Learning the piano as an adult

Don't answer that question, but listen to this. I have a pupil who is in his seventies. Ten years ago he began lessons on the piano with me. At that point he could remember how to play the right hand notes from way back when he was eleven, but he couldn't read the left. Now he plays Debussy and Mozart and Tchaikovsky and Chopin. He really enjoys it. I'm not saying he could go to Carnegie Hall but he gets such pleasure from it. His secret is commitment, a sympathetic teacher and practice, practice, practice. Guess which is the most important. He often practises for 2 hours a day, but if you want to make reasonable progress half an hour will do to start with. You could get an easy book like the ones I've suggested and work at it yourself, but the encouragement of the right teacher would be a tremendous help. Don't be put off if the first teacher you try is not suitable. However if you explain what you want to do at the beginning you will probably put off the wrong sort. It may be an idea to find a youngster who wants to practice teaching .

Don't worry about talent. The ability to stick with something, to keep going against the odds is far more important than talent. There are plenty of people out there with talent, but what have they done with it? Nothing. If you are prepared to work hard, and practise, practise, practise you will get huge enjoyment from your improvement. But increase the practise slowly or you will knot your fingers up. Start with ten minutes a day, or three sessions of ten minutes a day and gradually increase to half an hour a day. Remember there is no question of your getting to the Juilliard this is strictly for pleasure. No one may ever want to listen to you play except you but that is what it is all about, your own satisfaction in progress.

Enthusiasm is more important than talent. Get to that piano and have a go. In the middle of the keyboard, that's all those black and white keys, find two black keys in a group. No not three in a group. To the left of the two black keys is a white key. This is middle C. Put the outer side of your thumb on middle C. Next, having pressed down middle C, firmly, using your thumb as a hammer, next use your next finger to press down the next note. This is D. Guess what your next finger presses E. Then F, then G with the last two fingers. If you play up and down these notes you are playing a five-finger exercise. Now put your left hand thumb on that same middle C and moving in a mirror of the first exercise move down to B,A,G and F. You can now use both hands together. Put the two thumbs sharing middle C then move outwards to your second fingers, then the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, and then back again till you reach the C. Now just experiment playing anything and listening to the sounds you make. A book like the ones above may help you, or you may find you can make progress just "playing by ear". Which ever suits you the secret is to practise, practise, practise. The most important thing a teacher can say to you is,"Just play that again." Good luck.

Let's start at the bottom of the money scale. You can get keyboards fairly cheaply. They vary. I think they are better if they have a piano touch. An old fashioned piano can be cumbersome and it needs tuning every six months and varies with the weather. What I have is a Yamaha Clavinova which is electrical has complete piano touch and sounds wonderful and the big plus is that if you live near other folks it doesn't matter because you can use headphones and they'll never even know you play. Then when you've made some progress you can surprise them.

You might find a friend who is at the same level and play duets together. this is great fun. You need to start with very simple duets. Often Christmas carols are arranged as duets.
When you have mastered this find someone who plays a melody instrument, like a flute or a violin. They will be thrilled to have someone accompany them. You will need to thoroughly practise your part as keeping in time with someone else takes a bit of getting used to. The secret is for you both to count the beats of the bar. If you can do this out loud while you play your piano part it will be a great help both to you and the other player. This will give you hours of fun and your playing will improve enormously.

Once you have mastered this you may find a small church with a need for a pianist to accompany the hymn singing. You could begin by playing just the tune. Then progress to playing the tune and the bass. You need to practise this thoroughly. You can usually find out what tunes are needed on the Wednesday before the Sunday service. You can make it a stipulation that this is so if you are to play. You need to be aware of the tunes which are known to the congregation. You need to take on board how many verses are being sung, however if you glance at the congregation when you think it is the last verse you should find that they are all closing their books, so if you are not sure that is a way to tell. Also look out for tunes that have a line repeated. Give the congregation a clear first line at the start to make them aware of the tune being used. Do not panic about mistakes. the congregation are only too pleased to have your help.

A pre-school or kindergarten would be pleased to have you play for them on the piano. You need to play with a strong rhythm for children to dance or move to your music. It would be good to re-introduce some old nursery rhyme tunes as these are part of our heritage but are being lost, no longer sung. The children could also play percussion instruments with your playing as a solid background. If you can sing along as well this would be good.

At the other end of the age range elderly people would enjoy your playing. They would enjoy a singalong with both golden oldies and slightly newer songs. The elderly in residential homes enjoy this because apart from the music it is the chance to see a different face.

If you are feeling confident try accompanying a melody instrument, such as the violin or flute. So long as you are prepared to be patient with each other you should have lots of fun. You have an advantage here because the melody line is shown above your music, but the melody instrument has just their own part. So you can see where they should fit in with you.