We tend to live in a world where its an attitude of I have to have it now, I need to be able to do it now and I need to be good at it now. Instant this, instant that. However life doesn’t really work out this way and even though seniors know this better than anyone else, everyone can still get caught up with wanting things NOW.
To learn to play the piano at a moderate level, it is going to take a few years to get the skills together. I know that there are ads out there about music courses that you can take online and you can be playing real pieces of music in a few weeks. These claims are not false, however, these courses are really teaching you a style where you play the melody in the right hand and some sort of chordal configuration in the left hand. There is nothing wrong with this and if that is as far as you want to go with learning to play the piano, then this is perfect for you. Nothing wrong with having a basic skill level, but there is so much more you could learn. Having a medium skill level means that you can have a greater variety of the music that you play. Here’s the logical and definitely unsurprising reality – the higher your skill level, the more time you will need to get those skills.
Most people would think that something taking time is a negative and that it is all about arriving at the destination with the skills but I’m here to tell you they are wrong. The journey to acquiring those skills you seek is a mostly enjoyable trip because you get to play some wonderful, enjoyable music along the way. I look back on my several years of piano lessons and I remember fondly some of the music I was made to learn because it helped with building my skills. Some of the stuff I was forced to play, I didn’t like to begin with, but after learning it , I could appreciate the value of the music and I learned to thoroughly enjoy that music. I enjoyed playing it so much that even though I am not a hoarder by any stretch of the imagination, I still have all the music I learned as a piano student and I have periodically taken them out and taken a trip down memory lane by playing them.
If I could turn back time and start from the beginning again, I would change absolutely nothing and I certainly wouldn’t try to condense the whole experience. I don’t regret experiencing the various challenges that came my way (although upon reflection I would skip breaking my wrist at the age of 15 and having to deal with an extremely painful wrist afterwards). I don’t regret the scales, the frustrations of constantly getting my timing wrong and then having to go and fix it. The reason I don’t regret the so-called negatives is because it has made me the piano player I am now and if I hadn’t gone through all of it, I probably wouldn’t be as good.
The other reason why I regret none of my own personal learning journey is because remembering my own challenges and difficulties have helped my piano students over the years, because I know what it is like to be in their position and that they know I remember what it was like. I think that this makes me a better piano teacher.
I hope I have encouraged you to not be impatient and not wanting to know it all now. I know the journey, no matter how long or short it is, is absolutely worth it.
The other point that needs to be made, is that you will go on a journey whether it’s your first time learning to play the piano or you are returning to playing the piano and since you will be going on a journey you might as well enjoy it as much as you possibly can.