Over the years, I have had many people be amazed that I can play the piano, when they first meet me. It’s not because they think I am stupid in any way – it is more a case that they cannot fathom how anyone could possibly play the piano. Some people tend to have the notion that someone needs to be extremely musically gifted in order to play the piano. I get the impression that they somehow think its just so magical and mysterious that people can actually learn to play the piano.
Learning to play the piano has only one necessary ingredient and that is to practice. It doesn’t really matter whether you have talent or not – I have seen kids with enormous musical potential quit at the first obstacle. I have also had students that maybe don’t have a lot of musical giftedness but their enjoyment level is so great that they practice and practice and practice. The end result is that they end up learning to play the piano beautifully.
One of my current students practices, according to his mother, about two hours every day. He doesn’t set a timer or forces himself to spend that much time practicing, it seems that he just gravitates towards the piano and he ends up spending about an hour at the piano each time. As you can guess, he really has achieved a huge amount in the time he has been learning and he shows no signs of slowing down or becoming disinterested.
The real secret to learning to play the piano is practicing. If you don’t feel particularly gifted or talented at music, then practice some more. If you have a piece of music that you find particularly difficult, the answer is to practice it more. What about the feeling that you don’t have a good sense of rhythm, then practice more. You don’t think you are making much progress, then go and practice more. If you feel that there’s this piece of music that you’ll never be able to master, then yes, go and practice.
The answer for just about everything when it comes to learning to play the piano is to practice more.
Someone I happen to know is actually a world class trumpet player and I had a discussion with him on this very topic. He told me that he became a world class trumpet player when he was younger and still travels the world playing his trumpet, because he has always practiced much more than others. He doesn’t consider himself particularly talented. He attributes his success to how much he has practiced and how much he continues to practice. Because he also juggles teaching commitments, he told me that even between students, he will use those few minutes to practice some scales, or a particular section of music.
I know that the magic ingredient to being successful at learning to play the piano is practicing, might not be interesting or exciting, but it is the plain truth. If you want to learn to play the piano you will need to practice and the more you practice the better you will play. You don’t need to concern yourself about talent or your ability, just focus on the practice and you will definitely get the results you want.