I've wasted my life

[iamceiling]

I'm sure you've all heard this story before; I started playing piano in 3rd grade, never put much effort or heart into it, and stopped when I got out of high school and out of the reach of my parents.

Now after 2 years of college, I really regret not putting in all the effort I could have and want to start again. I was pretty stubborn when I was still playing with a teacher, and whenever I got assigned Czerny or the like I'd half-ass it. I never really played scales or arpeggios at the start of practices, and I was just pretty lazy overall. How can I best start over?

[amelialw]

well my advice is that now,since you've realised what you could have done. Just start over with a new teacher, the most important thing to show is a good attitude, the willingness to learn, just practise what ever the teacher asks you to because although it might be boring, it is the foundation for you to build on. At one point, i did start to get lazy myself and did'nt practise scales etc and the level of my playing suddenly dropped even below my grade 10 RCM standard. My teacher picked out the problem and she said even if scales are not required for an exam you have to do it and now i'm playing much much better than I ever did.

[desordre]

 Dear Iam:
 Play what you love. Simple as it gets.

 By the way, I have to disagree slightly with Mrs. Amelia: if you don't like to play scales, Czernies, and the like, just don't do it. There are several alternatives to this, and nowadays the value of orthodox technique study is under serious debate. Furthermore, there are not two people who will use the same sequence of learning.

 I have to quote our mighty fellow Bernhard: make a list of pieces that you want very badly to learn, and with the guidance of the best teacher you can find, elaborate a plan (short, medium, long terms) to your studies. That's the perfect path: play with passion  and see the results.
 (Please, notice that this is only possible, at least for some years, with a proper orientation. Trying to do it by yourself would be probably pointless, leading you to an undesirable failure.)

 Best wishes and good luck!

[amelialw]

well i disagree with you. scales are extremely important, and although i dislike scales myself, I have found that it does make a great difference in a pianist's performance and standard. No you should not give yourself other options, trust me just do it and you will thank me...even if u do'nt you will see the impact

[thalberg]

I'm sure you've all heard this story before; I started playing piano in 3rd grade, never put much effort or heart into it, and stopped when I got out of high school and out of the reach of my parents.

Now after 2 years of college, I really regret not putting in all the effort I could have and want to start again. I was pretty stubborn when I was still playing with a teacher, and whenever I got assigned Czerny or the like I'd half-ass it. I never really played scales or arpeggios at the start of practices, and I was just pretty lazy overall. How can I best start over?

You have NOT wasted your life!!!  You probably saved your life.  If you had put in all this "effort" you might have ended up really good and decided to major in piano performance.  Then you would have had a life of frustration and financial struggle. 

[desordre]

 Dear Amelia:

well i disagree with you. scales are extremely important, and although i dislike scales myself, I have found that it does make a great difference in a pianist's performance and standard. No you should not give yourself other options, trust me just do it and you will thank me...even if u do'nt you will see the impact

I respect your position, but you might agree that scales are not the only option to develop this particular of technique. Specially when someone don't like to do this routine, what happens a lot.

 In all these years of teaching, I had never notice any magical touch in my pupils' technique whenever they did play scales (or other standard technique exercises, for that matter) or not. There are students with good and bad technique, but the construction of the former is not necessarily related with that. By the way, in the last years I have been finding better results with no scales, arpeggi, hanons, czernies at all. If you play a well selected unabridged repertory, you can take any technique advance you might want directly from that, it's just a matter of discretion, intelligence, and guidance. Oh, yes: and tons of determination and regularity.

 In the other hand, I worked with students that would agree with you 100%: a daily warmup of scales and the like are fundamental. I will not deny it, because it's an option, not a rule. As I wrote above, your way is just one way; what I propose is another. Are you wrong? Of course not, but notice that what works to you only fortuitously will work to someone else.

 Best wishes!

[pizzapie]

i think this is a realization that we all have in our lives at some point (generally in college when we start to wise up!)  the most important thing is to have no regrets, if you want to pick it up now, don't worry about what you didn't do in the past, just go for it and enjoy what you are doing!  good luck

[iamceiling]

Thanks for the reponses, guys. I found that after about 6 years of playing, I stopped trying to learn music or learn piano and focused almost entirely on trying to learn specific pieces, and not really thinking about technique, which was a disaster. I have two questions:

I know almost no theory, and my reading skills are bad both in terms of playing and hearing it in my head. What can I do to read well, both at the piano and just reading scores at say, a desk?

The other question is, how far can someone go with little talent but lots of practice? I'd say I'd be happy if I could learn to play the Waldstein, but if that's out of my reach no matter what, at least I can come to grips with it now.

[iamceiling]

What I mean to say is, if I could learn the Waldstein,  even a decade from now, I could live with that.

