesn't sound like this approach would work for you but OTOH it seems like your present level permits you to handle all but maybe the very,very hardest works in the literature. And that's not so bad IMO.

That is a lot. That's what conservatory students tackle in 4-5 years of full-time study with expert instruction. If you aren't devoting full-time focus to it and you don't have that quality of instruction, you can still make progress but it will be a lot slower.


Those two suites are multi-movement so what you've done is already a pretty big project, particularly with limited practice time. Not to mention the work on three very challenging etudes. That's pretty awesome too. So you clearly can make good progress on limited time. It just is at a slower speed than if you had 6+ hours a day to practice.

It sounds like at one time, you were training to become someone who is a full-time pianist, and then your plans changed. So maybe you have some leftover assumptions from that time, that only the full-time way of making music is valuable. It might be time to re-examine those assumptions. You clearly have the ability to make music at an advanced level, you're playing some great music, and you'll keep on learning new music and discovering new things about the music you already play. That has value. It doesn't have to be at a full-time level of intensity to be worth doing.

Actually you hit the point. That was my plan since I was 7 years old. I see what other people at my age have achieved in music just because they were strong enough to pursue their plan for life, no matter what. I would really like to get to the point in my life when music is my full time activity. The question is whether I need to get confirmation of my skills from conservatory and if the conservatory admits a student who is 43-45 years old. Does it make sense at all? I am referring to the fact that first I need to get habilitation in social science, because that is my job so far. I already tried to get in new research areas in my field that would be related to sociology of music and management of culture. Academic research also requires time, that from my perspective is stolen from piano. It is a kind of desperate attitude, when after having been done with family life and work you're sitting with Chopin etude at 2 00 a.m. and falling asleep while trying to get more flexibility in crossing 4 over 5 finger. On the other hand I feel much more secure in pianissimo thanks to praciticing in the middle of the night

People make life choices. Following one's dream is the ambition of many, but few make it - and those that do find that not just the path, but the destination is not a bed of roses.

There are many here in Pianist Corner who harbored ambitions of concert pianist life when they were students, but reality sank in, and they switched tack when they found themselves surrounded by students of greater talent in a conservatory. Some may continue to make music their career, but find themselves having to do many things they don't enjoy, just to make a living. Others pursue another career but continue to satisfy their craving for public performance by taking part in amateur piano competitions.

In fact, I personally know one who won lots of competitions as a conservatoire student, and even had a modest career as a concert pianist afterwards, playing in small towns and music societies. But he was unable to make a decent living out of it, and he didn't want to teach, or do 'gigs' like weddings and restaurants (where classical music isn't what's required), or accompany ballet classes etc. So, he went off to study medicine, and is now a successful ophthalmologist.

For me, classical music became my greatest love ever since I started piano lessons at ten, but luckily , it was never an issue for me to pursue it as a career, because I simply had no talent. I didn't even need the confirmation of how far behind I was, when at high school, another kid my age was performing Liszt's B minor Sonata and the Appassionata in a school concert to the manner born, while I was struggling with......Rondo alla turca. So, by keeping piano as a hobby, I got on with life, and now perform recitals regularly for fun and erudition (mine, and hopefully, my audiences' ).

Incidentally, I was on holiday in the wilderness (OK, up a mountain - another of my loves) recently, where I read a book someone lent me, by one who followed his dreams of a career in music (after some hiccups) instead of taking up a secure job following in his famous father's footsteps. With the help of lucky breaks (and contacts), he managed it (Peter Buffett's "Life is what you make it - find your own path to fulfillment").........

But he was young and ambitious when he went down his (initially) insecure path. And he was lucky, and had lots of help. Do you really want to change your career to music in mid-life, rather than keeping it as a hobby in which you can go on improving, and spending as much time as you're able on it, and most of all, keep enjoying it without the pressure of having to make a living out of it?

Hey, if it helps you feel better, some of us were away from the piano for more than 16 years. My first thought was, "Only 16? That's pretty good!"

But to be serious now... I understand your feelings of "wasted time" because I was away for 25 years. I think about how much I could have done when I was younger and everything worked better - my muscles... my tendons... my memory...

But the reality is we have to deal with daily life and earn a living.

I think if you can find 30 minutes a day to practice, you will see improvement. Sometimes a week goes by and I find I didn't practice at all. Most weeks, I only get about 5-7 hours, total. And that's if I try really hard to get it in. There are just so many things I need to do... and other things I want to do. I've got a lot of hobbies that I enjoy besides piano.

