Calling all teenage boys!

[minsmusic]

I've been reading through your posts for the last couple of weeks and I have to say how impressed I am by your committment, level of achievement and enthusiasm.  I have 29 students in my studio at the moment, three of them, yes, just three are boys. And this seems to be the trend - at least in my part of the world.
I was hoping you'd be able to tell me, how old you were when you were first introduced to the piano, who suggested it, how it came about, why, and what made you keep going.  How many of you want/are pursuing piano as a career?

I hope I can use your experiences to inspire my boys and perhaps recommend the piano to their friends.  

Thanks heaps guys.

[erak]

At first, my dad made me go to music school, and I chose piano since we had one at home. I liked it at first, but then got really bored with it. I had lessons for 6 years without wanting to play at all, but my dad forced me to keep going. Last year, when I was 15, I finally got interested. I discovered pieces I liked and I played them for myself, without my teacher knowing. I got a lot better playing them, and I started to like playing the piano. Then I saw the Queen Elisabeth Contest in tv, which was my "big boost". I saw it and I was totally amazed and I said to myself 'I want to be like that'. So I started practicing a lot more (and studied the pieces I have to play for my teacher more).
Since a month or so I have set my mind on making music my career. I want to study piano after I finish high school.

I hope this was sortof what you asked for . Good luck with your students!

[rachlisztchopin]

last february...i had endured an all the sudden interest in classical music because i played oboe...i decided to begin messing with the piano we had at home that was never used and i spent time picking out popular tunes and improvising...my mom got me into piano lessons and i played peices way beyond my level and technique (beethoven sonatas and chopin etudes for example) last summer i got in Jura Margulis's piano studio (college professor and good friend of martha algerich whose been on world tour with her   ) and now im studying piano technique as well as reading technique books and im even getting into composition...i just have a love for classical music (especially romantic era) that has inspired me to keep going...my goal is to get into juilliard and set off from there p.s just turned 15 2 months ago

[Its_about_nothing]

At first, my dad made me go to music school, and I chose piano since we had one at home. I liked it at first, but then got really bored with it. I had lessons for 6 years without wanting to play at all, but my dad forced me to keep going. Last year, when I was 15, I finally got interested. I discovered pieces I liked and I played them for myself, without my teacher knowing. I got a lot better playing them, and I started to like playing the piano. Then I saw the Queen Elisabeth Contest in tv, which was my "big boost". I saw it and I was totally amazed and I said to myself 'I want to be like that'. So I started practicing a lot more (and studied the pieces I have to play for my teacher more).
Since a month or so I have set my mind on making music my career. I want to study piano after I finish high school.

I hope this was sortof what you asked for . Good luck with your students!

That's pretty much my story too, minus a few details.  

[schnabels_grandson]

At first, my dad made me go to music school, and I chose piano since we had one at home. I liked it at first, but then got really bored with it. I had lessons for 6 years without wanting to play at all, but my dad forced me to keep going. Last year, when I was 15, I finally got interested. I discovered pieces I liked and I played them for myself, without my teacher knowing. I got a lot better playing them, and I started to like playing the piano. Then I saw the Queen Elisabeth Contest in tv, which was my "big boost". I saw it and I was totally amazed and I said to myself 'I want to be like that'. So I started practicing a lot more (and studied the pieces I have to play for my teacher more).
Since a month or so I have set my mind on making music my career. I want to study piano after I finish high school.

This is wierd, but that is also very similar to my story.  

It all started when my Grandmother gave my brothers and sisters and I organ lessons.  I was three years old at the time.  I was no prodigy, but I learned some basics of keyboard playing.  That was all for a few years.
When I was older, my mother worked for an older couple with a brain damaged son.  She provided in-home care for the brain damaged man.  The man's parents had an electrical piano and I used to mess with it when I went to work with my mother.  They said I should get lessons, but my mom couldn't afford them, so they offered to pay.  We took them up on it.  I started at 10, was into it for about a year and then my teacher started being too strict.  I really hated my lessons and didn't practice what my teacher gave me.  This continued for the next four years and I was advancing at snail speed.  Then I decided that I wanted to be more serious and I started paying attention to what I was doing.  That was two years ago, and my teacher claims that I have been making extremely fast progress ever since.  

