Piano Forum

There is no proper evidence to suggest that age matters. As far as I am concerned it is a superstition, and you will find the same kind of support for it (from superstitious people) that you have for Friday the 13 being a bad luck day (or a good luck day if that happens to be your superstition).

I have had plenty of adult students who I was able to bring up to the level of playing advanced repertory.

Are you still alive? Then there is hope.

Children learn with difficulty, the same as adults. However the difficulties are often of a different nature. Anyone who has had experience teaching both children and adults and who was open and alert to learn something (there are plenty of people in this world who have experience but seem to learn nothing from it) will have observed some of the below (by no means an exhaustive list):

1.      Children have very short attention spans. Adults also have short attention spans but firmly believe the opposite.

2.      Children learn mostly by imitation. Adults require intellectual understanding and lengthy explanations to be convinced that they should do something. Both will resist the work that needs to be done. Both must be encouraged and cajoled constantly. Children will usually obey you though. Adults resent having to obey. This is a major stumbling block for adults. However obedience without understanding usually results in undesirable results, which explains why children take ten years to play anything of moderate difficulty. This is a major stumbling block for children.

3.      Children have no preconceived ideas, so they just go along with whatever course they are doing, mostly unaware of what is going on. As a result, if the teacher is good and is regularly checking on the child, they eventually end up well educated. Adults believe they do not need such close supervision, but they often had far too many preconceived ideas about what is going on – and usually such preconceived ideas are completely wrong – so instead of spending their time by following the teacher’s instructions, they follow their own preconceived notions.

4.      For a child everything is equally difficult (or equally easy). For an adult, certain things are easy and they are familiar and comfortable with. Others are impossible. Both children and adults do not realise that the difference between easy and impossible is practice. So adults (and children who have reached a certain facility) resist tackling something that is unfamiliar/impossible. This is another major stumbling block, but adults are more prone to it than children.

5.      Adults believe that (because they are usually already successful in other areas of life) that they should be able to learn anything with facility. They are shocked when they discover this is not the case. Suddenly successful professional people experience the utter clumsiness of the total beginner. And it may take a sizeable amount of time (a couple of years as opposed to a couple of weeks) before they gain any semblance of control and confidence in their piano playing. Many never reach this point: After a month they may give up and  say “I have no talent”. Alternatively they may look for comfort on half-baked pedagogical superstitions like the one you mentioned: “I should have started a t 12, now I missed the window”.

6.      Both children and adults lack consistency, perseverance and endurance. However with children you expect that. So you will cajole and make them practise. Adults on the other hand resent cajoling or even the suggestion that they may be just like children in this respect. Adults will assure you that they have practised according to your directions, when in fact, they have not practised and when they did, they did according to their own ideas ignoring completely your instructions. Most do them unaware that they are doing it. Sometimes they will do it even with me at their side. I remember this guy who was having no progress for weeks on a four bar passage. I asked him to show me how he was practising it. He proceeded to play the four bars (full of hesitations and mistakes) several times – each time worse. I told him: “let us play just the first six notes of the first bar, right hand only”. He nodded and proceeded to repeat the full 4 bars hands together. I said “What exactly are you doing?” he replied “What you told me…” I said. Listen carefully. And gave him the same instruction again. He again repeated the first 4 bars hands together. We went through the same surrealist dialogue again, but this time when he started with  hands together, I actually grabbed his left hand and did not let him play with hands together. He was actually fighting me to bring the left hand on. I said “what is your problem?” he said (now laughing because he realised how unconscious was his behaviour) “I don’t know”. Eventually I got him to repeat the six notes, but I had to watch him like a hawk. Imagine what he would get away with when practising on his own.

This list can go on and on. The bottom line is this: Anyone with no physical or mental impairment can master piano technique in 1 – 3 years, no matter what age they start (acquisition of repertory is another matter altogether), provided that they have a teacher that know what s/he is doing and that they follow instructions.

The most important asset in learning anything at any age is attitude.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.