I’ve been teaching many years and one of the many things I have noticed over the years is that everyone has a weakness. What I mean by this is that everyone will have some aspect that they really have to work on, while other areas they will master quickly.
I don’t mind admitting that my area of weakness was my timing. It was the one aspect I really had to work on, not just for a few months but for several years. I have so many memories of practicing the pieces or sections of music that my teacher requested that I practice, going home and practicing diligently for the next week, going back to my piano teacher a week later to find out that my timing STILL wasn’t accurate. I have vivid memories of practicing for countless hours, working on the sections of music and counting aloud I,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 over and over again. I vividly recall working really hard, doing my best and getting frustrated that my timing still wasn’t working.
As a piano teacher that has taught hundreds of students, I would estimate that at least half of my students have also struggled with their timing. Yes, I have had a number of students who have not struggled with their timing – it is something that they find really easy BUT they have struggled with reading the correct notes, or blending their notes so it is nice and smooth where one note flows seamlessly onto the next note. I occasionally come across students that struggle with playing staccato, which is where the notes are short and crisp (I often describe this technique as a finger literally bouncing on a note). Quite literally, if it’s not one thing it’s another.
If you saw me play the piano today, you would not be able to detect that I ever struggled with my timing. After about the first ten years of playing the piano, I got to the point of finding the timing of a new piece of music quite straightforward and on the odd occasion, found the timing easy. If I learn something new now and the timing is very complex, I won’t necessarily find it easy but I have my strategies of working it out and getting it correct AND it never frustrates me (it hasn’t actually frustrated me for a long time now).
While everyone has a weakness when it comes to learning to play the piano, it is also true that everyone has a strength – some aspect or technique that they just find simple and easy. My strength has always been being able to play a piece of piano music that is really quiet and delicate, very well. Even as a kid taking piano lessons it was always something I could just do without much effort at all.
So the great news about everyone having a weakness is exactly that – EVERYONE has a weakness, or at least had a weakness until they worked so much on it that it became a weakness no longer.
The other great news is that everyone is really good at some aspect of playing the piano. I know that this is a bold claim but it is true for 100% of all the hundreds of students I have taught over the years.
If you haven’t found what part of learning to play the piano is easy for you yet, keep going. You will definitely discover something that you find easy if you just keep going…