I think I will end up being a teacher of piano (I want to) and I hope to be a very good one.      

[minsmusic]

Thanks for your experience guys!

6th Gen Beethoven,  how was your teacher becoming too strict?  Could you give me an example - just to make sure I'm not doing that myself.

And what was the 'something' that made you decide to take it more seriously?  Can you remember?

It's about nothing,  was your 'big boost' something you saw on TV too, or something else?  A piece you liked, influenced by  person?

Oh, and how important is competition?  Not 'a competition', but the type that goes on among peers.  Are boys more competitive with other boys, or are they also competitive with girls?

[rachlisztchopin]

i think it depends how much they care about piano...im very competitive but i dont really show it...there are two boys the same age as i who take lessons from my teacher and we dont compete at all...i think i have to be competitive though to catch up with the people who have had lessons since they were 5

Ohh and i recommend u show ur guy students "The Art of the Piano" DVD...its what really got my mind focused on piano, watching famous 20th century pianists play(especially Gyorgy Cziffra and Glenn Gould) i watch the DVD nearly everyday...now i dont just study piano...but als pianists (and composers too of course )

[rohansahai]

Well, my story is somewhat unusual! First of all, i live in India where there are hardly any pianists and none in my city other than my teacher's family. Since a child I was very fond of music and so my parents got me into vocal lessons. Later, I met the brother of my father's friend who was a pianist and usually used to be abroad. I heard him play and wasn't I awe-struck! I will never ever forget that evening! He played everything ranging from mozart to chopin and i kept loving each piece more than the previous one. After that, my father got me a 73 key keyboard and i practiced with the help of his family until he returned for the next vacations. He found my progress so wonderful that he took me on and gave me rigorous lessons each time he came (about 2 months a year).
              Well, its been going on like that for almost five years now and that's about it!
Hope I haven't been too boring!
Rohan.

[Its_about_nothing]

It's about nothing,  was your 'big boost' something you saw on TV too, or something else?  A piece you liked, influenced by  person?

Well, I have been playing piano for about six to seven years, of which only one year seriously now. About a year ago or so I used to take my guitar playing really seriously. I also came across some classical pieces transcribed for guitar, which I liked (especially Rachmaninoff's prelude Op. 3 No. 2). I started looking for piano recordings, and I liked the way those sounded more than they did on guitar. I just liked the sound more, the piano sounds fuller, etc. So I listened to more and more pieces, and thought "I want to be able to make music like this too!" So I started playing for hours and hours when I was sixteen, and I still do. And I'm getting better at it fastly, according to people. I simply stay motivated because I love music.
And that's pretty much it.

[schnabels_grandson]

6th Gen Beethoven,  how was your teacher becoming too strict?  Could you give me an example - just to make sure I'm not doing that myself.

And what was the 'something' that made you decide to take it more seriously?  Can you remember?

I think I had potential for being a concert pianist and my teacher saw it.  After my first year, he started demanding that I practice at least an hour a day, which was hard for me, being only 11 years old.  If I failed to make progress on one of the pieces I was taking, he would gripe at me.  He always assumed I wasn't practicing at all, but I was, just not what he gave me.  I dreaded my lesson becuase I knew I was going to be uncomfortable.  

Every year my teacher puts on a concert at the local convention center.  He has five or six of his most advanced students play.  I saw this about two years ago and it really made an impact.  I also have to admit that the movie "shine" motivated me too.

[minsmusic]

Guys, I've really benefited from your experience.  Thank you.
It seems that exposing students to 'fine' musicians and 'fine' music is important, and that other influences beside the teacher are needed - and then it comes down to the individual.
Another question, why did you all keep going to lessons if you weren't really interested to begin with?  Forced by parents?

