When people have found out that I teach the piano, a lot of adults have then preceded to tell me that either they have always wanted to learn to play the piano or they learned when they were young and now regret quitting. Even as a young teacher in my 20’s, I have thought that it is never too late to learn to play the piano, or return to lessons even if you have forgotten everything.
When I was 22, I met this lovely lady who worked at the same school as I did. One random day she told me that she wanted me to teach her the piano but she didn’t know how she was going to go. She confided in me that she had had lessons when she was a child for about 18 months and that she regretted quitting. She also told me many times that she had forgotten absolutely everything, to which I kept reassuring her that it didn’t matter. I don’t think she was confident that she could learn again, but the most important thing was that SHE WAS WILLING TO TRY.
I remember her first lesson, even though it was a long time ago. She was very nervous. I quickly realized that she had actually forgotten everything, so I needed to teach her like she was a complete beginner. In that first lesson, absolutely nothing I taught her that day had been remembered from when she was young.
A couple of months later during one of her lessons, she remembered something I was explaining to her. She was very excited that she had remembered one thing from when she first took lessons as a child.
For a few months after that, she would remember more and more until she got to the point of excitedly interrupting me regularly with “Don’t tell me, I think this means…” and she would explain to me what she thought I was going to explain. It got to the point where I was there to make sure she had remembered correctly, rather than actually teach her.
Unfortunately I only had about 18 months teaching this lady before I had to move to another state. During those 18 months she had gone from someone who could not recall anything that she had learned as a child, who didn’t have a whole lot of confidence but she was willing to give it a try and see what would happens, to a lady who had remembered everything she had previously learned and she was brimming with confidence and enjoying her piano practices.
We kept in touch for about a year after that. She would always tell me how much she was enjoying playing the piano most days.
I look back fondly on Trish and what I remember the most was the dramatic change within herself.
She went from being nervous and almost apologetic to a lady brimming with confidence and joy. Playing the piano brought her so much joy and I was very fortunate to be a part of her story.
If you think that you are like the lady in this story, where you would really like to learn to play the piano in your retirement but aren’t particularly confident, then just give it a go… You really have nothing to lose and so much to gain.