I'm giving a recital in 2 weeks and some of the things I'm playing, I did last summer. Maybe somebody will think, "Gee, in all this time she couldn't have learned all new pieces?" But you know what? I did what I could. I did what I enjoyed. I am not going to worry about the "what if I had dedicated more time to the piano" question. I am going to enjoy the time that has been given to me and do what I can.

I wish you all the best. Maybe we'll run into each other at a competition one day?

I think the most important question is what you can do now that will make you a better pianist in three years, and how to efficiently manage what time you have.

The fact that you can't play as much as you would like doesn't mean you can't still develop over the next three years. Perhaps you could make a plan to study a little bit of theory and ear training every week, and also work on maintaining your sight-reading. If you relearn old pieces, you will still be able to play without having to spend a great deal of time acquiring difficult new repertoire. Perhaps you could work on some easier pieces for memory practise, if that interest you.

If you can make slow but steady progress, you can do an awful lot in three years, and be ready for the time when you can increase your workload. Who knows how good you can become? Anything is possible

Bennevis, you' re right, most people do not follow their dreams, and they learn to accept reality. On the other hand, following your call is what makes your life meaningful. You need talent, hard work, persistence, courage, luck, meeting right people at a proper time. I would say, as a scientist, that there are too many variables in this model

Coaster, you really made me feel better. Actually it was a kind of a relief when I found out last year that there are several competitions without age limit

Johnstaf, your advice sounds very reasonable. I perform ear training daily, I practice sight-reading, not on a regular basis, but I observed a massive improvement. I have no patience for relearning harmony so far.

Like so many, I had to decide while still young whether to try to make a career in music or take another path. I did the latter, and it's had some ups and downs, but mostly ups.

Even the best of the musicians I grew up with -- some REALLY gifted people -- have had lots of struggles and frustrations in music. Meanwhile, I now play for fun and don't have to worry about earnings from music or satisfying conductors, contractors, audiences, or others. I play what I want, not what someone else wants me to play. It's quite liberating, and in some ways I believe I enjoy music more than a lot of people who chose the professional path.

That is, what crossed my mind some time ago, but I considered it a sort of rationalization in my case. But in general you are right. There are many enthusiasts at the begginning of their careers in most of creative professions, but the probelem is to keep this enthusiasm for a long time. Satisfyng external constituents is exhausting. As in my case, I have to find a marketable topic for my academic work to generate plenty of citations .

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/20/alan-rusbridger-play-again-review

This is the story of a guy who while editor of a major newspaper, in the middle of a global crisis, managed to practice for an annual summer camp performance.

My take away was, if he can find the time. I can find the time.

Kaziranga, I read the story :), thanks for sharing.

The funny thing, I had a sort of inferiority complex towards my friend at the music school. She played 1st Ballade, while I was preparing the 3rd. I found 1st more appealing at that time - you could show your virtuosity. It was also somehow like ready to play in terms of rendition - music just flows naturally. After almost 20 years 3rd seems much more interesting for me - more complex. Of course that is my personal opinion.

I got so many valuable insights from this forum so far. I am really grateful.

For all of us who live for art :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIExoUb8jk

(Don't forget, we still have to make a living.......)

Hi Justyna,

I'm at a similar age and stage in my career, and, though it sounds like you have more early training, we have similar musical goals. Others have suggested that you reevaluate you piano goals. I'll suggest you reevaluate your professional goals as well. Not to say that habilitation isn't the best choice for you. But in my country, many graduate students decide by default that the next step of their career should be to try to be a professor and publish research papers. For some that's truly the best job for them, but for others, they eventually discover that they didn't explore their motivations deeply enough, and a life of academic publications is not satisfying to them.

I've recently gone though thinking along these lines, and I feel pretty certain that the default path isn't right for me. I'm exploring an alternative path that doesn't give me quite as much academic prestige, but still provides enough prestige and money to make me happy, as well as giving me the freedom to do some low pressure publishing while helping students and the community. Meanwhile, I have much more time to dedicate to piano and all my other personally valuable pursuits. Perhaps at a later date I will reflect on this and wish I'd stuck to the most prestigious, most challenging career track. But I don't really think so. I know myself enough to know I really value a balanced life, and a research professor's life isn't that (at least in the US).

You may have already thought long and hard about your career track, but I think it's always worth reevaluating these kinds of life-changing decisions, especially when they're directing you into an obsessive, all-consuming job.

MarkH, in my country it is a must if you want to stay at the university. They can transfer you into senior lecturer position but our authorities have been reforming the system to make it even cheaper for central budget, so there is no guarantee that senior lecturers would be needed at all. Full professors are much more valuable for the University, not for their brains but for how much money they bring via algorithm that is used to calculate governmental donations for Academia. I could look for another job, but then you also need a sort of transitional period and a good idea.