[schnabels_grandson]

I was interested to begin with, but my teacher's later attitude toward me induced resistant behavior.  I guess my mother didn't force me, she just pointed out what a great opportunity I had and that I would probably be kicking myself later if I quit.  So many people wish they had continued their childhood music lessons when they get older.

[minsmusic]

WOW!  and you listened!  I was told this too (at 9, when I first quit, at 15 when I quit again - it wasn't until I was 21 that I began to take it seriously - not for my Mum, but for me. ]

Good on you!  You were wiser than your years.

[findingnemo]

 I also have to admit that the movie "shine" motivated me too.

that is so true! thats the movie which changed my life i guess!

I was 12 when I watched the movie(that was my 2nd year of piano playing, i started at a rather late age), the film inspired me so much that i decided to learn Liszt's hungarian rhapsody no.2  straight away, and then i did it (although at an amateur-like level), but it just kept my interest towards piano-playing for such a long time that I now end up doing bachleor of music (perf) here at conservatorium of music


p.s caution : learning Hungarian rhapsody no.2 on your second year of piano playing may not be such a good idea, it gives you plenty of bad habbits if without the supervision from a "GOOD" teacher. (which i didnt have at the time) :-/

so yea, bad example, but if it wasnt for this I probably wont end up doing music anyway.  

[CDS814]

Hey,
   Well it all started when i was 6 or 7 i dont even remeber. My older sister ahd been taking piano lessons for as long as i could remeber and my mom started making me and my brother take them too. At first it was interesting, but then i became bored with it and my mom had to force me to practice. At 9 i picked up the saxophone and loved it, pushing the piano to the side of my musical life. Then i got an excellent teacher name Young Min who was a graduate of the Peabody institute. He really improved my skills, but i was still being forced to practice. Then he left when i was about 11 and i had no teacher. Since my mother only made us take lessons until we got out into high school my sister had stopped long ago and my brother was bounting the days. I still had a few years ahead of me so i went down to the local music store and got some sheet music that looked interesting. I still wasnt serious about the piano, but i had fun fiddling around with some elton john and the such on my own. After about half a year of playing on my own, i finally got a new teacher. I was playing a good amount then, not hours, but my mom didnt have to force me to play, i did it on my own. I had always loved music and had thought my passion lay in the saxophone, but i found that where my heart truly belonged was in the piano. I dont know how i cam about this, it just hit me, and for about half a year now ive been playing as much as i can and dream of becoming a concert pianist. I too am my teacher's only teenage boy. well, thats my story.

[minsmusic]

What's 'boring'?  Scales? Classical music in general? Music is too easy?  Music is too hard?  Teacher is not interesting?
How many of you would say that it was the teacher's fault you were bored/not interested.  What did they do wrong?  What should they have done?

[comme_le_vent]

ive never had a teacher, i started late and picked it up myself.

if you have difficulty with a student that says they dont like 'classical' music, ask what modd of music they like.
prove to themn that 'classical' music has just as much emotional range as pop music.

if theyre fans of steve vai or yngwie malmsteen, give them some piano music similar to guitar shred(ie alkan, liszt).

prove to them that theres just as much 'happiness' 'sadness' 'angst' 'aggression' and even 'sexiness' in classical music.....

[rachlisztchopin]

prove to themn that 'classical' music has just as much emotional range as pop music.

Correction: classical music has more emotion than popular music...ick popular music has no emotion...many times i wonder what has brainwashed people in to disliking classical/real music

[comme_le_vent]

i agree with the 'more' emotion. but you have to play down to them, try to make it seem accesible and dont drill it into them incessantly - just encourage them to realise its virtues by themselves.

[bernhard]

Like Maksim does!

[minsmusic]

So commelevent, was there a piano in your house already?  Did a family member already play?  What inspired you to suddenly teach yourself?  Did you play another instrument already? And how did you go about teaching yourself, and why?

Oh, and I like your suggestion about asking what sort of mood they like.  Good question.  Thanks.

