Does Any Sort of Musical Prior Experience Going to Help Me Learn to Play the Piano?

The short answer to that question is a resounding yes – that experience in a choir or learning to play another musical instrument when you were younger, as well as having some piano lessons decades ago does help when you are learning to play the piano now.

I have come across a number of people that as older adults taken up piano lessons for the second time, when the first time was when they were a child. In my experience, even if there is 40 years between piano lessons, the knowledge doesn’t just disappear, it is all still there in your brain. It just needs a little jogging for it all to come back. So if you are thinking of returning to learning to play the piano after a many a year, you may not think that you remember anything, but with a bit of time and effort, not only will you remember some of it, I believe you will remember everything.

If you learned to play a different musical instrument, but now in your older years really want to learn to play the piano, you will not be starting at the very beginning because you may already know how to read the treble clef or the bass clef. If you know how to read at least one of these clefs, you can work out how to play both clefs. Prior experience with another instrument also means that you know what rhythm and timing is and you already have the skills to do it. The other immediately transferable skill is that you know how to practice and what it takes to make progress.

Even if you didn’t previously learned to play a musical instrument but you have been part of a choir at any point in your life, you would know about pitch, rhythm and timing. You also could have picked up how to read music along the way. You may not realize that being in a choir helps with the discipline of practising and knowing that progress is made with effort, not luck. All of these skills are useful for learning to play the piano.

So I hope it is obvious how any sort of musical practice at any time in your life has given you some skills that you can use to learn to play the piano now. If you have never had any sort of hands on musical experience before, doesn’t mean you can’t learn, because if you have enough desire and put in enough effort, you can learn to play the piano, no matter what your age is, or experience.