Of all the conversations I have had with people that have confided in me, the main reason why people don’t take the plunge and learn to play the piano, is not because they are too busy.The real reason is that they don’t believe that they are going to be good enough to learn to play the piano.
Of course I disagree with people in a nice way because I know that the key to learning to play the piano is not some great talent or supernatural power. The key to being successful is to practice day in day out, week in week out and year in year out. The formula for success is simple enough but mentally challenging.
I was thinking the other day about this and I have realized that I can prove to you that everyone tends to downplay how good they are, or how good they could be at learning to play the piano. This is how I can prove it: I have had many students take formal piano exams over the years. Many have told me that they probably did enough to pass, but not much better than that, while others have told me that they have failed. The truth is that those students often did more than pass and some achieved the highest grade possible. I have had some piano students fail exams and those that did fail was because they didn’t practice enough to be well prepared for the exam and I knew that these students would be very lucky to pass.
The reason why these students think they have failed when they have clearly done a great job, is because they focus on the small mistakes, of one wrong note, or a note held on too long, instead of seeing the bigger picture of all they did get accurate.
If we would theoretically consider everyone that learns to play the piano, has taken a piano exam, or quite a few piano exams, the vast majority would claim they have failed, where in reality, they have and are doing really well. Again, this is because most would focus on the tiny mistakes, instead of seeing the big picture of how much they can play well.
So if you don’t think that you wouldn’t be any good at learning to play the piano, with respect, you are almost certainly wrong because if you are keen to play and are willing to practice, you will be successful. This is certain.