[chopiabin]

Well, my story is again similar to many. I took lessons when I was about five, but I would never just shut the hell up and let my teacher teach. I liked the "real" piano music, but I hated things like "The Cat Walks Up the Street," or whatever those early pieces are. That teacher told my parents that she simply could not teach me. Anywas, when I was 16, I was (and still am, somewhat) into the very experimental metal band Scholomance who incorporate classical into their style. The end of a cd had some interesting piano improv pieces, and those were what sparked my interest. I tried going it alone for a few weeks, and got halfway through prelude in C#minor. Finally I decided that the only way for me to really progress was to get a teacher, and I love her - she is the best in this city. That was more 1.5 years ago, and I have progressed very quickly. I have gone past all her other students, including some that have been taking for 11 or 12 years. In the spring I will be performing in 1 recital, 1 competition, 1 concert, and during the summer I am doing my Guild auditions. I plan to double major in piano performance and literature, but piano will probably win out.

Chop

[rachlisztchopin]

u guys are so lucky who have had lessons since u were very young!...im jelous  ...my mom knew i had talent but was afraid i was too shy and would quit piano after a few years of being forced to take piano if she got me into lessons

[comme_le_vent]

there was a piano in my house, and my mother played a bit when she was young, but she very rarely plays nowadays, its really just an ornament in the living room.
i was directionless in my life, and someone i knew realised i was very passionate about music and i wanted to learn an instrument, so they hooked me up with a guitar teacher, and i learned the basics of guitar. i then decided i wanted to be a multi instrumentalist(or just a mentalist   ) so i taught myself some piano, as inspiration to play i bought some piano cds, and i realised that the piano was the best instrument for me and ive devoted myself to the piano ever since.
i love the piano not because of the raw sound itself, but for the sheer textural possibilities of it, the range of sounds it can produce is greater than any other instrument, and more than any other instrument - it is a sheer physical joy to play it.
i also like the fact that the piano is most often a solo instrument, and i like the purity of a single person doing everything and having complete artistic control and responsibility, not to mention the sheer feeling of intimacy of listening to or being a solo performer.

[minsmusic]

it is a sheer physical joy to play it.

Yes, it's 'fun' isn't it?    (I was the teacher who annoys you because I'm 'not hardworking'. Too busy having 'fun'  )

[comme_le_vent]

actually in that post i was referring to the starter of the thread's student, i was talking about non-hardworking students, sorry for the confusion.
my increasingly serious study of piano is for 2 reasons-
the realisation that i HAVE to be good if i want to earn a living at it
and my general aspiration to be a great artist and to be worthy of whatever fame i recieve.
not to mention my increasing love of music and the instrument itself.

[minsmusic]

Good on you commelevent.  It would be an absolute blast to teach some one like you.  So far, I've taught students who want to be a piano teacher, and students who want to be an accompanist, but none have said to me so far "I want to be a concert pianist"
Anyway, I'm taking my more 'serious' piano students to a concert this Friday night.  See if that inspires them

[comme_le_vent]

lol, i would have thought most people would dream of being the next horowitz instead of the next Neuhaus.
everything seems to be upside down there in aussie land  

[minsmusic]

.  Come visit the country some time.  I've been told by many it is rather 'unique'.  Us Aussies do think a little differently I think.

[NoCreamNoSugar]

I have 29 students in my studio at the moment, three of them, yes, just three are boys. And this seems to be the trend - at least in my part of the world.
I was hoping you'd be able to tell me, how old you were when you were first introduced to the piano, who suggested it, how it came about, why, and what made you keep going.  How many of you want/are pursuing piano as a career?

Until college I mostly listened to 80s rock, some KISS, some Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Ozzy. About a year or two in I began listening to jazz (Coltrane, Brubeck). I appreciated jazz at first because even if I didn't like it initially, I could appreciate the difficulty of improvisation. I then moved on to Beatles, Jethro Tull, progressive rock and hip-hop. Other than the Four Seasons, I hadn't listened to classical at all. When I was 21 I got Classical Music for Dummies. A few years and a now an absurd love of Beethoven later, I decided to learn piano.

