This might sound counter intuitive but you don’t necessarily have to be good at playing the piano to justify learning to play. I’m not trying to encourage you to be bad at it as such, I just want you to realize that you don’t have to be good at playing the piano, to actually play the piano.
Obviously the goal of learning to play the piano is to play as well as you possible can, but what I am trying to convey is that you really need to be good enough to please yourself. You do not need to learn to play the piano well enough to impress others (although trust me when I say that impressing people with even minimal piano skills is easy) you just need enough skills to satisfy yourself.
Sometimes adults get caught up in the notion of not being good enough at learning and playing the piano. But the question that I would like you to consider is – who decides what the benchmark is for being considered ‘good enough’? The concept of playing the piano well enough is completely subjective and because this is the case, who says that your definition of being able to play the piano well enough is not valid?
I often feel disappointed when adults express a real desire for learning to play the piano and then they tell me that they will never be good enough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disappointed because I may or may not have missed an opportunity for having another piano student – that thought doesn’t actually cross my mind. Instead I am disappointed for the other person who is going to deny themselves the joy and satisfaction that comes from playing the piano. I know what they are going to miss out on and I feel sad for them.
So often in life we are told in numerous ways that we must do, act, be better than what we currently are. We are often made to feel ‘not good enough’ in so many ways and on so many levels that when it comes to something like learning to play the piano, especially when a person has to wait until retirement, we are convinced that we can never be good enough before we have even begun.
Don’t allow the ‘I’m not good enough’ nonsense to dissuade you from learning to play the piano. You can decide for yourself what constitutes what is good enough and you are not obliged to let anyone else decide what is right for you.