t strikes me as amusing that one thing that tends to not ever be thrown out is old music books. People that don’t play the piano, have never wanted to or will ever want to learn to play the piano, will hold on to piano music, sometimes for generations. This has been the case on both sides of my family (even when the music ‘gene’ skips a generation or two) and my husband’s family. I have met many people that tell me that they have some old piano music in a drawer of cupboard somewhere.
This then begs the question: Is it worth keeping or is it of any use? The answer is a matter of opinion. If you value the history or appreciate the genre of music, then it is worth keeping.
If the old piano music that you have tucked away in a drawer or a cupboard at home was yours when you were a kid, then I would say that it is definitely worthwhile keeping. Actually, if you are wanting to try again to learn the piano after quitting as a kid, I think the best place that you can start is your own old music.
The reason that this is a good place to start is that you probably remember how to play most of it. This may sound contradictory but even if you have forgotten everything you learned as a kid, you can still remember. Our brains are wired in a way that memories like learning to play the piano, never forget perhaps because it uses so much of our brains when we make music, that nothing we learn gets forgotten permanently. It might take a few weeks or quite a few months but the knowledge that you gained as a child is still in your brain.
By pulling out and trying to read your old piano pieces and play them you are helping to access the information that is locked up somewhere in your brain. I have seen this with every adult student who decided that they wanted to try again to learn to play the piano because they have always regretted giving up when they were a child.
The other point that needs to be made about old piano music, particular the piano courses that taught you, rather than the ones that just had piece of music in them, is that they were well designed and thought out. Any piano courses that I have seen that were originally published in the 1950’s or 1960’s are sound. They were so well laid out that later editions can still be bought now. My favourite piano course method book that I have constantly used for decades is The Alfred D’Auberge Piano Course and it was originally published in the 1960’s.
Over time, there will always be new piano courses but really the way to learn to play the piano, especially if it is not centred around chords but individual notes as well, has fundamentally stayed the same. Yes, the more modern books are printed in color, but that’s really the main difference.
Old piano books, particularly your old piano books are still usable and still worthwhile. Why don’t you dig them out and see what you can remember? You might surprise yourself. Just remember that if it doesn’t all come back to you straight away, then time and persistence will eventually unlock those memories and the information you learned when you were a kid.