My reasons for wanting to learn piano are complicated, but the moral of my story is you don't have to be brought up singing church choral music or start piano at age 2 to appreciate it. I feel what really got me here was having an open mind to the unfamiliar (music in this case) and having respect for other styles of music and their own complexities.

In the Ken Burns jazz documentary, Wynton Marsalis mentions, "beethoven doesn't come to you, you have to come to him."

[rachlisztchopin]

When I was 21 I got Classical Music for Dummies.

lol what a stupid book

[NoCreamNoSugar]

lol what a stupid book

Thanks for the insight. I actually really enjoyed it, particularly because it gave a nice background of classical music without heaping on the snobbery.

[Hazim]

I have seen that many of you people have been "forced" by your parents to play piano when you were kids.

I want to say that I am jealous on you.

Nobody made me play piano when I was a boy, and my parents did not even recognise my vast interest in music. Instead, my father thought I should be into "natural" sciences and kept "awakaning" my interest into astronomy and simmilar. Not that I did not like physics and science, but I was never any succesfull in that, partly also because of the war in my country, but mostly because I never fully enjoyed learning that. Now at the age of 30, I work as an accountant and a translator, my current interest with physics is on the level of "Star Trek", and even there, one of the strongest scenes being from The First Contact, when Cpt. Pickard listenes to a Berlioz's aria in his room, watching the stars through the Enterprise window and awaiting for the attack from Borgs. I am pretty sure that, even in 500 years from now, when we reach the stars, we shell still listen to the same classical music (and I hope they will have pianos on the starships).

The music remains my dream. At last, after all the turbulance, I can now afford myself piano lessons. Be thankfull to your parents for forcing you to play!

regards,

Hazim.

[greyrune]

Well if anyone's still interested in another history of piano playing here's mine.  I was forced to start at around 11 by my parents but hated it and gave up after a month.  I took up drumming about two years later and made little progress for about two years.  Finally a moved to a new country and a new school where i started listening to rock and suddenly gained a real interest in music.  I started to be serious about drumming and began to really improve.  

After a while, while broadening my listening to jazz and classical as well, i reallised that music had to be my future.  I decided to take up piano and guitar as well as drums.  Unfortunately i have fallen for the piano and the guitar has slipped slightly though i still try to get in around half an hour a day.  Piano though has become an obsession even to point where i practice that instead of drumming, for which i cannot stress enough my passion.  I think i have improved quite fast, i started in spetember and am now playing grade five jazz peices.  I'm only thankful that i wasn't put off for good by my early experiences, i had come to the conclusion that i was entirely unmusical and its a blessing i discovered that it was in me somewhere.

[one_wing3d_ang3l]

woah minsmusic ! bravo! u started playing the piano seriously when u were 17 years old! how many hours did u practice a day? hope ur not dead...

[one_wing3d_ang3l]

i know this topic is abit old but woAH minsmusic! bravo! u manage to become a teacher when u started playing the piano at 17 seriously. Ur the bomb! how many hours did u practice a day? hope ur not dead..

[Antnee]

Hmm... well for me it all started about a year and a half ago. My friend came over and saw a crappy old keyboard we had collecting dust in the corner. I knew he took piano lessons and I asked him to play it. he played some piece that had the tune to alajueta (sp. ?) and the ending of liszt's second rahpsody, kind of different. Anyway I really like it and I didn't know too much about piano but I really wanted to play that little piece. So I recorded him playing it (just sound wise not like notes on the keyboard wise) and I had it down in a week. I was so eager to show everybody what I could play! (My friend was at a loss for words, because at that point he had been taking lessons for seven years).

 Anyway...I had to have more and soon I got a new keyboard and learnt a bunch of songs mostly by rote.
My technique developed pretty well but I was also going down the wrong path fingering wise so I soon begged for teacher and I've had her for about three months and also a new Baby grand piano. My teacher is a juliard graduate and she's wonderful! She says I'm the best student she's ever taught and she thinks that I can major in piano performance! It's so strange... If you would have asked me three years ago what I wanted to be, I would have said doctor or something. But now I want to be a professional pianist! I love it so much. No other instrument gives you so much individuality and expression in your music than a piano.