[desordre]

 Dear Iam:
 You are welcome. About your new questions:
 

(...)
What can I do to read well, both at the piano and just reading scores at say, a desk?
 (...)

You already have the answer: read scores at the piano, and read scores at your desk. As much as you can. If you want to do something serious about it, try using 20-30 minutes daily to sight-reading at the piano, and see the results after a couple of years ( sorry, it takes time boy).

 

(...)
The other question is, how far can someone go with little talent but lots of practice? I'd say I'd be happy if I could learn to play the Waldstein, but if that's out of my reach no matter what, at least I can come to grips with it now.
(...)

I would say that it's possible to go very far in spite the "talent" (or whatever is the name of this) you have or not. Of course, this natural skill makes thing easier, but it's only crucial when we talk about very advanced levels of both repertory and playing. So, considering the possibility that you don't have much talent, it's unlikely that you will play the Waldstein very well. In the other hand, it's very possible that you will play it someday.
 Ten years...well, if you have a path of this length in front of you, just go now for the best teacher you can find, and play with all your heart. Even if you never play the mighty opus 53, you will see that in the end, it don't matter at all.
 Best wishes!

[rc]

So you haven't been practicing for about 2 years?  That's not so bad, I've heard of people picking it up again after a 20 year break!

Theory is very useful, not only for analysis/memory but also in sightreading - which is often a case of insta-analysis, it takes a lot less time to recognize a series of notes as a Gm chord than reading each individual note.  It's a matter of developing focus and experience.

A few months ago I absolutely could not sightread at all...  After a while of diligent daily practice, I am now able to sightread badly  Really though, there's been substantial progress.  I found a bunch of easy, simple music and just got to work everyday, always trying to maintain focus and to read ahead.  Using actual music was helpful too, it sounded better, I was actually able to get into it...  Patience is important, it was frustrating being so bad at the first steps - being able to play so far beyond my reading capabilities, took a bit to accept.  Eventually I started getting the hang of it, more flow, control, less having to look at the hands, recognizing more patterns.

How far can you go with little talent but lots of practice?

hard to say, this is an issue that comes up often, in many guises...  All answers are speculative.  I know for sure that intelligent, focused practice always brings improvement, so my reasoning is that if you give enough of yourself to practice the sky's the limit.

It's great to have a goal, and playing the Waldstein is also a goal I plan on actualizing myself one day...  But also consider that there is a lot of beautiful enjoyable music that you can play at every step along the way.  No matter what level you happen to be at, you can make high quality music, being less difficult than the Waldstein doesn't diminish excellent playing.

Something else I didn't understand a few months ago but can now appreciate is poetry:

THE MAN WHO THINKS HE CAN

If you think you are beaten, you are;
 If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you'd like to win, but think you can't,
 It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
 For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellows will;
 It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are;
 You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
 You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
 To the stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins
 Is the man who thinks he can.

Walter D. Wintle

[zheer]

THE MAN WHO THINKS HE CAN

If you think you are beaten, you are;
 If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you'd like to win, but think you can't,
 It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
 For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellows will;
 It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are;
 You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
 You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
 To the stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins
 Is the man who thinks he can.

Walter D. Wintle

      Attitude is more important than facts.
        It is more important than the past,
           than education,than money,
       than circumstances,than failurea,
    than successes,than what other people think
                 or say or do.
      It is more important than appearance,
                  giftedness or skill.

          We cannot change our past.
     We cannot change the fact that people
       will act in a certain way.
    we cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one
         string we have,and that is our attitude....

        Life is 10% what happens to us and
            90 % how we react to it.

         We have a choice - everyday-regarding the
               attitude we will embrace for that day.
 





               

[counterpoint]

You have NOT wasted your life!!!  You probably saved your life.  If you had put in all this "effort" you might have ended up really good and decided to major in piano performance.  Then you would have had a life of frustration and financial struggle. 

 

It's like someone who came too late to the start of the titanic - and is depressed  because he can't be with the happy people on the ship...   

[Derek]

I have had similar experiences to you. I hated piano lessons when I was little. Tried again when I was 15, still hated it. Then around college age I just started making stuff up and teaching myself scales. The trick was I wasn't intent on sounding like Beethoven right off the bat; I just enjoyed the fact that I was making my own sounds.  This was a tremendous help, and eventually got me back into learning classical pieces as well as continuing to make stuff up. Maybe that isn't the right path for you, maybe it could be. Perhaps try both paths: get a teacher and perhaps toy around with making stuff up in some minor scale or other. (if you like minor...for me it was like ear candy, even the simplest things in it I thoroughly enjoyed playing)

[thalberg]

It's like someone who came too late to the start of the titanic - and is depressed  because he can't be with the happy people on the ship...   

Precisely!!