-Tony-

[ayahav]

When I was born we already had an upright at home, which my mother had gotten as a gift from her grandfather. Though she never played professionaly she took lessons for about 8 years, so she can play quite well. I used to go to the piano (at age 3 or 4) and strike any keys I could, and hope that it sounded like something.... I remember saying at age 3 that I don't need a teacher. No teacher in Israel would accept me before the age of 6 (first grade in school), and one teacher made the exception of letting me start at 5. I guess she must have seen potential or something. I spent the next 6 years fooling around. Then I got my grand, and I got to record about 5 minutes on CD in a professional studio. Getting the grand made me want to practise more. And as I was drawn more into the pianistic world (I had been already, but more into orchestral and choral music), I began going to concerts. For my 14th birthday I got season tickets (2 of them) to a pianist series in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. I have gotten them every year ever since then. That was the big push, seeing real pianists and saying to myself - I want to be like that. My suggestions are:

1. Let kids go to concerts (with suitable music, a 6 year old will not like watching the whole of the Goldberg variations, for example), so that they see how much "fun" performing is. Have them perform themselves as many times as they can (if only for the applause).

2. It has been my experience from watching friends, that kids who are forced to practise never play too well... There's just no passion...

[xenon]

Hey, I guess I am a teenage guy, being 17.67 and all...  That's kinda funny, here where I come from, I believe that there s a healthy mix of guys and gals, maybe even leaning towards the guys.

I started piano at around 4 or 5.  I started at the Yamaha Piano School.  I was at the head of my class, so my mom was ambitious to put me under more advanced tutelage.  I was under the instruction of my second teacher from the age of 6-16.  Now, I am doing my ARCT with a prof at the university.

My mom suggested piano.  She always loved music, and always wanted a pianist for a child.  She apparently said that when I was born, she knew I had pianist's hands.  As for my dad's side, his family are all musicians, so yeah, I guess I was next in line.  One of my mom's friends introduced me to my second teacher, and I had an interview with her, and got accepted.

What made me keep going?  Well, my mom for one .  I had an interest in piano, how strong, I don't know.  I guess I wanted to see where it would lead me.  I didn't want to drop out without playing any of the great masterpieces!

I was considering piano as a career, but looking at the future prospects here where I live, it doesn't seem to be a good choice.  After experiencing this past year, I got a taste of a pianist's life doing my ARCT, as well as school.  Piano doesn't seem to hold that strong of an interest as science does.  I will always love piano, but it wouldn't be more than a hobby.  At the moment, I do make part of my "income" as a pianist winning the bling bling in competitions and making money as an accompanist and performer (and used to as a teacher), but I will soon change that.  I will hopefully finish my ARCT this summer.  Hopefully...

[aileigc]

If you're still interested, my full story is told in a thread I opened (https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1083243883)
but the gist is this. My father put me into piano when I was 7 and took me off 2 years later to put me into something else. I loved it from the first moment so he gave me an organ 4 years later because he couldn't afford a piano.
I finally bought myself a piano last month (14 years later) when at last I could afford one. Also, I'm living in my own house now, so I could decide that "that wall in the living room DOES have enough room for a piano".


Alex

[comme_le_vent]

your father scares me

first he put you into a piano...scary

then he gave you his organ!

is this my sick mind interpreting this wrong, or does the policeman need to take away your daddy?

[comme_le_vent]

i find it interesting, the difference between those who are introduced to piano, and those who seek it out themselves.

i sought it out myself, and i have always that this was the key to my concienciousness and passionate drive....

[jeff]

your father scares me

first he put you into a piano...scary

then he gave you his organ!

is this my sick mind interpreting this wrong, or does the policeman need to take away your daddy?

ahahaha

i guess that's why he moved out